The Blue Essaouira

On the trip to Morocco, we stopped by for a while in a city named Essaouira. The main reason why we decided to visit this city was because, we wanted to see the sea, with a hope in getting proper vitamin D from the sun. Well, that's the thing that you would crave the most when you've been living in the constant need to wear thick coat whenever you go outside the house and to be close to the heater whenever you're indoor for 5 months.

We joined a day tour from Marrakesh to Essaouira, I forgot how much it costed us, but I remember that it was not expensive - at least not as expensive as the tour to Sahara - and you can bargain the price. Basically, the tour only covered the transportation from Marrakesh to Essaouira and the return, so we got free time in Essaouira.

It took us 2 hours (and a half, if I'm not mistaken) to go to Essaouira. Unlike the journey to Sahara that has endless winding-and-uphill road with the view of valley and snowy Atlas mountains, the journey to Essaouira was pretty boring if I might say. The road is long and straight, with the view of greeny meadow and argan plantation, one of the commodity from Morocco. Yep, you might be familiar with the famous argan oil, or sometimes they also call it moroccan oil.

When I was about to fall asleep once again, our minivan suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere and the driver told us that we have 15 minutes to take a picture. I saw that there was a tree, with quite a quirky view. It was an argan tree, but there were lots of sheeps on top of it. It was interesting, but not long until a guy came toward us and asked for money if we want to take a picture of the tree. Okay, it was money all over again. We didn't want to pay so we just went back to our minivan and took some pictures in a rush when the man didn't look at us.

Apparently, according to what our driver said after that, those sheeps were put there on purpose, to attract the tourist so that they get lots of money. Actually, deep in the forest somewhere, we can see that sometimes the sheep will climb argan tree to eat the fruits, but there's no way that they all will climb the very same tree, just by the road, and stay still, he added. Well, that explained why the sheep looks frightened. It seemed like they want to move but were afraid to falling in the same time. It made me sad :(

We stopped in the argan oil maker not far from the sheep-tree. They showed us how to make argan oil and its varieties. It's really good for your skin and hair, and you can also eat it. Our favorite was argain oil mixed with nuts and honey, which you can eat with bread. As the price was expensive, we were happy enough to taste the free tester :))

Finally we arrived at Essaouira! The beach and the sun greeted us warmly. Just like what I already mentioned on the post about Marrakesh, every city in Morocco is special because they have their own color-palette. Marrakesh is red while Essaouira is white, with a hint of blue as the color accent for the doors and windows. Such a beautiful view. Combined with the blue from the sky and the sea, Essaouira on that day was really blue.