Excellent Time in Essaouira, Essaouira, Morocco

Today we boarded the bus for a side trip to Essaouira, once Morocco’s main trading port and a stronghold of the Jewish culture. I really loved this day trip, and I would highly recommend visiting this windy port town home to a picturesque fishing harbor, a medina, a beach with surf, and the world famous Gnaoua Music Festival which takes place in June.

Along the way, we passed by large fruit farms located closer Marrakesh due to the underground rivers, as well as wheat and barley farms which were located in the drier areas near Essaouira. The reddish dirt, rich with iron, is a perfect growing area for the argan trees, popular among goats. Our first stop along the main road was to see goats in a tree.

I wish I could say in this instance these goats were in the tree naturally, but I unfortunately must admit that a shepherd has trained his goats to pose in the tree for all the tourists. In exchange for a small fee, we could snap photos. I didn’t have any change on me. In addtion, I’n opposed to paying a fee for something manufactured with animals. As such, I snapped photos from afar with a zoom lens until I briefly joined Suman closer to the tree.

I had already seen goats climb the trees in the High Atlas Mountains naturally, so at least this wasn’t completely unorthodox, as they do climb trees to eat the foliage. Though with more goats in a much larger tree, this sight was far more extraordinary than anything we witnessed on our hike! ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).