After heading from our Gite to the village of Imlil, we loaded up our bags on our minivan and headed to the coastal city of Essaouira. It would be about a five-hour drive, split up by a lunch stop as well as an argan oil factory.
It was a cooperative where the Berber women would split out the nut from the argan tree and other women would use a stone grinder to render the nut into an oily mass that looked like peanut butter.
From there they would squeeze out the oil. This oil is now very expensive and is used for flavoring cooking but primarily for cosmetic use in soaps, creams, and other elixirs. Most bought some of the stuff, but I did not since I still had some argan lip balm.
We pulled into the bus stop and a guy with a dolly met us to haul our extra bags to our hotel inside the Medina.
We parted ways with Samir and his minivan who had driven us from Meknes to Essaouira and was very attentive to our needs and more importantly drove us safely the entire way along some sketchy roads and crowded cities.
We stayed at the conveniently located Souiri Hotel where all types of foods, goods, and entertainment were discovered during our stay.
That evening we went to a rooftop restaurant to watch the sunset and have a delicious meal. It turns out that our view of the fortress wall and watchtower were featured in segments of “The Game of Thrones.”
I ordered sea bass and was surprised to see that I ended up with the entire fish and not just a filet like I was expecting. This would be my most expensive meal at 500 Dinhars since I also ordered a Caesar Salad.
In the morning we got a walking tour of the waterfront and Medina with our local guide, Hassan.
At the waterfront, Max, Liam, and Khalad helped the fishermen get one of the boats out of the water.
Again it was at this spot where another segment of the “Game of Thrones” was filmed with a little girl jumping into the water and then some sort of bug was uncovered.
The seagulls loved the fish guts the fish cleaners were tossing out.
Our guide again toured us around the Medina again and pointed out where the “Game of Thrones” was filmed and even showed us the movie clip of the two segments along with the fort and by the waterfront.
We ended our tour by visiting a silver shop where they made and sold silver jewelry. The women bought a few earrings while there which ended our tour.
In the afternoon I went for my 350 Dinhar Hamam—bath, scrub, and massage—treatment. On my own, I would have never gone up those dark stairs for this treatment. When I got in there though the women greeted me and told me to put on the big robe after undressing down to my underwear.
After doing that, I entered a steam room where I laid face down on a bench while the woman lathered me up with hot water and soap. She repeated it when I turned over. After rinsing me off, I laid there in the steam room for a 1/2 hour before she returned and then began the exfoliation treatment with one of those rough gloves.
When I sat up and put my hands on my thighs, I felt a whole bunch of rolled-up dead skin. She then rinsed me off again.
I then put my robe back on and changed into dry underwear for the massage portion of the treatment. It was an hour relaxing massage. I could not do this very often because I would run out of skin. The entire treatment took about 2 hours.
Others went for a horseback ride along the beach area while I was getting the Hamam treatment.
I plan to return to Essaouira after the Intrepid Tour is done instead of continuing down to Agadir. Khalid told me the old part of the city was destroyed by an earthquake and all I would see there would be modern buildings and big expensive resorts along the waterfront.
I have recently uploaded all of my travel videos to YouTube now that they allow longer uploads and you may want to see my travel adventures there. That link is
https://www.youtube.com/c/huntforgold.
If you do go there, please subscribe to my video channel since it will help me eventually get some income there and help with my future travels. Fewer people are using DVDs so I am transitioning to streaming my travels on my YouTube channel.
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