Day 17 - Essaouira to Marrakech

We had half a day in Essaouira before we needed to leave for Marrakesh. We decided to walk around town and do some shopping with Kate, have lunch, and then head back to the hotel.

Not sure the significance, but banging above the entrance to this small shop is an eye test chart.   ????

While we were shopping Karen spotted some "Mike Sports" socks in a bin with (counterfeit?) Nike socks, so I couldn't pass up buying some of my socks. 😀

We ended up eating at a small healthy food restaurant that Kate had looked up online called YOO. We had tried to go there the first night when we got to Essaouira but they were closed. Karen had bought some strawberries from street vendor and when the restaurant owner saw they were in a plastic bag he said they needed to breath and offered a small woven bag many stores put items in. Then he asked if we wanted them washed and we said that would be great. We expected him to bring them back in the bag, but instead when he brought us our meal he had washed the strawberries, cut them up, and out them in a bowl for us with toothpicks, ready to eat.   This was just one example of the wonderfully welcoming people of Morocco.  Other than a few pushy street vendors and shop owners, almost everyone we met was welcoming and helpful. 

We left the hotel at 2 to walk to the train station to catch a 2:30 bus to Marrakesh. It was about a 3 hour bus ride. Intrepid described our transport as "local bus", so we envisioned having to drag our luggage onto the bus and be in cramped conditions. Instead it was a a large modern motor coach with luggage underneath and assigned seats. The bus made one stop en route for coffee/toilets, but everyone on board was traveling from Essaouira to Marrakesh.

As we left town we drove along next to the waterfront and the kite surfers were out in force.

Once we got inland a short distance the landscape was very barren, and there were even some small sand dunes.  However, once we got closer to Marrakech it was back to agricultural land, mostly olive trees.

The bus terminal was next to the train station, and then we had about a 10 minute walk to our hotel.   After a short rest we headed out to have a goodbye dinner with our group.  We were blessed to have had such wonderful traveling companions.