This is the port at Essaouira, a lovely town about a three hour bus ride from Marrakech. I am here by myself, celebrating my 64th birthday. Staying at apartment that some people from England own...they have extra bedrooms they rent out(not a bath in my room, but since tonight I am the only guest on that floor, it is all mind, with an American toilet and HOT shower...HEAVEN!) and they give a little discount to PCVs. Had lunch with the landlady. We went to the fish market, picked out some shark, they cooked it, added in a little salad, some olives, and of course, bread...plus bottled water, and my total of the bill was 22 Dhs...about $2.50. Then later went for the obligatory on vacation afternoon ice cream,and ran into some other volunteers here with parents/grandparents. Weather is perfect! Here's a picture of the
port, and then a picture of the men working hard, bailing fish out with buckets, to take to the fish market.
Now, for the picture of the trees. My last couple of blogs have been pretty depressing, I think, so have a good story to tell about these trees. You'll need to click on them to see that there are goats in them! Yes, they climbed there. And to make the story even better, they goats eat the argan nuts from the trees, and then people go pick out the nuts from their poop, and harvest a sliver of the inner part of the nut which is pressed in to an oil, which is sold both for cooking, and for cosmetics, at a rather expensive price. As the columnist Dave Barry says,"I am not making this up!" So the challenge is to find the place to buy it where it is pure, that is not diluted with other vegetable oils, or whatever. Apparently the oil is quite wonderful for the skin. I plan to buy a liter, (probably for about $11.00) and use it every day, and am sure I will return to America looking 20 years younger!! Just "google" argan nuts/oil if you want more of the story. It's also in the Lonely Planet book.