Essaouira and goat-climbing trees--Days 15-18

***NOTE*** this is the last posting for our Morocco trip.  Start at the beginning with Days 1-2.

We bid farewell to 6 of our travelers plus Mohammed as they left for Casablanca and their return flight home.

We are among the 8 remaining travelers to take the post-extension trip to Essaouira.  It is about a 3-hour drive from Marrakesh, but we have a few interesting stops along the way.

Along the way we stop to watch a camel work the wheels to grind olives.

His eyes are covered so he doesn't realize that he is walking in circles!

 

 After the olives are ground, a mash is formed and put into these containers

They are then pressed down to release the oil.

 And voila!  Fresh olive oil

We drive on, past groves and groves of argan trees.  These trees are native to Morocco and Algeria and produce a plum-like fruit with a pit or nut in the center...the source of argan oil, which is used in many beauty creams.

It is also this fruit that the goats like and we are on the lookout for them...

We stop for lunch in the home of Mrs. Nezha.  She greets us at the door and welcomes us into her home.

Lunch was tagine with lamb

and dessert was cold spaghetti with cinnamon and sugar....it was delicious!

 It was a delight to visit with her.  She was quite the character as she told us a story about a man in the village.  It could be a TV soap opera.

Next stop was at a market in a small village.  Our Trip Leader, Naima, suggested we put on our head scarves for walking through the market area.

 This market was dirty and crowded.  The only women around were us and we all felt uncomfortable.

 Naima wanted us to see the man who is a healer of animals.  He heals a wound through a burning process.   We found him and after a short visit, we were glad to get out of the area.  And we really didn't want to see him treat an animal.

On we traveled until we reached the farm of a man named...guess what...Mohammed!

He didn't want us to take photos of his children; his wife didn't mind as she said she was "covered".

Mohammed told us about his life as a farmer and how he plows and irrigates his fields

...and how he tries to keep the wild pigs from eating his crops.  It's against the law to kill the pigs.  All he can really do is scare them off the fields.

We arrive in Essouira, where we will stay for 3 nights.  The coastal city is known as "the pearl of the kingdom" as it is a beautiful city with a temperate climate.  A great place for Moroccans to vacation.

We start our exploration of Essouira at the harbor where the local fishermen are busy with freshly caught fish.

Then a walk through the medina--a UNESCO World Heritage Site full of white-washed houses with painted blue doors.

and lots of artisans' workshops and stores.

A woodworking shop

 This will soon be a table with many configurations.

This man makes musical instruments.

 Beautiful engravings with mother of pearl inlay

 Naima then led us through the food market area where we picked out and bought various items for our lunch.

 Fresh bread!

The bread was still so hot from the oven Terry could hardly hold it.

 We dropped off our purchases at this little restaurant that prepared the meal for us.

 We had tagine (of course!)

 and fish from the harbor fishermen this morning.

The market had interesting things for sale...

Lots of pottery, of course...

and lots of this stuff for men...

...and women, too!

We walked back to the hotel along the beach.

and stayed for the sunset.

The next day set out to find those goats that climb trees!

We didn't see any on our ride out of the city.  Naima said it was probably too early in the day.  So we stopped at a local women's cooperative that specializes in argan production to learn how this useful oil is made.

This is the fruit of the argan trees.

These women are using stones to break the shell.

 They keep shelling until they reach the smallest piece of the fruit.

 Some of the fruit is toasted....and can be eaten.

 Some of the fruit is put through this grinding process to release the oil.

 Terry tries his hand at it.

The creams, lotions, and oils made with the argan oil supposedly help reduce wrinkles...

We'll see...

We then head out to look for the goats in the groves of the argan trees.  And we are lucky...we find them.

 The goats love to eat the leaves and the fruit of the argan trees.

It was fun!

The next day we leave Essaouira and head to Casablanca, where we end the trip and fly home.

We arrive in Casablanca and stop for a panoramic view of the Hassan II mosque.

 It is considered to be the third largest mosque in the world with the minaret of 689 feet high, the tallest in the world.

 It is the only mosque in Morocco that allows non-Muslims to enter.

 Much of the $750 million needed to build the mosque was financed directly from Moroccans themselves. Every single family was obligated to pay a set minimum amount.

The entire complex covers 22 acres. 

The inside can accommodate 25,000 worshipers; the outside, and additional 80,000.  The religion of Islam requires a "call to prayer" five times each day.  

Lucky for us Naima has VIP access and our group was able to enter the mosque for a tour about 10 minutes before the general public tour groups.  

 And here come the tour groups.

We could tell Naima really loved her religion and was proud to tell us all about the mosque.

 Before prayers, all Muslims go through ablution...or a cleansing.

 The lower level of the mosque is filled with these fountains for the cleansing.  During the ritual ablution, body parts are washed with the left hand. And that is why it is very impolite to reach for or pass food with one's left hand in Morocco.

Casablanca also seems to be famous for Rick's Cafe.

The 1942 movie "Casablanca" featured Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and a restaurant named Rick's Cafe.  There really wasn't such a cafe in the city of Casablanca at that time, nor was the movie filmed here.  The fictional cafe in the movie was patterned after a cafe in Tangier.  Knowing all that, we found no reason to try to go in...and we heard that there is no entry without a reservation.

Our trip was rapidly coming to an end.  We so enjoyed all our fellow travelers and spent the last night reminiscing our favorite moments with them and a few bottles of wine!!

 Here's what the Moroccan money looks like.  It's called dirham and 1 Moroccan dirham equals about 10 cents USD.  So that 100 you see is actually about $10USD

Throughout the evening and early hours of the morning, our fellow travelers left for their flights home.  It really was a wonderful trip.  We saw and learned so much about the country and the culture of the Moroccans.

Thank you for coming along on this adventure through this blog.  Hopefully it sparks your interest in traveling the world to places that seem so different from where we live.

If you don't travel, well then stay tuned and travel along with us as we start our next adventure to Australia and New Zealand in the spring of 2019.