MOROCCO: ESSAOUIRA, ARGAN OIL, & GOAT TREE

This is part two of my Morocco travel series. This includes goat trees, the Argan Oil Women’s Cooperative, and Essaouira.

We left Marrakech in the early afternoon. If you want more information and a video about arriving to Morocco click here.

I boarded the bus with my group from Travel Talk Tours and we headed towards the coast of Morocco. We had a few stops along which was a great way to break up the drive. The first was a little lunch spot. Small little place right off the road for mostly tourists I’d imagine. We got some sandwiches. It was really inexpensive! It was the equivalent of 4 dollars.

Then we got back on the road. When driving in Morocco, you might see goats up in a tree! No, I’m not kidding. Goats climb up trees to eat the pulp of the argan trees. Our tour guide said the one we saw was fake (staged), and the owners collect a few cents from tourists. But he said they actually do exist in real life! You can usually only see it very early in the morning.

Our next stop was the Argan Oil’s Women’s cooperative. You’re probably most familiar with the argan oil you that put in your hair to help prevent frizz, but you can also use argan oil as a moisturizer! And there’s a food grade argan oil that you can use for cooking. It was so nutty and delicious.

This cooperative was created to help local communities compete with the foreign owned pressing plants. And actually this argan oil is of a much higher quality than what we would find in the United States. It’s a very labor intensive process, but it helps employ local women. The women only make $9 per day, but to them that is actually a very livable wage. It’s hard for me to imagine, but that’s what I read. This is a great place to buy souvenirs that you’ll actually use!

We finally arrived at our hotel in Essaouira, and we had some free time to check out the beach. We had our first camel spotting! So exciting. But be careful, if you’re taking pictures or videos of you might get roped into paying the owner a lot of money. This goes for anything in Morocco. Before you take your camera out, agree to an amount to pay. Key word: before. In this case we just kept some distance, so we didn’t have to pay.

After that we met up with our group for a tour of Essaouira. Essaouira is a port city, and it is most popular in the summer months as a resort destination for surfing. We checked out the 18th century old town and enjoyed the sunset.

Tonight you had to find a restaurant on your own. We stumbled upon this little Moroccan restaurant that was actually owned by French people (AKA they served wine!). We enjoyed a free magic show, couscous, and finished with delicious chocolate dessert.

If you have any questions feel free to email me at planetochampagne@gmail.com.