Essaouira

Date: 28.11.2023
Position: Essauiera, Marocco
Geographic position: 31° 31’ N, 9° 46’ W
Etmal: 0 nm
Total: 1151 nm
Ship: Pelican of London

Journey to Morocco

For most of us, the day started with a knock, knock, knock on the door from Fabia to wake us up at 6:15. Normally, we don’t get woken up by the teachers, so it was a special start to our day. After a quick meeting in the hotel, we walked 5 minutes to the same restaurant for breakfast where we ate the evening before.

They served us typical Moroccan bread with goat cream cheese and some kind of Nutella. After that, we each got an omelette. To drink, we got fresh orange juice and the typical mint tea (with too much sugar, so it was more like syrup) or coffee. After breakfast and a short sunrise photo shoot, we started the second part of our „short“ road trip with another 8-hour bus ride.

The bus ride was long but still pretty nice. We stopped three times, and we quickly realized how cheap things can be in Morocco. For example, we paid 40 cents for one lemonade or €1 for a coke at a gas station. The bus ride was pretty chill, and we saw the beautiful and diverse landscape of Morocco. As Noé said, it looks like „a bald head with a few last green-colored hairs (the trees).“ We didn’t do anything else except for Paulina (me) braiding Philipps‘ hair after 3 weeks of persuasion.

After our bus ride

After our arrival in Essaouira, we had to walk about 5 minutes to our very cute Riad. In the riad, we first got our room keys, and everyone picked their rooms. Then the teachers gave us some time to make ourselves comfortable and fresh in our rooms before we all went to a restaurant together. We ate Tangier, and the teachers made an announcement. Tomorrow we all were allowed to sleep until nearly 10 o’clock when there will be breakfast. This is special for us because on every other day on the Pelican, we can only sleep until about 7, even if we are in the harbor. And we will be allowed to have our first free shore leave in the afternoon after an hour of self-learning.

Essaouira, Morocco 🇲🇦

Essaouira (pronunciation in German: essa-uiera or es-sauiera – in Arabic) — the name of the city means well-planned and has French roots dating back to the 18th century. That is why more Europeans live here than in other parts of Morocco. Essaouira has a very mixed culture. It influence from Europeans and three different tribes: Africans, Arabs, Chiadma (north), haha-berber, and Gnaoua (south) who live here.

You can see the French influence while walking through the city. The city was designed by the architect who designed the city Saint-Malo in France too. Because of this, the city is on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Our travel guide says that you can’t do much except for surfing and going on a stroll through the medina. You can’t even really lie on the beach because of the strong coastal winds alizee and taros. That’s why Essaouira is also often referred to as the Windy City of Africa.

Quick Arabic crash course:

Hallo = es salaam alaykum (polite); es alaykum salaam (answer)
Ja = iiyeh
Nein = la
Nein, danke = la shukran
Danke = shukran
Bitte = afak/afik/afakum
Tschüss = bislam