Day 11 in Essouria

Essouria is a walled city, structurally like every other one we’ve been in so far, but has a very different, more relaxed vibe.

Probably in part because everywhere you go, the beach is trying to swallow it up and most people seem pretty chilled about this.

It’s still pretty civilised compared to what we’re expecting for the next few days bush camping, so of course we had to go for a 6km run in it, along the coast and back through the Medina.

The local food market was great, the ratio of bulls’ testicles : locals : tourists was about even, whereas the last few places have had way fewer testicles and locals. There’s a spurious correlation in there somewhere. Essouria even had one local with almost everything except his testicles hanging out the front of his trousers and no one blinked an eyelid.

We also saw the machine the locals clearly actually use to grind argan nuts automatically, rather than by hand.

Mark had to resist buying a mask, which is shame because Essouria is much less about the hard sell than towns further north and there are lots of genuinely beautiful things here.

So we wandered around the fishing market, which was the perfect warm up for eating fish tandoori for lunch with everyone.

Finally we were back at our bush camp again for another fabulous sunset, even a few fireworks on the horizon, and a night under the stars.