The Essaouira Music Festival
Just got back from what turned out to be an insane weekend down in Essaouira in southern Morocco (ie: 13-hr round trip).
Essaouira itself was amazing - it's become popular within the last few years as a tourist destination for good reason. Situated basically within an old Portuguese fort on the Atlantic, the town has a great Meditteranean feeling and is totally walkable. The old town doesn't even allow cars, and is painted in bright moroccan colors. What really makes Essaouira tick is the beach outside the town, where you can swim, play soccer on the beach, go kite-surfing or wind-surfing, or dig sand trenches (such as I did) to escape the ridiculously fast wind off the Atlantic. There were a fair amount of tourists there - one of the first times I've really seen concentrated groups of Westerners - and plenty of local people in town for the Gnaoua music festival. Despite the goddamn Euro-Hippies and their german techno, I pretty much co-existed peacefully with all the tourists.
The Moroccans, on the other hand, were a mixed bag. I'm not sure if this is a Meditteranean thing or not, but we were traveling with a few Western women (who dressed respectfully, etc)who kept on being put in very unfortunate situations by Moroccan men. Often, it was as little as a man being overly friendly, talking to one of them, etc, before things got out of hand. The men there were insistent with personal questions, and often figured that introducing themself - or sometimes not - to a woman, allowed him to touch the woman. Others would just follow closely, or invite themselves to smoke hookah with us. In another situation, we caught one guy with his hand inside Nathalie's - the new German trainee - bag. Luckily, he didn't make off with anything, but that, coupled with being offered spray paint to huff, etc, amounted to enough to keep me jaded all weekend.
That last part is really unfortunate, because besides some incidents, the music festival was amazing. All the music that I heard was from Africa or Spain, and ran the gamut, from aging Spanish hippies to these Algerians who played ridiculously good celtic music. There were three stages, and there was always something going on until early in the morning.
I also had some amazing food, some of the best Tajines I've had here, great coffee, and a mixed bag on the street food, from chewing-gum textured chicken in these Chawarmas we had, to some killer spicy sausage "Moroccan" sandwiches.
All in all, it was definitely an experience. Sometimes, with up and down ones like this, I remind myself that at the very least I'll grow from them, and at least come out with some stories...
Essaouira itself was amazing - it's become popular within the last few years as a tourist destination for good reason. Situated basically within an old Portuguese fort on the Atlantic, the town has a great Meditteranean feeling and is totally walkable. The old town doesn't even allow cars, and is painted in bright moroccan colors. What really makes Essaouira tick is the beach outside the town, where you can swim, play soccer on the beach, go kite-surfing or wind-surfing, or dig sand trenches (such as I did) to escape the ridiculously fast wind off the Atlantic. There were a fair amount of tourists there - one of the first times I've really seen concentrated groups of Westerners - and plenty of local people in town for the Gnaoua music festival. Despite the goddamn Euro-Hippies and their german techno, I pretty much co-existed peacefully with all the tourists.
The Moroccans, on the other hand, were a mixed bag. I'm not sure if this is a Meditteranean thing or not, but we were traveling with a few Western women (who dressed respectfully, etc)who kept on being put in very unfortunate situations by Moroccan men. Often, it was as little as a man being overly friendly, talking to one of them, etc, before things got out of hand. The men there were insistent with personal questions, and often figured that introducing themself - or sometimes not - to a woman, allowed him to touch the woman. Others would just follow closely, or invite themselves to smoke hookah with us. In another situation, we caught one guy with his hand inside Nathalie's - the new German trainee - bag. Luckily, he didn't make off with anything, but that, coupled with being offered spray paint to huff, etc, amounted to enough to keep me jaded all weekend.
That last part is really unfortunate, because besides some incidents, the music festival was amazing. All the music that I heard was from Africa or Spain, and ran the gamut, from aging Spanish hippies to these Algerians who played ridiculously good celtic music. There were three stages, and there was always something going on until early in the morning.
I also had some amazing food, some of the best Tajines I've had here, great coffee, and a mixed bag on the street food, from chewing-gum textured chicken in these Chawarmas we had, to some killer spicy sausage "Moroccan" sandwiches.
All in all, it was definitely an experience. Sometimes, with up and down ones like this, I remind myself that at the very least I'll grow from them, and at least come out with some stories...
posted by Isaac at 4:25 AM
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