I woke up dehydrated and sick to my stomach from walking yesterday, so I rolled into the bus after a quick breakfast. The ride was beautiful, but unfortunately my eyes were closed for the last half, battling motion sickness. The speed bumps at the end didn’t help, and as soon as we arrive I run to a café and have to convince the waiter to let me use the restroom. I was bursting, and after maybe 5 minutes of begging he finally understood that I would buy something after and thus let me in. After much needed relief I have an orange juice at the café on the beach, now realizing that I never got the name of the hotel, and the group is gone. Judging by the fact that Fadowa told me to go to the café, which wasn’t exactly close, instead of running to the hotel, I know that this place, whatever it’s called, is out of site. I wander in the general direction of the place before asking an officer where the hotels are. He points me in the wrong direction, and I go halfway down an alley selling rugs, etc. (which actually would have led me there through the backside) before deciding there was no way suitcases would be dragged through here, and returned to the bus dropoff to see if Fadowa came back. She hadn’t, and it had now been 30 minutes. Realizing there was an offchance the hotel name was in our schedule I finally find the name of Hotel Beau Rivage, and go back to another officer. This one was dealing with someone having some issue I couldn’t understand, so I have to wait another 15 minutes before getting my 15 second reply of walk straight ahead. After walking straight (which leads me to the ocean) I guess that its another right turn and finally find the name of the hotel written on a roof. As I walk in the general direction of the roof terrace, I can no longer see the writing – lost again. Fortunately, by then I was only 50 yards away, and Kacey spots me from the ground-outside-restaurant. Everyone was waiting for me (there were even searching parties), and I got a round of embarrassing applause as I arrived. Fortunately my table agrees motion sickness and dehydration as acceptable explanations; their genuine concern makes me feel much better. They waited for me to order, and we all then get a salad (basically pico-de-gaillo) and a fish tangine. Of course, after the whole upset stomach affair, I would get the fish head tangine.
After lunch some went shopping while I went with the group to the beach. I was too tired to play soccer, as I normally would, and the water was freezing, so I ended up falling asleep on my towel. I never knew you could sunburn your eyelids. Unfortunately, while Katrina and I were asleep, Liz’s bag got stolen. Apparently someone grabbed it while walking by, and her passport was in it, along with her camera. We had dinner at the hotel (thankfully not fish) and at night went to the various bands.
In Essaouira each gate of the Medina (along with the beach) held a stage which bands played from (overlapping) for about two hours each set. Some bands started as early as 3 PM, and each night lasted until 4 AM. After taking a quick nap I went to the Martin Shorter Quartet, which was a modernist jazz group playing right outside the hotel (you could literally hear it from the terrace). They were allright, some of their stuff was really good, and I greatly enjoyed when the Gnaoua band came out during the last 30 minutes and the two jammed together. The Gnaoua band was more scripted, and couldn’t really make much up on the fly, but the two teams managed to get by and overall it wasn’t half bad. While listening to the jazz my hands were in my front pockets guarding my camera and wallet. I scared away two sets of thieves from stealing from the guy next to me by watching them like a hawk, making obvious eye contact before they tried anything. Later, a third thief came up with a group and tried to dance with me by grabbing my hands out of my pockets. I wouldn’t have it, and curiously enough him and two others left directly after (instead of grabbing the next person like a normal dancing fiend would have). At one point I was chilling by the officers, when a French tourist came by and told him there were thieves which had already stolen his wallet. The cops ran off in the direction he pointed, which I thought was stupid because there was no way they were going to catch the kids. Thinking back though, it was probably the best thing those tourists could have seen, so maybe it wasn’t that useless. The cops returned after a minute. Before I left, however, someone did manage to pilfer the coke can in my back pocket. Unfortunate because I wanted to recycle the by then empty can.
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