Day 20 - Jay and I took our breakfast upstairs at the hotel right at nine o'clock. The morning began looking rather grey. The ocean seemed to lack its usual enthusiasm, with the waves barely slapping the edge of the seawall. In all weather, I genuinely appreciate the morning meals here; they provide a perfectly civilized start to the day.
As the morning progressed, the sky returned to its usual brilliant blue. Our immediate priority after breakfast was hunting down the CTM bus station to secure our Thursday departure to Agadir, which will also serve as our final checkout day from Riad Mimouna. Neither of us likes to leave transit logistics to chance. Google Maps suggested it would be a brisk thirty-minute walk out of the medina and past the city hospital. Naturally, the algorithm wildly overestimated our pace, assuming everyone marches with unrealistic haste and never pauses for physical reality. It took us closer to forty-five minutes to cover the distance, but once we arrived, we instantly secured both tickets for a total of 220 MAD (29.70 CAD).
Rather than trudge back through the unremarkable sprawl of the city, Jay and I flagged down a typical Moroccan petit taxi. They are painted red here. The driver asked for a mere 10 MAD (roughly 1.35 CAD) to deliver us straight to the gates of Bab Doukkala.
From the gate, the two of us walked back through the Mellah, the city's historic Jewish quarter. It is a fascinating stretch of the medina, though undeniably melancholic. At its peak in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Jewish community actually constituted nearly half of Essaouira's population. However, following Moroccan independence and the geopolitical shifts of the 1950s and 60s, the area experienced a massive demographic collapse. Working-class families predominantly emigrated to Israel, while the wealthier merchant class largely relocated to France and Canada. Today, the original residents are essentially gone, leaving only architectural echoes and a few preserved sites behind.
With our transit tickets officially secured, we were free to lock down our accommodations for the remainder of this journey. That endeavor kept both of us and the Expedia servers rather busy for a few minutes. From this point forward, the heavy lifting is over; we are simply connecting the dots on the map until our flight home on June 24th.
We enjoyed a rather fine lunch tucked away in an undiscovered lane within the medina. Jay and I ordered the turkey skewers, which arrived flanked by French fries, assorted salads, and a blisteringly good hot tomato, rice, and pepper mixture straight from the grill. Washed down with a 1.5-litre bottle of water, the entire affair set us back a mere 70 MAD (roughly 9.45 CAD). It was an absolute steal, especially given the impeccably clean and pleasant setting.
After a highly necessary afternoon nap, we are presently gearing up for our evening plans. The agenda includes securing dinner, logging some additional miles on foot, and watching the sun drop into the Atlantic. For the record, it is officially scheduled to vanish at exactly 20:45 tonight. All things considered, it has been a rather pleasant, slow-burn of a day.
