Riads and Dars, part 3

This is the last of a series of posts which document our experiences in several traditional moroccan hotels, known as riads or dars. The earlier posts are here and here.

In Fes, we tried to stay in Riad Fes but it was fully booked. The riad is situated in the medina and guests are expected to find it by following discreet signposts like the one below. Generally, a guide is absolutely required when you first arrive at the edge of the medina with luggage.

In a densely populated medina, the riad architecture with few external-facing windows makes the entrance to the property very difficult for visitors to find in the myriad of alleyways, all bounded by high featureless walls with few identifiable landmarks.

It took us a while to find the hotel, even with the help of maps and several days of experience in wandering in the medina.

This riad is thoroughly modernized and met the international 4-5 stars status. The property is associated with the Relais & Châteaux network which have helped push their standards to match the marketing.

We had pre-dinner drinks at the rooftop terrace which afforded us a great view of the city of Fes and the distant Atlas mountains.

With lots of outdoor spaces on the roof, the guests are high above the noise and the crowds in the medina. The exterior of the building is modern except the green-tiled awnings and the outline of the windows.

A tiny escalator took us up to the roof terrace from the reception area. After our drinks, we walked down and stopped by the balcony on the first floor.

All the architectural elements around the reception area are meticulously restored. The guest rooms are also accessible from the balcony.

View from the balcony overlooking the reception area with a small grand piano.

Dinner was very good with modernized Moroccan dishes, and our meal was accompanied by an Oud musician. The dining room is modernized and we suspect the guest rooms are too. Without looking outside the window, we would not have known that this was Fes.

In Ouarzazate, we stayed one night at Dar Chamaa, arriving late in the day and just in time for dinner. This three-storey property is a fake dar, constructed recently and to cater to foreign tourists.

The hotel copied the plan of a dar. There was a small water feature (a ditch if one is mean about it) in the middle surrounded by colonnaded balconies. There were no traditional decorations (e.g., stucco) or form (such as an arch, except the lobby level). That’s being modern and efficient.

The hotel was comfortable. We had a good night of sleep after the long distance road trip. Ouarzazate is an oasis town, confirmed by the view from our balcony, which was just water and palm trees.  It preserved our touristic notion of being at an oasis. As the hotel is located at the edge of the town, we never saw the modern Ouarzazate center.

Our lodging in Essaouira – Madada Mogador – is situated above or adjacent to a riad.  The layout of the building had been modified to accommodate two businesses –  a hotel where we were and a massage and well-being establishment that took over the ground floor, including the courtyard and fountain.

With natural sunlight, the atrium was calm and pleasant.

A balustraded balcony circles the atrium overlooking the small fountain.

We booked one of the loft suite for the three of us.  The suite provided a double-level living space, a modern kitchen, and two separate sleeping areas, separately accessed by a spiral staircase or a set of open stairs.

One reason we booked this hotel was the view. We were not disappointed. Outside our window is the rampart of the old fort, and we could walk out to see the Atlantic Ocean.

If you are interested in the riads and dars we visited earlier, see Part 1 and 2 here and here.

 

Port of Essaouira – part 2

Port of Essaouira – part 1 is here.

The ocean off Morocco’s Atlantic coast is one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. This post is about human-scale commercial fishing.

Have you heard the seminal 1994 collaboration of Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Toure – Talking Timbuktu ? The all-time favs here are “Ai Du” (track 9) and “Diaraby” (track 10).

The port of Essaouira is no longer a full-service commercial port except for fishing and ship maintenance. People at the hotel told us that the fishing boats return everyday around mid-morning.

So I(Chris) went just before noon and was totally in awe of the sight and sound around the port. The energies on display on land, sea and in the sky were unbelievable.

There was so much activities on the water as the returning boats streamed into the rather small port. The boats had to turn around and parked itself next to a moored boat in order to unload its catch. There were at least 30 people per boat.

Sardine is the main commercial interest, followed by mackerel and anchovies. These fishing boats are trawlers which ply the coastal waters and return with crates of sardines forming towers on the stern.

As fishing boats were arriving every 15 to 30 minutes, the number of people working shoulder to shoulder at dockside was mind-boggling. Most of the work on the wooden boats and on the docks were done by human labor. There was not much mechanization and no automation.

As it was close to midday and getting warmer under the African sun, the fishes which had been kept on ice had to be offloaded quickly. These boats do not have refrigeration on board and kept the catch on ice in open air.

What impressed me the most is the human conveyor that was formed across several boats to unload the crates of sardines from the boat that had just returned and “double-parked”, being the last and furthermost from the pier.

Somehow I don’t think the people work for a company or a fleet. There was no logo or uniform. I did not see walkie-talkies either. So the organization of labor around the docks amid the chaos – placing people at the right spot, knowing and coordinating what to do, and getting the crew paid at the end of the day – must have been well-rehearsed and evolved over the years.

I noticed two kids on the dock watching the human conveyor and waiting to pick up any fish that fell off a crate. See the pink plastic bagful of fish held by one of the two scavengers. There was indeed some results. It was surprising that such an activity was tolerated by the men transporting the fish.

The port of Essaouira caters to the low-tech coastal fishing fleet while the high-seas industrial fishing fleet is based in Agadir which lies further south and has a deep water harbor. Until a treaty and fishing license was signed with the European Union in the 1990s, Morocco had many disputes with Spain which has a modern fleet and operates within Morocco’s territorial waters.

The crates packed with sardines on ice were hauled away. The term “packed like sardines” comes from the image of sardines in a can, but these photos lend more support to the impression.

Ten crates form a stack. There are at least 90 crates in the photo below.

The crates were loaded onto a refrigerated truck heading to a canning factory (I assumed).  A lot of people were congregating on the dockside – a few were clearly tourists but there were some local spectators or men that just got off the boats, having finished a day’s work.

After the catch was offloaded, the men worked together to repair and tidy up the nets and buoys.

Getting the nets ready for another day of trawling. I will think of all these hardworking people whenever I pull open a can of sardines.

Flocks of seagulls dashed around above head eying for a chance to grab a fish, and there were lots of fish in the open. “Flock” is an understatement as the sky was full of birds – “swarm” might be more accurate.

This fishing port is a memorable place – the energies, labor, and diversity of activities. It has been going on for centuries, day after day.

Port of Essaouira – part 1

Essaouira (الصويرة‎; in Portuguese: Mogador) is a historical city on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. We spent a couple of days in Essaouira after our trip to the desert. It was nice to see some water after days of sand and rocks.

The medina of Essaouira, formerly named Mogador (name originating from the Phoenician word Migdol meaning a « small fortress »), is an example of a fortified town of the mid-eighteenth century, built by the Moroccan King – Mohammed III. In the Berber language, which is spoken by a sizeable proportion of the city’s inhabitants, it is called “Taṣṣort”.

Bab al Mersa built in 1770.

Essaouira’s medina is protected by 18th-century seafront ramparts – the Skala de la Kasbah. Old brass cannons line the walls. The tower Borj El Barmil overlooks the entrance to the city.

The port of Essaouira was known as the “Port of Timbuktu” because most African products for export to Europe ended up here, including slaves.

Have you heard the seminal 1994 collaboration of Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Toure – Talking Timbuktu ? My all-time favorites are “Ai Du” (track 9) and “Diaraby” (track 10).

The importance of Essaouira faded due to the rise of Casablanca in the North and Agadir in the South. The Western bastion of the rampart is seen the photo below.

Essaouira is inscribed by UNESCO on the World Heritage list in 2001. Nowadays, the port of Essaouira is non-commercial except for fishing and ship maintenance. The waters are not deep enough for bigger ships.

There were really only two kinds of boats – a large motorized trawler that tows a small blue boat.  The small boats were moored to a set of floating piers in neat rows.

Most of the boats, large and small, were wooden, painted blue and carrying bundles of orange buoys.

I saw fish being scooped from the floor of a small boat into a basket which was thrown up to the pier. There was a boat-load (literally) of fish.

Some people were standing around waiting to buy some fish right there and then. Freewheeling trade all over the place.

This group of men were waiting for some kind of auction of the buckets of sardines. I won’t be surprise there was an arbitrage on the dockside.

Although a fish market is located next to the fishing port, makeshift stalls were set up alongside the port’s access road.

Local residents and restaurant owners came to make their selection for the day.

Cats were quite visible around town and in the port. We saw relatively fewer dogs.

This cat was walking on the edge because its paws could fall into the holes of the metallic walkway of the floating pier.  The cats are very well-behaving here as we never once saw a cat eating a fish or any food out in the open.

Just outside the port is an open area where tourists can enjoy fishes and shellfishes at one of the numbered stalls which will cook/grill it to order. I did not think the lobster was caught locally as none were seen inside the port.

Part 2 is about actions around the port. Don’t miss it.

Kasbah at Telouet, Home of the Pasha of Marrakech

On our way to Essaouira from Ouarzazate, we took a detour on P1506 to see Telouet Kasbah, but passing Ait Benhaddou (a United Nations Word Heritage site which regrettably we did not stop to explore).

To accompany your reading, highly recommended is Stephen Micus’s quiet contemplative Nomad Songs published by ECM. My favorite song here is Track 11 – Under The Chinar Trees (scroll down … and wait for the vocals after 2:10).

We arrived at Telouet just before noon and there were hardly any people inside the kasbah. Behind where we parked our SUV (photo above) is the foundook, a place where in the old days, camels from passing caravan were kept (like cars in a garage).

The kasbah was built in 1860 by the feudal warlord family of El Glaoui in the Moorish style. It lies at an elevation of 1,800 metres (5,900 ft), occupying a strategic position in the High Atlas, and visited by the caravan traffic between Marrakech and the Sahara.

A local guide walked through the kasbah with us. Only a few rooms in the kasbah can be visited because part of the kasbah is collapsing due to neglect.

It is surprising to find such a degree of luxury out here, being quite far from Marrakech and Ouarzazate. The guide said 300 workers worked for three years to decorate the ceilings and walls. The interiors are decorated with stucco, zelliges for the walls, and cedar painting for the ceiling.

The El Glaoui family made its fortune initially by trading almond, saffron and olives, and collecting taxes from the passing caravans.

In addition to being strategically and logistically well-situated, Telouet was located near major salt mines. Over time, the family became very wealthy and enjoyed close ties to the Sultan.

In 1893, Sultan Moulay Hassan were caught in a blizzard while crossing the High Atlas mountains. The El Glaoui family rescued the party, and received as rewards from the Sultan, feudal lord titles (qaids) in several areas and a cannon to fight rival warlords.

Thami El Glaoui, presided over Kasbah Telouet from 1912 to 1956, as the Pasha of Marrakech. His influence and wealth grew with interests in agriculture and mineral resources as well as levies on commercial transactions within his domain. Apparently, he attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II as a private guest of Winston Churchill.

However, El Glaoui became an ally to the French protectorate and conspired to exile the then Sultan Mohammed V to Madagascar in 1953.

In 1955, Mohammed V returned from exile and declared independence for Morocco. El Glaoui was declared a traitor and lost all of his properties and political leverage. Kasbah Telouet has been left to crumble ever since.

A room of the kasbah, its wall collapsed is being used for holding sheep.

What a difference between the inside and the outside, the privileged and the underclass, the recent past and the present.

Fame and fortune come and go. We hope someone will do something to preserve at least a part of this kasbah.

Let’s see if history can live on in this corner of North Africa.