Easily the highlight of our trip, Essaouira has just the right amount of tourism without losing its soul or its cool. Located about a two hour drive west of Marrakesh, Essaouira is a beach town with a slight surf vibe. It's famous for being the town of Astapor in Game of Thrones and you can see why from the ancient ramparts and gorgeous coastline. It’s an intriguing meld of traditional Muslim culture, surfer influence, literature, rock n’ roll (Jimi Hendrix spent time here) and Game of Thrones enthusiasts. Somehow, it all works together.
Essaouira is beyond charming. It’s quite small – the medina only takes about 15 minutes to walk across. So that feeling of being hopelessly lost occurs, but is never scary because you know you’ll end up on a familiar street in three to four blocks.
Essaouira is home to fantastic restaurants, an abundance of Argan Oil products (being the home to the Argan tree), an entertaining fish market and a long stretch of white sand beaches. It’s a great place to wander aimlessly for a day or two, browsing the souks and enjoying mint tea at a café on the beach. It’s also the best place we found to purchase rugs.
Everything seemed more relaxed in Essaouira, especially after the frenetic energy we encountered in Marrakesh. Had we had more time, we would have taken some surf lessons and explored outside the medina walls a bit more. We had only two great nights here, so we spent most of our time wandering the meandering alleys of the medina, stuffing our faces with seafood in every well-reviewed restaurant on TripAdvisor and buying more trinkets and Christmas presents than we had space for in our suitcases.
I would highly recommend Essaouira to anyone who wants to get slightly off the beaten track in Morocco for a few days.
The trip was not only memorable for the amount of animals we saw but also for the people and accommodations at the two camps where we stayed. Our first guide, BK, was a wealth of information about the animals, landscape and down to the plants and what they were used for. Everyday out was a learning experience with him. All the people at the camps were gracious and the food was excellent.
Our second camp in the Okavanga was just as good as the first as far as the staff, accommodations, food and animals. After our experience at the first camp we amazed that the high quality remained the same. Our guide, G, made sure we were able to enjoy every experience including a rush through the bush to witness a cheetah and an ensuing hunt that he heard over his radio.
In both camps there were enough guides out that if they saw something the other guides were informed which helped in seeing as much as possible. It was also nice that the concessions were large enough that we did not have vehicles following each other throughout the day.
Normally there is always something in a trip of this length that we think could be improved upon but this is the rare case where we cannot think of anything. From the time we left the States to when we returned it was one of the most hassle free vacations we took.
Perhaps emphasizing the use of the laundry facilities at the camps would be useful because of the luggage restrictions would be the only thing I can think of as an improvement to future clients.
Kenneth Dropek
2 days ago
Mary was so pleasant and professional. She made sure all of our questions were answered.