24. 06 Camels, wild beach and dry landscape

or how we are discovering an empty and dry landscape.

Behind the new apartments in Essaouira El Jadida there's a wild and empty area. We followed an inconspicuous path, which took us through dry abandoned fields, deserted buildings and boarders between the properties made of stones. There were no people around, jut some goats, a lonely shepherd on a bike and a woman with her son that immediately covered her head by scarf when she saw us.
After a while we arrived to a very little village, with just few houses, where everyone stared at us.
We kept on following a narrow path and arrived to a bigger road, where we met some children that just finished their Saturday lessons in a school. When the children noticed us, the boys started to pose for pictures and shy girls run quickly away, smiling to us from time to time.
Then we discovered a well with a very tasty water, with a handmade leather bucket. When we already left the place, a man arrived there with his camels. So we turned back to take some photos of them. The man asked if we are going to a wild beach and then proposed that he could take us on his camels towards the beach. Soon we were sitting on top of an unruly camel, with a string attached to another camel where the owner was sitting. The trip was quite mundane, because the animals kept on nibbling plants along the path. The owner's comments didn't help and the trip became more tiring when many stones and little hills appeared on the way. After about 30 minutes the camels needed some rest, so we all sat down in a shade of a tree and the camels could finally eat peacefully. The man made a fire and prepared Moroccan tea for us in a little metal teapot. He revealed to us also some secrets from the animal's life: they live about 20 years and can lift up to 400 kilos, the females are much more expensive than males worth about 1000 Euro. After some rest we said goodbye to the nice man and his camels and kept on walking toward a wild beach in big heat.



The beach was also totally empty and because of the low tide many tiny animals were lying on the ground. We tried to put them back to the water, but one of them, huge jelly fish, was already dead.
The empty idyll finished when some tourists on quads and then special tents for the nearby golf field appeared by the coast. It was still peaceful though, with no typical tourist or commercial sites. However, we decided to come back home, walking through unknown path hidden between the trees behind the beach. We arrived to an asphalt road, where a colourful cafe, in which Jimi Hindrix used to spend a lot of time is situated. Walking along a hot and empty road, we approached to a modern and new hotel resort with many sport facilities. A paradise for rich tourist in the middle of nowhere. We tired to hitchhike back home, as we noticed we are to far away to walk, but none of the modern cars wanted to stop for us. Finally, a Moroccan couple saved us from the dehydration and heat and gave us a ride to Essaouira el Jadida, where our musicians and hot meal was already waiting for us.