We solo women travelled from Marrakech to Essaouira in our new conveyance with our new tour leader, Abdullah, and our new driver Adil. Our new van comes with wifi: Abdullah creates a hot spot with his cell phone and we all sign on. Quite a treat!

We stopped at a weekly market we found along the way. Vendors hawked stacks of fresh vegetables and hot snacks were abundant. This is the last day for snacks at the weekly market for a month. Ramadan starts tomorrow.

We lunched at the home of Nezha who lives outside Essaouira. (The French pronounce the “es” in front of Essaouira, but the locals and those in the know [including me] drop the “es”. It sounds like swara.) OAT pays a small salary to Nezha to provide a home visit and a local lunch to OAT folks heading to Essaouira. This augments her very meagre income. We lunched on goat tagine which was delicious with an interesting but tasty dessert of noodles tossed in butter and dusted with cinnamon and icing sugar.

Nezha lives what sounds an isolating life in her small village. Her three children are grown and live elsewhere, and her husband died some years ago. She is a devotee of three soap operas, one of which was on while we ate. Abdullah provided a running commentary with input from Nezha. The soap was produced in Turkey and dubbed in Berber, but could have been dubbed in English and played on daytime TV at home. Nezha shared with a laugh that her OAT salary made possible her purchase of the shiny flat screen TV in her sitting room.

We stopped a couple more times before reaching Essaouira, one time to chat with Mohammad who farms artichokes, alfalfa, green beans, corn and potatoes. His farm is about 20 feet below the level of the road; he uses his donkey, Criminal, to haul the produce to the road where a truck will take it to market. The donkey’s name is a direct result of his murder of another donkey who must have offended him. But Mohammad says he’s a good donkey. He just needs tying up a little tighter when there are others around.

Mohammad would soon be spending nights on a raised platform he has built at his field to scare off wild boar who want to feast on his crop. He told us of a scary experience he had with a wild boar (hence the raised platform). He found it on the road – thought it was road kill – and prepared to cut it up to take home for his animals. The boar suddenly leaped up and started chasing him. Mohammad zigged and zagged and got away which he says is the trick when you’re being chased by wild boar. The boar can’t turn his head so he can’t see when you change direction. Just sayin’ in case you’re ever chased by wild boar.

One more stop before reaching Essaouira, at an overlook. The day was a bit misty and photos of the town were not optimal. But not all was lost! I met an old friend at the overlook. While reconnecting, Abdullah had to pay baksheesh to the camel owner. Oops.