Correspondances comme un roman Étal de poissonnier, souk Jdid, au cœur de la médina. Fish stand, Souk Jdid, in the heart of the medina. Peinture murale, près de Bab el-Marsa . Mural near Bab el-Marsa. Chantier naval , rade d’Essaouira. Shipyard, Essaouira harbor. them bothering visitors, even in the craftsman and the tailor from whom, for lunch beneath a pretty arbor at the medina. And they always remember last year, we purchased, without hag- Val d’Argan, a winery that produces to put a few pieces of dry bread out on gling, timeless bags and leather jackets; Mogador reds, whites and rosés, all the window ledge for cormorants and and off to the spice market, where made from Rhône varieties—in other swifts. This city, situated halfway between the goods are displayed in colorful words, an offshoot of Rhône Valley Marrakech, the sharifian Puy du Fou, pyramids, surrounded by dishes of herbs winemaking in southern Morocco. and Agadir, La Grande-Motte of the for losing or gaining weight, along with Atlas Mountains, is generous to visitors, mysterious aphrodisiac roots. Then To live in Essaouira, or Es-Saouirah without selling out. People here have expanded our collection with a teapot (“beautifully designed” in Berber), is to a natural elegance, a cheerful fatalism that looks like a bird with a long beak learn about lightness. Nothing is weighty and an atavistic gentleness; they believe and a coffee pot that has become a multi- here—neither the demands of modernity that better days lie ahead. They like colored cat, made by a street artist who nor the pressure of tourism. There is no to say: Agadir, rien à dire; Essaouira, ça works with iron and recycled objects. concrete, nothing tacky, no air pollution, ira (Agadir, enough said; Essaouira, A stroll along the beach that stretches for no over-developed seafront and no sign all will be well). six kilometers with, off to the right, the of cap-wearing tour guides. You don’t Îles Purpuraires (named for Tyrian purple, even sense the extraordinary history that It is for this “all will be well” that, almost popular in ancient Rome, a reddish dye lies behind the white and pink facades set every year, I return here for a therapeutic derived from a shell, the murex), or else off by the azure blue of the windows and program of levity, hedonism and opti- you go for a gallop along the sand at the doors. This UNESCO World Heritage mism. Any time of year. Winters are ocean’s edge on a lively little Barb horse site was originally called Amagdul, and balmy here, with Magritte blue skies, that taunts the nonchalant camels. Then was known as the Port of Timbuktu. In while spring can turn suddenly hot and swim on high, level with the tops of the 18th century, under the name of steamy. Summer, however, is touristy and the minarets, in the rooftop pool at Heure Mogador (“little rampart”), it became best avoided. When you make regular Bleue, the luxurious 18th-century palace Morocco’s leading commercial port, as trips to Essaouira, where Orson Welles on the site of a former fonduk (inn). After- well as its diplomatic capital. This past filmed Othello and Ridley Scott recre- ward, go down to the ground floor has given it a natural, intellectual and ated medieval Jerusalem, where Jimi to indulge in the purifying ritual of the multicultural disposition that it has never Hendrix made music and Julian Beck’s Oriental hammam, in a room clad in lost. In the second section of Paul Claudel’s Living Theater performed, you develop exquisite Souiri gray marble, before head- symphonic play The Satin Slipper, Doña little habits: strolling leisurely down to ing to an intimate lounge at the Villa Prouhèze, the woman with a “heart filled the port, which was Phoenician, Greek, Maroc to enjoy sea bream with citrus with God,” and Rodrigo, the man who Roman, Portuguese; walking through fruit or beef with apricots and nuts. “came to enlarge the earth,” embraced for Bab el-Marsa, hit by the sudden smell The following day, explore the region a brief moment of eternity on its ancient of fresh fish and hot diesel fuel; watching dotted with argan trees and stroll ramparts overlooking the ocean. “There the incessant ballet of blue boats and through the lush oases, visiting one of is only one certain castle known to me fishing craft made out of eucalyptus and the cooperatives run by women who, where it is good to be shut up . . . You loaded with sardines, moray eels and before your eyes, pulp fruit and crush must sooner die than give up the keys . . . sea bream, with shrieking potbellied nuts with granite stones, working the Mogador in Africa.” Is there indeed gulls wheeling overhead. Then lunch at paste made from argan seeds. Stock up another place of such beauty where Jeannot’s Chalet de la Plage: fish soup, on a year’s supply of argan oil for cook- the faith of a Catholic poet could coexist ultra-fresh sea urchins and slices of fork- ing, cosmetic and medicinal use. Finally, in the same trance, under the same sky, beard. And back through the checker- sample the pastillas, Beldi chicken or kid with the voodoo cult of the Gnawa board-like medina, with the same leather (goats that climb into the argan trees) brotherhood? No. Only in Essaouira. 134 .htlaeh ruoy ot lufmrah si esuba lohoclA .noitaredom ni knirD .noitarédom ceva zemmosnoc ,étnas al ruop xueregnad tse loocla’d suba’L ©