Today was mostly a day of driving but we travelled through some interesting country to Essaouira. Not so much the landscape but seeing how the people live and work in that area. We saw people shepherding a very small number of sheep, hand ploughing behind a mule, picking up rocks to use for building, driving horse drawn small carts and glimpses of life in small dusty villages.
We had two stops at roadhouses on the highway. At the second stop in the middle of nowhere a young man came up to me with a big smile and said 'Welcome to ...' It was so surprising to see an English speaking person in that location.
We left the flat land and crossed a range which put us into a more productive landscape. Olive and argan trees gave the area a green appearance.
Just out of Essaouira we stopped at an Argan Oil centre, Afous Argan. The centre was set up to provide job opportunities and training for women. Our guide was a young Berber lady who gave us a very good tour of the process of obtaining and using argan oil. We were able to see the process from picking to obtaining the almond within the argan fruit.
The fruit is dried, the seed removed then the almond from within the seed. A stone hand mill is used to extract the oil and also the pulp.
We then moved to the tasting table where we dipped bread into various bowls, argan oil in honey was particularly nice. Another tasted like peanut butter.
Mint tea was served before we moved to the cosmetics room where our girl told us of all the uses for argan oil, from healthy benefits to face and hand treatments. For once the ladies were happy to shop and the co-op would have benefitted from the shopping we all did.
In the same building there was a very good wood working workshop and sales centre. They use mainly three types of wood - olive, argan and a native wood.
We arrived at the Hotel Mgallery Le Medina in Essaouira and were welcomed with more mint tea. Then Noel was surprised by a delicious chocolate mousse birthday cake which was shared by all.
Shame it's only 21 degrees. Too bad, we are doing room service on the balcony.
The universal food - pizza!
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