Essaouira

There's no monument in Essaouira, its just a very atmospheric place with the old blending in with the new. It is by the Atlantic ocean, just south of Casablanca. We went there from Marrakech. The evening afer we came back from Ouarzazate, we decide at the last minute we want to go to Essaouira the next day. So we went in search of a tour  company to take us there. One place wanted to charge 250 dirhams per person another 450. I asked why 450, the guy replied, 'lunch is included'. We asked our riad, the same driver can take us for 1,000 dirhams. We wavered, wondering if we cannot still find another cheaper alternative. It wasn't about the money because by this time, we felt we were bold enough to find some dirt cheap alternative. The next morning, after breakfast, we still haven't come up with anything and it looked like we were going to stuck in Marrakech. We wondered the empty streets for a while, by that time all the tour companies have left. We went back to our riad, asked them about the local buses that go to Essaouira. The guy balked, he didn't think 2 foreign women should go to the local bus station. He relented and wrote out something in Arabic, told us to show it to the petit taxi driver, which we did and ended up at the bus station in Marrakech. I've read a visitor's account of her encounter at the local bus station. We had a similar experience. It wasn't that bad, really. We walked into the station and a bunch of people rushed over to us, 'where are you going?' We said, 'Essaouira'. 'This way, this way..... we followed and was at a counter where they sold 2 tickets for the bus, we asked 'where is the bus'. Again, 'this way, this way', we followed and before we knew it boarded a bus bound for Essaouira. The only problem was we were told it would take 2 and 1/2 hours but it took 4 hours, it had to stop to drop off and pick up people. Finally we rolled into the bus station in Essaouira. I saw a counter for the CTM bus company, it's supposed to be the deluxe bus company. I asked when their bus would return to Marrakech, their bus was a more direct bus with no stops. They told us at 3.30pm, so we knew we didn't have much time in Essaouira. It was past noon when we arrived. We didn't want to take the local bus back. It took way too long. We knew we didn't want to miss the CTM bus. We were still able to see some of Essaouira. It was great.