We wandered around the tiny medina of Essaouira for about a half hour until we met some Brits who had been staying there for two weeks already. They showed us around the narrow streets, greeting the locals and telling us little bits of history about the town. It's an incredibly old ville--at about 5th century BCE it was developed into a trading post. After that, it had been claimed, captured, reclaimed and recaptured about a dozen times by numerous civilizations. The city (more so a village) is encased by a 15 meter wall that bears the gashes and holes from ancient invasions. Rows upon rows of cannons line the perimeter of the wall, especially the walls facing the sea.
It provoked in my imagination the scene of a naval attack of which I'm sure had occurred. I thought of the horizon speckled with little wooden ships trying to reach shore. In fact, it's likely that Essaouira was constructed in this particular place as a defense from a naval attack; the bay was filled with sharp reefs which were almost miniature islands peaking above the waterline. In addition, the perimeter walls gave no place for landing a ship--they had been built quite literally on the rocks which fall into the sea.
I should also note that this happens to be the city, so some claim, that Jimi Hendrix wrote "Castles in the Sand". It was interesting to reflect upon this possibility as I gazed off into the horizon.
