On Tuesday we set off for Essouaira (As-Sawirah, As-Suweyrah… who knows how to transliterate it. Either way. Formerly, and perhaps more easily, it was known as Mogador). This town, about 350 miles or so from Rabat, has been the filming location of movies including Othello and Kingdom of Heaven.
The coastal road promised to be beautiful.
Of course, to do this drive, we had to rent some cars. We ended up getting two Hyundai Atoses. The first thing we had to do, since the cars were handed over bone-dry, was to get gas. Well, apparently when you say “fill it up” that’s exactly what they do:

No need for auto-shutoff here; they brought us over to verify that you could see the gas in the tank…

We set off on the highway south. When we got near Casablanca, we came up to a toll plaza. There were policemen watching the place, and it seemed like they were directing traffic. One started waving in my direction, I couldn’t really tell whether he was waving to me or the guy behind me, or if he was just telling me which toll booth to go to. Well, apparently he really did want me to pull over. He radioed his team on the other side of the toll booths. Once I pulled through, this Royal Gendarme made sure I pulled over. After checking my papers and my license, he asked my why I hadn’t stopped. After telling him I didn’t speak French and switching over to Arabic, I pulled my most pathetic confused foreigner look. After chewing me out for about 5 minutes in a barrage of Morrocan Dialect, he let me go on my way. My heart was racing for the rest of the drive, and I was on edge all the way to our lunch stop, an hour away in Al-Jadida.

Jill, the Portuguese Citadel, and our giganormous Atos:

The route was filled with great sights and views, like these:

We stopped again in Walidiyah,

Then we really had to start hauling, because we were already sort of late to check in to our hotel in Essouaira.

But we still had time for a quick sunset stop in Safi:

We finally got to Essouaira after 12 hours in the car. Call it 2 hours of stops, it still took us about 10 hours to drive a distance equivalent to Washington-Greensboro, which on I-95 and I-85 might take 5. The city was impressive even in the dark. Our apartment was absolutely stunning: a riyadh on the edge of the city, with a view of the ocean from the balcony.

We took a quick look around, walked down to the docks, and then tried to find somewhere to eat. Everything was closed, so we grabbed some pizzas to go and ate them back at the apartment.