Day 179 - Leaving Essaouira Behind and Arriving in Sidi Kaouki

The morning started a little differently than usual. I had to be up at 8 o’clock for a work meeting with an old colleague to go through a job I’ll be helping him with remotely. So instead of the slower coffee-and-ease-into-the-day routine, I was straight into the computer with a coffee in hand, talking through survey data while sharing screens and trying to get my head around the project at the same time.

The meeting ran for about an hour and a half. While I was tied up with work, Kia and the kids were busy packing bags, cleaning up the apartment and getting everything organised for moving day. We had to be out of the accommodation by midday, so it was all a bit more rushed than usual.

Once the meeting wrapped up around 9:30, I jumped into helping finish the packing, cleaned up the kitchen, packed my computer gear away and started getting everything downstairs. Around 11 o’clock we all headed out together for what turned into a massive rubbish run. We’d somehow accumulated about eight bags of rubbish during our stay and had been stockpiling them in the apartment. On the walk we stopped by a bike shop because we’d been thinking about hiring bikes while we’re here in Sidi Kaouki, but no one seemed to be around, so we figured we’d wait and see what the town was like first.

We also ducked into a little shop to grab another power adapter so Kia and I could both charge our phones at the same time. After that we tried to stop at our favourite pizza and pasta place one last time before leaving Essaouira, but they weren’t serving pasta yet, so we decided to just push on and grab food once we arrived.

Back at the apartment we carried all our bags downstairs and waited for the taxi driver. The drive from Essaouira to Sidi Kaouki only took around 20 to 30 minutes, but it felt like we were driving into a completely different world. Essaouira feels fairly modern and organised in comparison. Once you leave town, things become rural very quickly. The roads opened up into rugged countryside with rock walls, scattered buildings and big open spaces before eventually dropping down toward the coast.

Sidi Kaouki itself is tiny. Just a handful of surf shops, restaurants, accommodations and homes spread along the beachfront. Very laid back, very exposed to the wind and ocean, and a completely different vibe to Marrakech or even Essaouira.

When we arrived at the accommodation, we met our horse riding guide, Ali, who introduced us to the owner of the place we’d be staying at. That’s when we found out there’d been a mix-up with the booking and we’d actually be staying next door for the first night before moving into the correct accommodation tomorrow. Not a huge deal, so we sat down, drank some sweet Moroccan tea and just rolled with it.

After dropping our bags off next door, Ali took us on a quick tour of the town and introduced us to his horse, Sultan. From there we wandered off to find lunch and ended up at a small local place directly across from where we were staying. It had a surprisingly decent menu and really good prices, so we settled in for a late lunch around 1:30.

After lunch we wandered closer to the beach, checked out a few surf shops and had a bit of a look around before heading back to the accommodation. Kia was pretty keen for a lay down and the kids just wanted to sit quietly and play Lego for a while, so I took the chance to head upstairs to the rooftop terrace where the Wi-Fi signal was stronger and got stuck into a bit more work.

I spent a couple of hours up there sorting through survey work and also trying to fix some issues with the website. I realised the site was only properly working either with or without the “www” in front of the address, which probably wasn’t helping Google understand the site properly. Hopefully I managed to sort that out.

A little while later Kia and the kids came up to find me after going for a walk along the beach. They came back absolutely windblown. The wind here is next level. They’d also found somewhere that looked really nice for dinner, so I packed everything away and we headed out again.

The restaurant was attached to what looked like a big wellness retreat right on the coast. It felt much more polished and modern than a lot of the places we’ve seen throughout Morocco so far. The menu was tiny, but the food was incredible. Even simple meals like spaghetti or chicken pasta came with multiple sides like mashed potato, chips and vegetables, and everything tasted amazing.

After dinner we walked back along the beachfront road while the sun dropped into the Atlantic Ocean beside us. The whole coastline glowed orange and gold as the wind whipped across the beach. Then it was back to the accommodation for a fairly early night, ready for a big day of horse riding tomorrow, moving accommodations again and settling into life here in Sidi Kaouki.