MOLI VIEW™

Open Taschen's masturbatory Morocco Style photo book and the first double-fold is a pic of a native argan tree with very strange fruit: fluffy little goats are scattered among the sturdy branches and tufts of leaves. Goats in trees? Apparently, the clever bearded cheese givers like to munch on the little nuts so much, they have adapted and learned to climb trees to get to them. This I had to see for myself. And I would, sort of.

After three days in decadent Marakkesh (this is the Morocco of snake charmers and hardcore souks, which I will detail in tomorrow's blog), I decided I really wanted to get out of the city funk and get to the ocean. If you read this blog on a regular basis, you have long ago figured out that I am obsessed with surfing. I had seen images in a French surfing magazine of pretty decent waves in Morocco along the Atlantic Coast. I had also heard a lot about a little beach town where hippies and creative nomads like Jimmy Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and Cat Stevens went to do another kind of dropping in, called Essaouira (pronounced ESS-A-WEAR-A). So, I decided to get myself out there.

Essaouira is about a three hour drive from Marakkesh, which takes you through the endless fields of argan trees, which are used to produce one of Morocco's main exports: argan oil. I stopped in at Cooperative Tiguemine Argan (located at A15 km d'Essaouria en route to/from Marakkesh), an argan oil production facility run by women that employs Berber (native people of Morocco) widows and divorcees, to witness the arduous roasting and extraction process. Apparently if takes 600 argan nuts to make one bottle of the oil, which is why it's fairly pricey. You can buy it in two grades: cooking oil, which is thick and yellow; and beauty oil, which is clear and light. Artisanal argan oil has a wonderful nutty smell, especially delicious and warm on a piece of Berber bread. I happily bought one bottle of each for about $70 US.

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