Essaouira

Faded greens and flaking paint. It's autumn, and the high season is over.

A faded colonial out-post, past it's glory, clinging onto the coast. They speak French. Refreshing citron pressé in the beach front cafes.

Endless beach, with the waves coming in all the way from the Americas. Men try and sell you special cigarettes on the deserted beach. Someone says Jimi Hendrix once stayed here. It seems Jimi Hendrix stayed quite a few places in his short time. I was to hear the same story years later in Nepal.

In the boat yards, they build boats the traditional way, out of wood. A man spontaneously shows us around, telling us the history and how they build the craft.

The Atlas mountains seem a long way away now.

Later in a bar. There is a Japanese cartoon playing on the TV with Arabic subtitles. It's one of those old small portable box shape televisions on a wall bracket above the bar. In the background I can hear a familiar song, Neil Young Out on the Weekend is playing.

But that was 25 years ago. I was a kid then. I guess Essaouiria has changed too.