"A Perfect Playgound" Essaouira Travelogue by SOLODANCER

Essaouira, Essaouira. The name bears repeating each time and over again. And then you repeat it again and more...until it lulls you into sleep. I love the name of the place from the very first time I ever heard it, way before I had envisioned a visit there for myself. The refrain or repetition of the name recalls to me a voice calling in a dream - airy, ethereal, sun-bleached and sea-perfumed and highly sensual.

So when the day finally came when I found myself in Essaouira, after a long arduous journey from New York in the mid-1990's, it all felt unreal especially that Essaouira in her bleached whiteness seemed as tho spectral in all her charm. This was in my first visit. And tired and disoriented as I was, I remember myself falling into a silly giddy behaviour shouting 'Essaouira, Essaouira' to everyone as I lunged at an adventurous search for a room.

My return trip to Essaouira in 2006 was just as fun and equally surreal. This time it was a weekend-long side trip from Marrakech with my friend Rita Kallerhoff who maintains her second home there and her muse, the young poet Abdel Hadi.

I went ahead to make a repetitious chant of the name Essaouira and I struggled with it under the new and much-refurbished setting as well as under new terms of engagement with my older self this time. The sound came out but drier, sort of flat and muffled. This time I know Essaouira like so many places has changed - not for the worst - into one reconstituted and with a bit of superficial makeup...however continuing to be so beautiful.

In the sun: the painter and her muse

Rita and Abdel Hadi relaxing in the sun by the sea wall.

Essaouira: Hauling the fish

The fisherman's fort: hauling the day's catch and then serving up the sardines on grill.

Essaouira: In the shade looking at light

Hypnotic even when you resist.

Essaouira: A robed man's mystery

Very much within the realm of a dream.

Sidi-Kauki: An appointment with a shaman

Sidi Kauki: the shaman's castle where you enter and lose all inhibitions.

Sidi-Kauki: open interior heavenly exterior

Sidi Kauki: an oracle of complete release.

Sidi-Kauki: The long caravan to Mauritania

On the road to Sidi Kaudi: a doze in the shower of light and sea mists.