What Tourists Get Wrong About Essaouira: A Conversation with Fatima, Medina Shopkeeper for 22 Years
Fatima runs a small shop on a narrow alley between Place Moulay Hassan and the Skala de la Ville. She sells thuya wood boxes, Gnawa instruments, and argan oil products. She's been in this exact spot since 2004. Before that, she helped her mother in the same shop.
I sat with her over three rounds of mint tea — because in Essaouira, you never refuse the third round — and asked her everything I wanted to know about this town.
Tell me about yourself and how you ended up here.
I was born here. My mother was born here. Her mother came from a Berber village in the mountains but married a fisherman and moved to Essaouira when she was seventeen. So three generations in this medina. I grew up speaking Berber at home and Arabic and French at school. Now I speak some English too — the tourists taught me. [laughs]
I started helping in the shop when I was maybe twelve. Wrapping boxes, counting change. My mother made all the thuya wood items herself — she learned from a master carpenter near the Skala. Now I buy from local craftsmen, but I still know how the wood is shaped. When tourists ask if something is machine-made, I can explain every step.
What's the biggest mistake tourists make in Essaouira?
They come for one day. The bus from Marrakech — the Supratours, 90 MAD, 2.5 hours — they arrive at noon, walk the medina for three hours, eat fish at the port, and take the evening bus back. That's not Essaouira. That's a photograph.
Essaouira is a place you have to sit in. You have to drink tea in the square at sunset and listen to the Gnawa music when it gets slow and quiet, not just the loud parts for the tourists. You have to walk to Diabat on a Tuesday morning when no one else is there. You have to eat breakfast at your riad — msemen with amlou and fresh orange juice — and not rush to the next "attraction."
Three nights minimum. Four is better. People who stay four nights always come to my shop on the last day and say the same thing: "I don't want to leave."
What do tourists get wrong about the fish grills at the port?
Oh, this one is easy. They don't ask the price first. Some stalls — I won't say which — they show you a beautiful piece of fish, you point and say "that one," and then when it's grilled they tell you it's per kilo, not per plate. Suddenly your lunch is 200 MAD instead of 60.
The honest stalls? Two and fourteen. Everyone in Essaouira knows this. A fair price for a mixed grilled plate — fish, bread, salad — is 50-80 MAD. That's $5-8. Always agree on the price before they put the fish on the fire.
And come early. By 1PM, the best fish is gone. The boats come in at 7-8AM. By noon, you're eating whatever's left.
How has Essaouira changed since you were young?
When I was a child, no tourists. Fishermen, craftsmen, families. The medina smelled like thuya wood shavings and salt. The harbor was just... a harbor. Nobody called the boats "Instagram-worthy" or whatever.
The big change was 2001 when UNESCO listed the medina. Then Game of Thrones filmed at the Skala du Port — they called it Astapor. After that, the tour buses started coming from Marrakech. More riads opened. Prices went up 30% in five years.
But — and this is important — Essaouira didn't lose itself the way Marrakech did. In Marrakech, the medina is for tourists. In Essaouira, we still live here. My neighbors are families, not guesthouses. The fishermen in the harbor aren't posing for cameras. They're working.
The Gnawa music is still real. The festival in June — the Gnawa World Music Festival, 500,000 people, free — that started in 1998. It made the town famous. But the musicians playing in Place Moulay Hassan every night? They were doing that long before the festival. They'll do it long after.
Where do you eat when you're not in the shop?
I cook at home most days. Moroccan home cooking is better than any restaurant — my fish tagine is better than Restaurant Taros, I promise you. [laughs]
But when I eat out? Chez Sam at the harbor for grilled fish with a view of the boats. 80-150 MAD for mains. Café Clock for their camel burger — 80 MAD — which I know sounds strange but it's delicious. And La Calebasse for traditional food that tastes like my mother's cooking.
For breakfast, your riad. Always. A proper Moroccan breakfast — msemen, harcha, amlou, eggs, fresh orange juice, mint tea — that's the best meal of the day. Don't waste it at a café trying to find toast and Nutella.
What's the one place tourists always miss?
Galerie Damgaard on Avenue Oqba Ibn Nafiaa. Free. A Danish man named Frederic Damgaard came here in the 1980s and started supporting self-taught artists inspired by Gnawa spiritual traditions. The work is... not what you expect from a small Moroccan coastal town. It's raw, it's powerful, it's different from anything in Marrakech.
Also, the thuya wood workshops near the Skala de la Ville. Not the shops — the workshops. Tiny rooms where men sit cross-legged carving and inlaying with hand tools. Most tourists walk past. But if you stop and watch, they'll show you the process. Essaouira thuya is famous — the marquetry work is intricate. And it's 30-50% cheaper than what you'd pay in Marrakech for the same quality. For a local's perspective on Essaouira's food scene, our five-day journal covers every essential.
What should tourists know about Essaouira that guidebooks don't mention?
The wind. Bring a jacket even in summer. The alizé — the trade winds — blow almost constantly. June to August is the worst. Tourists show up in shorts and a tank top and spend the day shivering on the beach. Stay in a riad inside the medina walls — they're sheltered. Beach hotels get battered.
Also, Essaouira is a real town. Ninety-five percent of the 77,000 people here are not in tourism. We have schools, hospitals, a fishing industry. When you buy argan oil from the cooperatives — like Cooperative Tiguemine, 20km inland — that money goes directly to the women who make it. 150-250 MAD for a 250ml bottle. That's their income. It matters.
And please, when you visit the argan cooperatives, don't just take photos and leave. Buy something. Even a small bottle. Those women crack argan nuts by hand for hours. It's real work.
Any tourist traps to avoid?
The argan oil shops in the medina that say "cooperative" but are just regular shops with higher prices. A real cooperative is outside the city, run by women, and you can watch the full process. The medina shops buy from them and mark up 100%.
And the "guided tours" from men who approach you in the street. They're not licensed. They'll take you to their friend's shop and get a commission on whatever you buy. If you want a guide, arrange one through your riad or the tourism office.
What's your favorite moment in Essaouira?
Sunrise on the Skala de la Ville. The upper ramparts. Before anyone is awake. The light on the old stone is amber and the only sound is the ocean and the seagulls. I've seen it a thousand times. It still stops me.
And the third round of tea. Always the third round.
