Il Mare And Taros Cafe

July 6 9:00 AM

Friday night Elena and I decided to see what it's like in the evening in Essaouira. So we went out to Il Mare, a bar overlooking the sea wall and its cannons. We got there at about 9 pm and it was pretty dead. By the time 10 pm rolled around, it wasn't much better, but a DJ was playing salsa music. We decided to go back another day and to go later. I had a 30 dh Special Flag and Elena ordered a Campari and said yes to some unintelligible question in French. So she also got an orange juice. Our bill was 30 dh for my 24 cl beer, 40 dh for her campari, and 40 dh for her juice. Those are expensive prices even by French standards. Yikes. The view is worth it--that's why you come. Once 10pm rolled around, the sea became invisible because the moon was just a sliver. It's nicer during brighter phases of the moon, I imagine.

Saturday night, we decided to check out the Taros Cafe. It overlooks the Place Moulay Hassan where we had seen the Orchestre national de barbès. They had live music. They also had beer on tap and the cheapest beer was 30 dh. It has pretty full and people were dancing when the music was playing. We got a 80 dh half bottle of wine. It came with little crostinis with tuna and cumin olives. The olives were wonderful--best olives I've had in Morocco so far. We sat and listened to the music until about 11 pm. I wanted to go back today, but it's closed Sundays. Damn! It's like being in France again.