Essaouira and Zachary

We arrived in Essaouira later that afternoon, a city farther up on the shore renowned for its winds. We parked our car in some shotty parking lot, where they wouldn't let you put the handbrake up -- in case they needed to push your car around to make room for others (we came back at night lifted the brake). After dinner, we roamed around the medina and got shaved a second time each. The barber offered to clean up Nachi's hair around the edges a bit, but proceeded to give a full-on haircut, which was actually pretty good. Dan was offered more Berber herbal viagra (it was a bit worrying). Then we met, Zachary.....

He was one of the many people who yelled "Indiaaan" as we passed, to which we were now accustomed, and simply yelled back "Shah Rukh Khan." Inevitably, Nachi made friends with Zachary; Dan hated Zach from the outset. He "guided" us into his shop, where he played drums and sang Hindi songs to us. His three sidekicks appeared and sang along. This part was cool. After some time, they asked us if we would like to grab a drink with them. Nachi assured Dan "it was cool," and we proceeded to a bar. On the walk, we were starting to feel like Zachary was a bit crazy and may have "drunk" quite a bit already. We offered to buy him a beer once inside, but he refused, constantly saying "bhaya" to Nachi, which means "brother" in Hindi. Our hostel closed around midnight, and we got up to leave, at which time Zachary showed his true colors and asked for money to cover two rounds of beers. Nachi thought this was absurd and took off, while Dan tried to level in French. That didn't work. Zachary followed and harassed us until we were almost home, in a very threatening manner. We lost him as we passed the Gendarmerie (the Police).

The next morning, we got up and walked out to the beach. We particularly liked a guy who had built a "windskate" (a windsurfer to ride on the sand). Nachi was really keen on kitesurfing so we went to get the gear. At the first place we stopped in, we found out two things, (a) kitesurfing takes a week to learn and (b) the gear and lessons are super expensive. Game over. So we went for a little drive and got pulled over by the cops for doing some ridiculous speed the car wasn't even capable of. So Dan tried to bribe the cops and sort of succeeded but then we got our money back. It was very confusing. In the end, we ended up driving back past the speed camera, careful to have it in second gear and 20 km/hr below the limit and wave to the shady cops. The following morning, we found a co-op windsurf rental place and hit the waters hard with some lessons. Dan embarrassed himself pretty badly, but Nachi acquitted himself handsomely. In the afternoon, we had some beers and drove off to Marrakesh.