Best of the Best of Essaouira

Essaouira blew my mind. There are few places I have seen in all my travels that are so unique, so beautiful, so in tune with nature, and yet so vibrantly, humanly alive. Essaouira is overrun with tourists, yet seems perfectly attuned nonetheless. The newest outsiders fit right in with the city's history as a pirate stronghold, a Portuguese fort, and a Moroccan music mecca.

In these photographs, the sea and sky are integral subjects. Essaouira is built between them, with barely a gesture at the continent rising behind it. The Atlantic throws muscular breakers against the city's natural defenses. Fishermen scamper back from the edge of 30-foot reefs to avoid the whitecaps; each wave seems to explode like fireworks when it hits the grotesquely misformed rocks.

It's all blues and whites: the deep sea blue that will swallow your eyes whole; the white of the foam and the clouds and the seabirds, the sandy beaches and bleached walls, the whitewashed homes and light blue windowframes. Blue carriages, white horses, blue trash bins, old holy men in white performing a moussem to frenetic gnaoua music. Blue and white lights falling from the stage of the summer music festival; white fish grilled on demand under blue awnings at the base of the fish piers. Blue boats with white sails, blue nets and boys in white shorts running barefoot along the wharves.

These photos are a poor representation of a city that will make you feel that you may be all alone in a cool, calm world, but that's alright, because it's right there with you.