Neighbourhood Essaouira, Morocco
Cats in Essaouira
A walled Atlantic port where the fishermen feed the cats at the boats, the cats sleep on the cannons of the sea wall, and a British charity has spent twenty years making sure there are not more of them than the town can feed.
Where to find cats in Essaouira: The medina and fishing port of Essaouira, on the Atlantic coast three hours west of Marrakech. When: Late morning at the port, when the boats are in and the fish is being sold. Any month; the wind is the only weather. Why here: The one place on this list where you can watch the whole arrangement at once: the boats come in, the fishermen throw the small fish, and the cats have been waiting since dawn.
The short version
- Where
- The medina and fishing port of Essaouira, on the Atlantic coast three hours west of Marrakech
- When
- Late morning at the port, when the boats are in and the fish is being sold. Any month; the wind is the only weather
- How long
- A day for the port, the ramparts and the medina. The town is small and flat inside the walls
- What it costs
- All free. A few dirhams for grilled sardines at the port, which the cats will help you with
- Why here
- The one place on this list where you can watch the whole arrangement at once: the boats come in, the fishermen throw the small fish, and the cats have been waiting since dawn
What to bring
- The morningThe boats land and the auction runs late morning. That is when the port cats are working and when the whole thing makes sense.
- Something for windEssaouira is the windy city. The ramparts are exposed and the sand in the air is real.
- Nothing for the catsThe fishermen feed them fish. Anything you add is worse than what they are already getting.
- A few dirhams for the charityHSAM, the British charity that neuters the town’s cats, works with a local vet and takes donations from home.
Why there are cats everywhere
The fishermen of Essaouira feed the cats because they believe it comes back in the catch.
Essaouira is an eighteenth-century fortified port, built to a French plan for a Moroccan sultan, with a walled medina inside sea-facing ramparts lined with cannons. It was Morocco’s main Atlantic port for a century, then a hippie stop, then a windsurfing town, and all along it has been a fishing harbour. Blue boats land sardines and whatever else the Atlantic gives, the fish is sold on the quay and grilled at stalls by the harbour gate, and the cats have organised their whole society around it.
They wait at the boats. When the catch is sorted, the small fish and the offcuts go to them, and the fishermen will tell you it is a tradition, and that a cat fed at the boat brings the boat luck. Seagulls compete and mostly lose. It is one of the best pieces of animal theatre in Morocco and it happens every morning for free.
The medina behind the port is the other half: lanes of woodworkers and argan shops, the spice square, the ramparts of the Skala de la Ville where the cannons point at the sea and the cats sleep on them in the sun. Cats in the doorways, cats on the steps, cats in the shade of the arches. Fewer than Chefchaouen, and better fed.
They are better fed and healthier because of HSAM, Help the Street Animals of Morocco, a British charity started in 2006 by two visitors who could not leave the town’s animals alone and went home to raise money. Working with a local vet, it has neutered and treated thousands of the town’s cats and dogs, and the population you see is the one it has made possible.
The walk
From the main gate through the medina to the port for the landing, along the sea wall past the cannons, and back through the spice square to the market. A day, most of it standing at the harbour.
- From MarrakechCTM or Supratours bus180 minThree hours west, several a day. Book the day before in season. The bus station is a ten-minute walk from Bab Doukkala.
- From Essaouira airportTaxi into town20 minA small airport with a few European flights. Agree the fare before you get in.
- From AgadirBus up the coast180 minThree hours north. The coast road is the reason to take it in daylight.
Bab Doukkala
The main gate into the medina from the bus station and the new town. Through it and down the main street, which is the spine of the whole walled town. The first cats are in the shade inside the gate.
Inside the walls. The medina is small, flat and full of doorways.Arnaud 25, CC BY-SA 4.0 Place Moulay Hassan
The main square by the harbour gate, with the cafes and the sardine stalls. The cats work the stalls. Eat here, at the grills, and be prepared to share.
Near the square. Every stall has one under it.Melissamarzo, CC BY-SA 4.0 The fishing port
Through the harbour gate to the boats. Blue hulls, nets, the auction shed, and a great many cats waiting for the sorting. Stand back, watch, and do not get between a cat and a sardine.
The boats. The whole arrangement in one picture.Adam Harangozó, CC BY-SA 4.0 The Skala de la Ville
Up onto the sea wall: the long rampart with the bronze cannons facing the Atlantic, the wind, and cats asleep on the cannons in the sun. The woodworkers’ shops are in the vaults underneath.
On a boat, in the sun, in the wind. A local.Antony Stanley from Gloucester, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0 The medina lanes and the market
Back into the medina by the lanes behind the ramparts, through the spice square and the covered market. Cats in every doorway and on the steps of the argan shops. End at Bab Sbaa, the south gate, by the beach.
The lanes. Wind at one end, cats at both.Juan Antonio Segal from Madrid, Spain, CC BY 2.0
Same numbers as the list. Worth keeping open on your phone.
The cats you will meet
Port cats and medina cats, and they are the same cats at different times of day. Lean Moroccan tabbies and gingers, healthier than in most of the country because of the neutering, and fed on fish, which shows in the coats. Sociable at the port, sleepy on the ramparts.
Port cats
Tabby and ginger, lean, alert, at the boats.
Working. They will ignore you completely until the sorting starts.
Cannon cats
Any colour, asleep on bronze.
The Skala in the afternoon. The cannons hold the heat and the cats know it.
Doorway cats
In the shade of the medina lanes.
Shop cats, fed by the shopkeepers, photographed by everybody.
Everybody says The cats at the port are starving strays fighting for scraps.
Actually They are fed, deliberately, by the fishermen, who consider it good luck, and most of them have been neutered by a charity that has worked here for twenty years. The competition at the boats is theatre. Look at the coats.
How not to be the annoying one
- Do not feed at the port. The fishermen do it, it is their tradition, and a tourist with a bag of biscuits confuses the whole arrangement.
- Stand back at the boats. The sorting is work, the quay is wet, and the cats are quicker than you.
- In the medina, the usual: let them come, no reaching over the head, and nothing from your plate.
- The cannons are the cats’ in the afternoon. Photograph them; do not sit on the cat to get the sea behind you.
- HSAM takes donations from anywhere and works with a local vet. It is why the cats here are well.
