Taghazout

The coast. The beach. The sun and the surf. Here was a great place to spend our last few days in Morocco. And we couldn’t have scripted it any better.

Our bus took us from our new family home of Tafraoute to Agadir on the Atlantic coast. From this larger centre we found a local bus to take us 30km north to Taghazout, a small fishing village known for its great surf. As usual, locals stepped in right away to offer all manner of assistance and possible accommodation. We struck gold with our first stop with an apartment overlooking the beach complete with kitchen. The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since it first opened, a fact that helped us bargain for a good price. After putting in some elbow grease of our own, we agreed the place was perfect. The rooftop balcony jutted out towards the ocean like the prow of a mighty vessel and we spent much time up on deck in the sunshine enjoying the incredible view.

When we arrived we found the third floor apartment occupied by a friendly and fun Spanish duo – Laura and Pelli. It turned out that Pelli was hooked on all manner of board sports from downhill longboard to snowboard to wakeboard to surfboard. He had met Laura working up at their local ski hill outside of Madrid (who knew they had ski hills there?) and the two decided to escape to Taghazout for a three week surf trip. Patricia was called into action early as Laura had a pretty seriously swollen ankle from a recent surf accident. We agreed that she must have suffered the fall after riding a huge 6 metre wave while rescuing a baby seal from the jaws of a vicious shark. Based on what she saw, Patricia recommended a trip to the hospital for an x-ray as soon as possible – good thing, because Laura ended up having an ankle fracture that needed casting! Who knew saving baby seals could be so dangerous.

With a kitchen available to us and after having been inspired by Hamid’s amazing cooking in Tafraoute, we decided to try our hand at some Tagine recipes. When our apartment owner, Mohammed, found out about our plans he extended amazing Moroccan hospitality in buying all of the food, teaching us the “real” price of produce and giving us a full-on cooking lesson. We set up our room for a dinner party and soon we were all enjoying a delicious meal over friendly chatter in English, French, Spanish and even some Arabic with all of our apartment neighbours.

We spent our days in Taghazout walking the coastline for some exercise and adventure. We also got briefly woken every morning around 4am when the fishermen would fire up their engines and head out to the ocean to check on their nets. On our second night in town we got to enjoy the fruits of their labour as we picked up fresh fish straight from the dock for a seafood Tagine. With the previous night’s lesson and after some watching over by Mohammed the food hit the plate and with a look of delight everyone agreed that it was a hit. As usual we retired to the rooftop terrace after our meal to enjoy the stars and the fresh sea air.

Our last day approached and as we had yet to hit the surf, we made plans to set out early with Pelli so Ben could catch some waves. After gathering the gear and some bread and cheese for breakfast, we hopped on the local bus headed for Banana beach - a reputably good spot to surf given the current tide and wind conditions. Pelli and Ben worked the waves for a few hours with Pelli giving lots of good surfing tips in Spanish, some of which were clearly not understood as Ben and board sailed through the air. But some waves were actually caught and it was a really fun session in the sunshine. Now we felt we had really gotten a chance to sample everything that Morocco had to offer.

That night we said our goodbyes to our Spanish friends and caught an overnight bus from Agadir, arriving very early in Casablanca. As our plane with Air Arabia only left at 6pm, we had to find a place to loiter until it was time to head to the airport. We installed ourselves at the Four Seasons, where Patricia had the most expensive cafe latte of the entire trip so far - 6 euros!! It was worth it to have a comfortable place to relax, and we felt very classy (for a change).

We boarded the plane with excitement, for that night we would be landing in Istanbul! We had heard wonderful things about Turkey, and were looking forward to spending at least a month there exploring the many different regions of the country.

However, before closing the chapter on Morocco, we will leave you with one more Moroccan joke:

“The king of all animals, the lion, is getting married. Which animal did not attend the lion’s wedding, and why?”.