Inspired observations gained from my travels, matched to a music track and made into a quirky blog from a recalcitrant Lancastrian.
recalcitrant
rɪˈkalsɪtr(ə)nt/
adjective
1.
having an obstinately uncooperative attitude towards authority or discipline.
noun
1.
a person with a recalcitrant attitude.
"a stiff-necked recalcitrant and troublemaker"
☯️
Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
Franz Kafka.
Next trip coming soon….
It’s Super Saturday here in downtown Taghazout as the street vendors set up their tiny stalls on the walls of the winding little higgledy- piggldy streets by the beach.
The elders congregate as the tiny fishing boats come into shore to sell their catch, not sure how it works but after a natter, folk seem to walk away with a fish or two.
Meanwhile, the poulterer at ‘Surfin’ Bird’ KFC ensures that you get your choice of chuck fresh as, when you have chosen it, he takes it round the back and pulls its neck for you.
Need to hurry now as I’ve booked in to ‘Hassan’s Hammam & Beauty Parlour’ to get my eyebrows done and a quirky holiday souvenir at the ‘Kamel Tattoo’ parlour so the holiday is complete.
All that is needed now is to perfect the ‘Surfin’ Bird dance as featured in this video!
“It’s Friday, so it’s time to start taking it easy…Oh, and don’t forget your prayers today”…the Imam in the tower tried to inform us from the mosque before sunrise.
Strolling down the desolate empty beach I spotted a dead camel, washed up on the sand in the night, so went over to have a closer look. As I approached, a grubby looking Tuareg wearing a pair of Arab wellies and a twisted turban popped up from behind it out of the sand like a genie. With a barked command and a kick of the tired, defenceless beast, he got it to rise up painfully with a groaning fart, and started to beckon to me with a view to climbing aboard the lanky, stinking creature. Once again, he was picking on the wrong fella, as I knew my camels, and had watched him lure a string of vulnerable, pathetic and gullible inner city tourists to mount his steed to look like idiots for a ten minute plod and parade down the beach for some ridiculously inflated cost of their hard earned dobbers!
Not likely Sonny Jim! This degradation is not going to feature on MY Instergram … So with a departing “Salam Alaikum”, I toddled off towards ‘Mo’s Surf Shack & Berber-barber Emporium’, just off the high street, this time opting for a refreshing cut-throat morning shave rather than the full Brazilian Morrocan beach special I got sold the last time…
After ‘Pre Pre’ coffee and crepes the sun had started to warm up the day but the sea was quite far out and quiet again today.
Next stop, ‘Faisal’s Fine Meats as we have elected for a halal bbq on the terrace with a touch of Charles Aznavour crooning in French from the Bose.
It would be a shame not to have a taste of some Moroccan plonk with the food so while we were in Agadir yesterday a sample bottle of ‘Ait Souala Grande Reserve 2021’ fell into the basket to try. According to the label it’s produced from a wine estate, located between Casablanca and Rabat, so north of here still on the coast.
The country has historically used the Atlas mountain climate and the cooling Atlantic breeze to produce some decent wine and now it seems, since some investment, the wine is improving. The Muslim fellas round here are not too keen on supping it so most of it is produced for the Western palate so lm happy to be the Guinea pig.
To see if it stands up I’m going to pair it with some Al-Baraka premium dates, a ripe French Camembert and some ‘Agneau della Maroc avec Sel de table’ bought from the local halal butcher, cooked on the top terrace bbq.
The Islamists among us are not so keen to have a tipple but I would like to remind them that the Arabs, who are mainly Muslim, introduced distillation to us and also bequeathed us with the phrase ‘Al-Khol’. So, when the French colonials were kicked out, King Hassan of Morrocco saw sense and started a rebirth of the vineyards here. Having never been one to let religion stand in the way of progress, I will give it a go…
And the verdict…yes, Iv had better but Iv also had a lot worse, go for it and enjoy, and remember’ Life is too short to drink cheap wine so ask me tomorrow, I’m enjoying today!
Enjoy a bit of Belle & Sebastian here for todays tune.
The surf isn’t working today and it’s a little cooler so…
Following the scrub and massage in the hammam yesterday, the body is now in good shape so the plan is to take the morning Alsa bus back into the big city again. Missing the bus by seconds we piled into a shared taxi for a 20 dobber ride as the cost is split so with an exchange at 1:13 we arrived half an hour later in town for less than £2.
We headed straight for ‘Hassan’s bicycle Emporium’ to hire a couple of comfortable saddles for the day so we could have a mooch about at our leisure. He did us a ‘good price’, adjusted the seat heights and put a couple of PSI in the back tyre (cheeky bugger) and we were off, heading up first to have a look at the marina.
Agadir has a long seafront promenade and leisure marina, all rebuilt and modern following the earthquake that destroyed the city back in 1960. They are still re-building the city today and you get the feeling that one day it might get finished but it’s quite sad to see that a country with so much history doesn’t have anything historic left in Agadir worth noting.
It does have a fabulous long, clean beach though and a lovely wide promenade to cycle along.
When it was time to return to Taghazout, we opted for the bus(7.5 dobbers each) but for the second time today we ended up piling into a shared lift, this time a Caddy van. How it works is that the fare is split between the passengers so it makes the journey much cheaper than it would be if you went by taxi for 60 dobbers. Some get in, some get out and it stops when and where you want. This one arrived at our destination and in good old taxi driver style asked these tourists for 80 dobbers…WHAT???
Well, I can tell you, this was only going to end one way and he was told in no uncertain terms that we didn’t much care for scammers and it was disappointing behaviour. So with a shake of the head, we parted company with him, thrusting the going rate of 20 dobbers and no more into his greedy little mitts…he must have thought we had just arrived in town on a boogie board!!
Hey, great sky to finish the day…
Some classic Indie here from 1989 from a classic indie band I saw back in the day ‘ PWEI’ or to give their formal name ‘Pop will Eat Itself’…
As the morning sun ☀️ climbs up out of the stratocumulus and above the hills, our forecast is down a bit to 27 degrees today. Early in the day the beach is devoid of people and 🐪 camels 🐪, just an odd fisherman and a few seagulls before9am.
Every morning, the fishingfellas stand by their boats with a small weigh scale to sell some of their nights catch so 2 freshly caught Dorado will do for tonight’s meal.
The camels arrive later…
Bumjak beach is the spot for today for another afternoon session on the boogie board until, completely beaten by the waves it’s time to head for the hammam.
…and then stick the fat dorado’s on the grill while we listen to Earth, Wind & Fire
There is a great sense of community here and entrepreneurial excellence as, for example, our evening meal meat was purchased direct from the butcher and then cooked on the grill next door and the drinks, bread, harissa soup, salad, tagine etc to accompany came to our table on the street from a small restaurant across the road…3 separate bills but all for next to nowt.
As we sat with our morning brew watching the sun rise up warming the bay, the local fishermen set off through the waves for their daily catch. Yesterday had been great fun as after our surfing attempt, we opted for ‘Boogie-boards’ for the afternoon and had more success riding the breaking waves into the shore. Great fun, but when you get it wrong the power of the waves fold you like paper and cartwheel you along in a white blur…Now, the older bones and muscles are feeling the battering today so we are off to the souk!
We piled on the local morning bus heading for El Had in Agadir, promising 6000 shops within the walled 13 hectare souk. I only had spectacles on the shopping list after leaving my readers in the Atlantic yesterday but finished the day with much, much more!
Now these traders are masters at flogging you stuff that you hadn’t thought you needed so by the end of the day the shopping bags were full to bursting with bargains…
….‘a kilo of Eucalyptus, 3 tagine pots, 2 small tortoises, a plastic washing basket, some fresh cut tripe a silver teapot and a live chameleon’…
So, we have arrived at Taghazout, a small Berber fishing village on the Atlantic coast about an hour north of Agadir and nestled in the foothills of the High Atlas mountains directly behind us.
Behind the penthouse door we found a wonderfully equipped and spacious ‘Surf Berber’ apartment that had everything we needed for the week and overlooked the beautiful Taghazout bay….and the surf was looking good!
From the balcony we can sit and watch the enticing sets rolling in.
Whoever said surfin’ was difficult just hasn’t tried hard enough…all you need is to be flexible and supple with a good balance, paddle-speed, technique, posture and the perfect wave and anyone can do it…
That said, it took a good hour to slip gracefully into the neoprene snake-skin before we eventually managed to get the zipper to the position where the breathing became an issue and then, restricted by loss of blood supply to the limbs we were instructed to choose our ride…
We both opted for the ‘triple XXXL Waverider’ in matching green and about 20 foot in length. As instructed, we lashed them to our ankles for safe keeping before heading up the street in the style of ‘Max Wall’ to find the perfect wave on the iconic surfers paradise named ‘Panorama Beach’.
Luckily, we were the first ones there and we set about mastering the art of wading into the oncoming waves with a fervent anticipation of some Hawaii Five-O action, Honolulu style circa. 1972.
As the first wave hit us, I looked over with a wry smile but there was no one there? I looked behind in time to see an ankle with a leash attached sticking out of the surf and a 20 foot, green board rising vertically about another 10 foot above the water…Hmmm…not good I thought!
We don’t need to go into too many more details but safe to say, within the hour, we had returned the faulty equipment and had washed a couple of kilos of sand out of all the nooks and crannies and we were sat comfortably back on our balcony watching the ‘dudes’ at a safe distance.
Not sure how ‘Panorama’ beach got its name but over the years, I have watched some dreadfully terrible and unpleasant scenes on this BBC investigative documentary series that reveal the truth about the stories that matter…
Just let’s enjoy this great song by ‘The Vaccines’ and move on shall we?
“Put a wetsuit on, come on, come on Grow your hair out long, come on, come on
Put a T-shirt on, do me wrong, do me wrong, do me wrong…”
Pinch, punch it’s the start of the month…and the start of another blog!
As the barrier lifts up it’s pitch black, wild and windy and the winter rain feels a few degrees above zero as we make our way into the long stay car park at Edinburgh airport to catch the early morning’Marrakesh Express’ flight out to the Kingdom of Morocco.
We have between us 3 pairs of shorts, a speaker, sunglasses and a large lump of Mr Zogs Sex Wax…what more do u need for a winter break at a surf camp?
This time, we are off to the Moroccan sunshine, spiritual home of the camel and the tagine…that would make a great name for a pub “Il meet you for a pint in the Camel & Tagine”…I digress…
A week in the waves should be a tonic…so once Iv been swabbed for explosives by a stern Border Control operative we head for the Duty Free to purchase gin to go with it!
Winding past the plethora of perfumeries and scarf-mongers we head for the gate, stopping to frown in despair at society as the baseball capped, shell-suited holidaymakers with matching white trainers tuck into their hearty breakfasts of Stella Artois and Tenants Pilsner at 05:45 in the morning in the Wetherspoons…
The onboard entertainment for the 4hr flight was the memoirs of the larger than life loose-head and newly retired, harlequin Joe Marler.
By lunchtime we were in the warm Moroccan ☀️ sunshine
Graham Nash wrote the song about a train trip he took in Morocco in my birth year of 1966 so this is a good place to start the trip. Here is a live version with Crosby,Stills,Nash & the obligatory Neil Young to get us on our way.
