Soupy and I left my house on Friday afternoon and went to London to stay at Bex's house before flying out the next day. Someone decided it would be a good idea to steal a cable from the train tracks around Reading and so our trains were either cancelled or delayed and while we were aiming to arrive at 7:30 or so, we would up getting to Bex's around 9. We were,however, in time for the amazing barbecue Bex cooked as well as the oh so unbelievable Rasberry Cheesecake she baked. We ate it for breakfast the next morning too....
On Saturday we made our way to the airport and met up with the rest of the group. The group was a complete mix of random people including Oxford footballers, Durham footballers, Durham cricketers, and people who grew up in Harlow where Becky is from. Basically the only connection we all had to each other was Bex. Despite this, the group hit it off really well and we all got along great.
We arrived in Agadir and waited in the longest Passport Control line ever. It was horrible! It took us over an hour and a half to get through passport control but thankfully by the time we got through, Aziz (the man in charge of the surfcamp we had booked the trip through) was waiting for us and took us back to the hotel/villa we were staying at in Tamraght. Waiting for us was an amazing dinner of Moroccan chicken cous-cous followed up by sweet Moroccan mint tea. With full stomachs we went to sleep excited about the prospect of surfing the next morning!
We got up early and loaded up the boards on the cars (I was amazed at their ability to transport boards. At one point we had 15 boards on top of a car the size of a Camry) and headed out to Devil's Rock, a break directly across the road from where we were staying. The surf was pretty small but since I was the only one with any real surfing experience, it worked out well. I jumped straight in the water while everyone else had a lesson on the sand before joining me in the water as well. Unfortunately, since it was the last Sunday before Ramadan began, everyone and their brother seemed to be at the beach before the holiday began and so it was really really crowded. Even the camels were out in full force. Ugh, I hate camels.
On Monday we moved to another beach further north called Tamri. The waves here were bigger and much better size for me, and it was also far less crowded. It felt so good to do nothing all day but eat, sleep, and surf! We spent a few hours surfing in the morning, would take a break for lunch, then surf a few more hours in the afternoon before heading back to the villa in the evenings. After dinner we would just hang out on the roof terrace all night until we went to sleep and got up to do it again the next morning.
On Wednesday Aziz arranged for a minibus to take us into Marakech for the day. We wanted to go before Ramadan started and so Wednesday seemed the best day to do so. It drive there was really long and we stopped along the way first to check out some goats chilling in trees (apparently Moroccan goats climb trees, who knew?) and then to pick up a woman and her two daughters whose car had broken down on the road. We finally made it to Marakech and met up with the guide Aziz had arranged as well.
First the guide took us to Bahia Palace, a Palace built by the Grand Vizier (ie Jafar) for the Sultan in the 1880s. The palace was adorned with ornate stucco decorations where they would carve into the walls of the palace before they dried and only really had one chance to get it right. After they finished work on the palace, the Grand Vizier made these artist live at the palace and refused to allow them to work anywhere else because he wanted the work they had done there to be unique to the palace and not available anywhere else. The Palace basically turned into a place for the Vizier to keep his harem of women and was eventually used by the imperial French government in Morocco.
After the palace we wandered through the marketplace, visiting a pharmacy that made medicines and lotions out of local herbs and plants, and seeing all the stalls and shops and wares to purchase. After lunch we returned to the marketplace to do some perusing and shopping and explored the city a bit more. Finally, after a long, very very very hot day (temperatures in the mid 40s which is over 100 Fahrenheit) we headed back to Tamraght.
Our dining set-up for breakfast and dinnerThursday was probably the worst day for surf. There was a really really strong rip current that was impossible to avoid and it only got stronger as the day went on. I tried paddling out both in the morning and afternoon but I didn't last very long and was the only person who even attempted to surf at all on Friday. Instead we amused ourselves by playing beach football, beach cricket, and beach rounders.
Friday turned out to be the best day of surf of the week and it was a perfect way to end the surfing in Morocco. By that time, most people were really tired and only went out in the morning, which was nice for me because it meant that there were very few people out in the lineup by the afternoon. Aziz and Mo (the two guys who put up with our shenanigans all week) were out helping us catch the waves "in the green" and turn into the waves. It was nice to get the more one-on-one attention and it was fun to be out in the water with Jenny (from California) and Joe (from Egypt/Ireland/Saudi/wherever), a couple living in Dublin that booked the same surf camp and joined in with our group. I got my perfect "one more ride" and called it a day/week, ending my surfing on a very very high note.
Saturday morning we went back to the beach for a bit but there was no surf so we didn't even take the boards off the cars. We went to lunch at a beachfront restaurant in Taghazout before showering and heading back to the airport. Upon landing in London (at 12 midnight), Soupy and I just barely missed the direct bus to Oxford so we were stuck taking a bus into London and then from London back to Ox. We got home around 4 am and had to be up and at the Uni Club for a football game at 10:15. We managed to get up and ready on time and it turned out that the lack of sleep didn't hurt us too badly as we won the game and I had a hat-trick and an assist.
Friday turned out to be the best day of surf of the week and it was a perfect way to end the surfing in Morocco. By that time, most people were really tired and only went out in the morning, which was nice for me because it meant that there were very few people out in the lineup by the afternoon. Aziz and Mo (the two guys who put up with our shenanigans all week) were out helping us catch the waves "in the green" and turn into the waves. It was nice to get the more one-on-one attention and it was fun to be out in the water with Jenny (from California) and Joe (from Egypt/Ireland/Saudi/wherever), a couple living in Dublin that booked the same surf camp and joined in with our group. I got my perfect "one more ride" and called it a day/week, ending my surfing on a very very high note.
Saturday morning we went back to the beach for a bit but there was no surf so we didn't even take the boards off the cars. We went to lunch at a beachfront restaurant in Taghazout before showering and heading back to the airport. Upon landing in London (at 12 midnight), Soupy and I just barely missed the direct bus to Oxford so we were stuck taking a bus into London and then from London back to Ox. We got home around 4 am and had to be up and at the Uni Club for a football game at 10:15. We managed to get up and ready on time and it turned out that the lack of sleep didn't hurt us too badly as we won the game and I had a hat-trick and an assist.
Highlights of the trip that don't really fit into my narrative:
-fighting and catching a scorpion using a cricket bat, a glass, and my engineering papers
-playing a boys vs girl football match on the beach with a bunch of Moroccan guys and totally owning them
-surfing in Morocco (duh!)
-Udds flooding the shower so that the water came out of her room and wound up dripping all the way down the stairs to the ground level
-the bus crash that happened right outside our hotel one night that created a huge bang and sent us all running to the railing of the roof terrace to figure out what happened
-Jij calling me "cute" like I was a 5 year old child
-meeting lots of awesome new people
-being buried to look like a mermaid that turned out to be unbelievable disproportional
-surfing in Morocco
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