Episode 27 - Tamraght
Getting offered a camel, Atlantic surging, and the second best hostel in Africa 🌊
The last stage of my Moroccan adventure is here! The Atlantic Coast! The beach! Surfing!
This was the place that Will, my tour guide mentor, recommended above all else, and I was so excited to check out the hostel and explore the beaches that he told me about so fondly. It had been months since I’ve swam and felt sand squish beneath my toes.
Aaaaaaaaaamazing!
Tuesday 12/12/2023
The walk from the hostel in Marrakech to the bus station was smooth sailing, and right outside the bus station, I met these 2 random Brits who were also heading to Agadir.
Turns out they haven’t played soggy biscuit before, but they were super nice and British. They taught me some more British phrases and were impressed by my current knowledge of British slang (I used the word British like 27 times there, sorry). We somehow got on the topic of planes, and I told them about how I heard some budget airline was considering adding seats in the back of the plane that is even cheaper than before but the passengers have to stand.
I thought it was a great idea, because I would totally stand in the plane for a cheaper flight. One of the Brits brought up the safety concern of standing, and said it would be bad and less safe if the planes crashed.
I told him that if the plane crashed, it didn’t matter at all if you were standing or sitting. Or even laying down, for that matter.
The plane crash would not end well for anyway. Brits are crazy!
We sat next to each other on the bus, and the bus ride was just absolutely beautiful. The desert was just so harsh outside the window, and I couldn’t believe that people actually lived there their entire lives.
I fell asleep a short while later, and woke up at the bus station on Agadir. The two British blokes were heading to the same surf town (kinda) that I was, so we shared a taxi 3 ways up to the surf towns. My stop was a bit earlier than theirs, so I was dropped off before them, said my goodbyes, and it was off up the hill to my hostel!
Will, my tour guide mentor, recommended this hostel extremely highly and had the most wonderful time when he visited there last year. It was even rated the second-best hostel in all of Africa!
I made it to the hostel in 5 minutes, checked in quickly, and was instantly welcomed to a lovely Moroccan dinner with everyone who was staying at the hostel, and the owner, Ahmad.
The food was SOOOOOOOOOO good and everyone that I met was so nice. There was a French girl Emilie, a Canadian sculpture professor Jess, and a Chinese girl Pan Yu, along with Ahmad.
The dinner was delicious and I felt right at home right away.
Went to bed in the super comfortable bed and fell right asleep.
Wednesday 12/13
I woke up a bit earlier than anticipated due to the morning call to prayer at 7 am, then fell right back asleep afterward.
I woke back up at 9:30 to the most lovely hostel breakfast I have ever seen. So many fresh fruits and delicious Moroccan pancakes cooked that morning.
I could get used to this!
After breakfast, it was time for surfing! The town I was staying near, Tagazhout, is pretty famous for its surfing on the Atlantic Coast, and it was finally time to join the surfers there.
The hostel had surfing instructors and all the gear needed available for rent, so we all headed to the beach together in a janky van. At the beach, we put on our wetsuits, got a lesson on surfing posture on the week, and then we were off on the waves!
I have surfed before, so I was able to get onto the waves pretty quickly and caught some good ones. This proceeded all morning, then we broke for lunch (sandwiches and bananas from the hostel), then it was back out onto the waves for us!
What I found particularly funny were the random people riding camels and horses on the beach as if it were the most normal thing ever. The thing is, in Morocco, it is very normal indeed! I skipped some lovely flat rocks I found as well, then headed back to the waves again.
I eventually got super tired from surfing, since all the tricep push-ups you do when getting up on the board were starting to kill me. After a few great waves, I just bodysurfed on the waves, since I was too tired to actually push myself up. Eventually, I just came back to the beach, and chilled until the van headed back to the hostel around 4. Sometime during the chilling, I took a lovely nap on the beach as well!
I had been in cold Paris for so long that I had literally forgotten how it felt to have warmth and sunshine on my skin. The feeling was absolutely heavenly!
Back at the hostel, I relaxed and chilled for a bit, and then it was back to the beach again for sunset yoga. Francesca, one of the volunteers at the hostels, is a German yoga instructor and teaches yoga classes at the hostel.
The sunset yoga was amazing, and it was super relaxing to be there with Pan Yu and Jess as well.
After the sun had set, I joined a random game of beach soccer that some locals were playing nearby, and even scored a goal in the process.
Celebrating a goal is easy, regardless of language barriers. Those Moroccans and I celebrated like crazy when we won.
After dark, our yoga group headed back to the hostel, where I took a nice shower, chilled some more, and then had the amazing hostel dinner again. The main course was delicious Moroccan fish!
And then the best part of the day — tea time! Moroccans love their tea, and it comes in a tea kettle in the shape of a genie bottle (genie not included), which the Moroccans pour dramatically as they raise the tea kettle higher and higher above the glass, with the liquid being perfectly poured out into the tiny shot-glass teacup.
After tea time, Jess and I (what I called the North American contingent) had a great, deep conversation on the roof of the hostel, and it was super interesting to hear her life story. She seemed to have a lot of self-pity, but it was still quite cool to listen to her stories.
Thursday 12/14
I woke up quite early in the morning, because yoga today was a sunrise, rooftop yoga at 8 am.
This yoga is no joke!
The vibes of the yoga were great, though I was still so sore from the surfing the day before.
After the yoga, we had delicious breakfast again with some more cups of Joe! I wrote a bit of the Casablanca blog, then headed to the beach to play soccer with some Moroccan bros (the surfing instructors Salah and Youseff). I wasn’t surfing today as I wanted to just chill on the beach. I walked the mile to the beach, played some soccer with Salah, read a bit, then snapped some photos of the surfers and proceeded on the grand walk north to Tagazhout.
The walk round-trip to the surf town was about 8 miles, and it was so lovely to walk for miles and miles along a beautiful beach. The only thing that would have made it better would’ve been if my mom was there to talk with me. She loves walking along long beaches!
The surf town was super cute, and I grabbed a great lunch at a restaurant I found, checked out some shops, then hiked up to the top of the hill to check out the famous skate park they have in Tagazhout. It was sick, and some Moroccan kids were hitting some tricks on the ramps.
I headed back down into town, explored some alleyways, and got myself a cheap beanie after some aggressive haggling with a Moroccan vendor, who slashed the price by 40% when he learned that I was Russian. He then proceeded to butcher the pronunciation for some random Russian phrases that he knew, and then accused me on not speaking Russian when I didn’t understand these random “Russian” sounds he was making.
The balls on this man!
I walked back to the beach, though it was much harder to head back to where I started as the tide has ridden, making all the sand more squishy and soft. Along the way, some random guy tried to sell me his camel for 2,000 Euros, and I was so baffled that I didn’t really know how to respond and kept walking.
It made me wonder what the going price for a camel was. I have absolutely no basis for what the price of a camel should be. Maybe 2,000 Euros was a good deal?
I eventually made it back to the beach, but the surfing group from our hostel had already left, so I walked the mile back to the hostel, where I showered, read, took a nap, blogged some, and generally chilled. I walked around the town for a bit and bought myself a Moroccan surf poncho (got it down to 300 dirham from 400 after haggling), which the locals wear to the beach before surfing to not get sunburnt.
Along the way, a new British guy (Ali, hi Ali!!) checked into the hostel, and we proceeded to have a lovely English conversation about geology, life, and the hostel (in which I was basically a local at that point). Ali, I hope that road trip to the Sahara with your lads went well!
Ali also told me about some rugby hazing practices up at St. Andrews near Edinburgh. Crazy stuff!
We had our lovely tea time again, after which we played a very intense game of Jenga with Yoosef, Salah, and a couple of the other hostel guests. I was tremendously impressed by how amazingly balanced we were able to keep that tower, until it toppled with Salah and I won the game. Hooray!
Dinner was absolutely delicious again with a yummy fruit dessert. After dinner, we all gathered around the lovely couches in the hostel and had a cultural exchange, where we taught each other surfing phrases and curse words in languages we knew. I now know how to say “paddle” and curse in Mandarin. Hooray!
I called Joe and Emma and was super excited about our upcoming Twickenham trip before heading to bed in Morocco for the last time.
Friday 12/15
I woke up early again for the 8 am sunrise yoga, with 3 of us today on the roof. Good vibes, and an absolutely extraordinary neck stretching exercise that we did in honor of Jess.
After yoga, we had our amazing breakfast and coffee again, after which I took a quick shower, packed up my things (there’s not much stuff so that was quite fast), then said bye to everyone, hopped into a taxi, and just like that, it was off to the airport! Goodbye to the best hostel EVER!! Be sure to check our Surf Hostel Morocco if you ever find yourself needing a place to stay in the Agadir region.
The taxi ride to the airport was smooth and check-in went fine, though the dude made me pay an outrageous 45 euro to check in my backpack because apparently “too big”, despite the obvious fact that the bag was literally going on the same plane that I was.
Logic does not exist for easyJet airlines.
Considering the flight was only 19 euros, there was sure to be some catch with easyJet, and it happened to be the outrageous bag check policy.
I don’t like it, but I respect it. easyJet has to make their money somehow.
And just like that, my trip to Morocco has come to end. Twickenham awaits!
