At High Tide

Travelling as a couple is a tricky challenge. So they say. However, this doesn't seem to apply if you meet on the road. Not to turn this into a love story, but I found him at Valencia airport and after a 10-minutes chat, we decided to meet again.

Five weeks later this stranger awaited me at Marrakesh airport with a sign saying 'Morocco adventure starts here'. Blind finger-pointing on the map lead us to the not-that-famous surfer town Taghazout.

It was dusty, smelled of sewage and the clouds hung deep in a threatening shade of dark blue with the wind bringing an unexpected chilliness to our trip. Locals pulled us into their homes, feverishly ensuring that the woman breastfeeding her baby on the couch will be gone as soon as we rented the apartment. We went for the 8-people dorm in the 'Surf berbere hostel' instead.

Ta-gha-zout, if you say it slowly, savouring every syllable, it sounds like the waves we could see from our rooftop terrace. The rising sun threw a warm, orange veil of light over the pale red and white rows of houses facing the ocean.

That morning we squeezed into a jam-packed van with our surf instructor Ismail and a bunch of surfers from all over the world. We chanted 'chicken soup, chicken soup' to a Moroccan song, the words feeling close enough to the undecipherable lines of the Arabic chorus.

By the time we arrived at a beach full of camels awaiting tourists for a ride, we felt like a big family. I was the only surf virgin, which got quite obvious when I tried to put on the wetsuit backwards. I told a laughing Ismail:
'Standing up at least once, that's all I want.'
'Sure, come on then, lovers!'

Surfing meant swallowing a lot of water, until there came the perfect wave. I knew it the moment I turned around to paddle towards the shore. Just when it took a hold of me, I set one foot in front of my knee and stood up. All of a sudden I was moving with the sea, no longer against it. Looking to my right I saw my stranger smiling and as I lost balance, I heard my own, excited laughter right before it was drowned by the water.

That night I sat down on the turquoise cushions on our rooftop, ran my fingers across the uneven mosaic stone table and felt content. I tasted the salty air on my tongue and felt the lazy rhythm of an old fishers' town settling down in me. I fell in love, not only with that stranger that took me on an adventure, but with the dirty streets, the wild sea and the rough cliffs of Ta-gha-zout.