On Friday I was just about ready to head back up to Spain, satisfied with my short stay in Morocco and promising myself a more substantial visit sometime in the distant future. As I was taking one last look around the Medina, I bumped into Bob who worked with the Ouderia surf club and who I had met with Beth and Barry four days earlier. He invited me to come sit with his friends who were having coffee in a street cafe´nearby, another of whom also worked with the surf club. At teh table, the conversation, as I gathered it from variously translated snippets, centred mostly around organising a lift to a surf competition that weekend. Would I like to come? "Well, I´ve never been to one before. What are they like?" They couldn´t believe that, coming from Australia, I netiehr surf nor have ever attended a surf competition. For them, that settled it! They organised an extra place in the car for me and picked me up early Saturday morning. I was in for a surprise: we drove about an hour south of Rabat to a beautiful beach with pristine waters covered in umbrellas, beach combers, body boarders and surfers. There were so many people jumbled together in the water that at one point, I saw Bob surf around no less than four swimmers in order to ride his wave out!
When the competition began, though, the water was soon cleared as eager faces watched the action. I was receiving intermittent updates on the competition rules and the progress of the various surfers from an American friend of Bob´s, Rick, who was on holidays in Rabat. On shore, there was a festive atmosphere, with people meeting and greeting each other, sharing food and inviting others for coffee everywhere. There was popular dance music and reggae playing on the loudspeaker, but also people playing drums and guitars in little gatherings littered around. Bikinis and board shorts, mint tea and food everywhere! There were people gathered from all over Morocco, and quite a few international visitors, at this ´local´competition. I was introduced to so many people my head began to swim! (heheheh! - pun intended). At sundown, we went back to town to pick up camping gear and to get more food and my hosts even found an extra tent for me! We then returned to the competition site to find it littered with bonfires and other campers, playing guitars and drums and singing and talking. The next day, the competition continued, but it was a more blustery day and by five o´clock, it was all over and everyone was tired.
While I was at the competition, I got talking to Rick and asked him what his plan in Morocco was. He turned out to be waiting on another friend, Alison from Scotland, to come from overseas later that week and go on a surfing tour of the Southern Moroccan coastline. They had met Bob, who was also an official surfing coach and tour guide, on previous surfing trips to Morocco many years earlier and were getting a group together to go South on an informal trip for a few weeks.
"We could teach you to surf. Do you want to come with us?" Rick invited. Did I have the time? Di I have the funds? Would I ever get an opportunity like this again?
Once again, I was faced with the eerie choice of North, to comfortably fulfill my original plans, or South, to grasp the opportunity laid before me. Barcelona began to seem like a far off vision, an elusive dream I couldn´t quite grasp.
Next time on Tempest Trails:
- North or South?
- Chameleon care 101.
- Did Tempest learn manage to learn how to surf?
- Magic Cummin powder!
- ´Hamdulah´! Alot!
Some Tempest Time.
Some Tempest Channel.
