After just three days in Marrakesh, I was already trying to execute an escape plan. The discomfort found by entering the ‘unknown’ — which I so often preach on this blog as what I seek — had indeed found me in the Moroccan desert. But instead of giving me a newfound sense of understanding and purpose, it smacked me like a pile of bricks.

I had only slept a handful of hours over my first three days in Morocco. I was a walking, irritable zombie stumbling around the cobblestone streets of Marrakesh searching for anything to complain about. The wifi at the hotel sucked. I missed having a blender to make my daily fruit smoothie. The breakfast served at my hotel was anything but hearty: sugary tea with a sugary pastry with sugary orange juice with a sugary crepe with sugary apple slices.

My room was cold and drafty with a depressing lack of natural light. In my delirious stupor, I partially fell for a silly street scam that took advantage of my willingness to be friendly with a stranger. Had I forgotten everything I learned in the previous 37 countries I visited? And why did I choose a life that would forever banish me to the consistently predictable problems of budget accommodations?

The adjustment period in Marrakesh made me miss home, even though after being home for six months I thought I had missed traveling. I was particularly missing the ocean — my zen space — even though I had surfed in California the day before I left. I needed some saltwater ASAP to ease the continental transition.

So I tried to shorten my stay in Marrakesh and expedite my trip to the coast. The hotel manager gave me a firm “no can do” when asked to adjust my reservation. I found that rather unfair considering I had gone along with his sketchy business tactics when he asked me to cancel my reservation and pay in cash. Oh well.

Every time I commence a new solo journey, there is always a laundry list of problems to solve on the first day — e.g. my SIM card hotspot isn’t working, I might be getting scammed by my hotel, I haven’t slept in two days, etc. Soon enough everything gets sorted out and I forget that the problems ever existed in the first place. I knew everything would turn out just fine, but I would have to begrudgingly ride out a full week in Marrakesh before I could dip my feet in the Atlantic.

I laughed at my short-lived predicament because I had no one to blame but myself.

Marrakesh

I decided to spend a week in Marrakesh simply because that’s where my flight entered the country. With my slow travel style, weekly increments are usually the minimum I stay in a place.

As my plane descended towards the Marrakesh airport I got my first glimpse of Morocco — or North Africa for that matter. The thousand-year-old city sits at the foot of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains, starkly divided by the maze of narrow alleyways that make up the ancient part of town and the newer neighborhoods with wide boulevards and modern high-rises that sprawl into the desert plain.

My taxi dropped me off on the edge of the ‘Medina’ — the old town — and I schlepped my bags around the serpentine alleys to my hotel. It was a bit late in the evening, but since I was still geared for Pacific Standard Time I was wide awake and went for a stroll to the main square in town. As I sauntered around the bustling streets, absorbed the new visuals and acoustics of a totally foreign land, and sat down at a cafe to try the famous Moroccan mint tea, I was overcome with a familiar blissful sensation that periodically revisits me during these solo travels around the world: Even with all of the sacrifice and potential parallel universes where I didn’t leave my life behind in California to travel, I was sure that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Life felt…fulfilling.

But it didn’t last long.

The chilly nights, lack of sleep, and other miscellaneous minor complaints accumulated over the following days. One afternoon I sat on the rooftop of Marrakesh’s photography museum and gazed off towards the mountains towering on the horizon, wondering why I didn’t have the urge to go explore them, as I had done so many other times during these travels. I had little appetite for adventure, which didn’t feel like myself. It made me question why I decided to spend the next several months in Morocco.

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Marrakesh’s old town in its modern-day form is a tourist town. The miles of alleys are packed with restaurants, tourism agencies, riads (a traditional Moroccan house with a garden at its center) converted into hotels, annoyingly slow-walking tourists with cameras, ancient buildings that tourists pay to enter, scooters weaving through the streets clearly marked as prohibited for scooters, and more souvenir shops than my mind could possibly begin to grasp. As I was letting my thoughts wander one day, I pondered how many laps you could do around the circumference of the Earth if you lined up all the knick-knacks and souvenirs sold in the shops of Marrakesh. There was no way they could all be sold, could they? But as I held that thought, another plane descended overhead to drop off a new batch of foreigners, all in need of Moroccan rugs, tea kettles, and camel rides.

As with any touristy place in the world, it’s very easy to blend in as another tourist but very difficult to break beyond the transactional relationships with locals. As I was going through my initial funk I truly felt just like another tourist — a potential money-making opportunity with pockets full of cash. So I took a bit of initiative to break out of the tourist confines and engage with a Moroccan who has no vested financial interest in my existence.

One evening in Marrakesh I connected with a friend, Boudali, met through the website Couchsurfing. He was originally supposed to host me but a change of dates made that impossible, so we settled on an evening tea. We met in the town’s vast, main square. He arrived wearing a traditional Moroccan cloak (imagine a sweatshirt that extends down to your shins) and greeted me with a handshake and a smile. As we sipped tea he got to practice his English, and I got to practice my French. He told me about his various romantic threads with women around the world, how money only appears “when you aren’t thinking about it,” and all the times he has gotten his visa requests denied to travel abroad. I didn’t need to be reminded of how lucky I am to be born where I was born, nonetheless, I felt particularly humbled and fortunate to be able to lead this life of remote work and travel.

Tea with Boudali was just what I needed to finally shed the tourist costume and readjust my mindset ahead of my next stop: Taghazout.

Taghazout

I was thousands of miles from home, but when I exited the bus in Taghazout I could smell the familiar tinge of salt in the air. Ocean dwellers get so used to that hint of salt that we tend to forget it’s even there. But when you leave the ocean and come back, it’s unmistakable. I already felt more in my element as I arrived in the Moroccan surf village.

Taghazout is a fascinating case study on the effects of surf tourism. As I stood in line at one of the two ATMs in town, the Australian man in front of me showed me photos on his phone he had taken of the town 30 years ago. It was just one dirt road with a few shops and a mosque. The ATM that we were about to use was a new addition within the last year.

Since that Australian’s first trip to Taghazout, the town has exploded in a flurry of concrete and cinder block structures climbing up the hillside above the beach. The buildings are all white with blue trim, built as high as six stories, many with picturesque ocean views. Now, around the mosque (which still stands), there are trendy cafes, car rentals, a small army of taxis, and all budget levels of accommodation from backpacker to luxury. The impetus behind the growth is, of course, the waves.

Similar to my home of Santa Cruz, the Moroccan coast is blessed with endless right point breaks. Within reach of Taghazout are the waves of Anchor Point, Killers, and Boilers, to name a few — breaks that attract surfers from around the world. But it’s not the advanced-level surfers that are making the place blow up. From what I saw, it’s the beginners and surf lessons.

Taghazout is packed with surf schools. In fact, I have never seen so many soft-tops and beginner surfers all in the water at the same time. Every morning on the main street in town the locals unload their warehouses of soft-tops and strap them, sometimes seven to eight boards high, to the top of their vehicles or on trailer hitches. They unleash the surf schools into the ocean into a frenzied mess of surf classes. From what I’ve observed, many tourists, generally Europeans from land-locked places, treat Morocco as their yearly surf experience. The lineups are a cacophony of every Euro tongue you can imagine, from Catalán to Polish to French. One friend told me that Taghazout is turning into the Bali of Africa, and he’s not far off.

The locals are all involved in the surf tourism industry to some extent, whether they instruct surfing, own surf shops, run restaurants, or rent accommodation. And I don’t blame them for their enthusiastic embrace of surfing. They’ve harnessed their waves to make a living for themselves in a desert village where economic potential is relatively limited.

I originally thought I would avoid Taghazout altogether during my Morocco travels. In past travel experiences, such as in Sri Lanka, I avoided the main tourist hub and was very happy that I did so. In other instances, such as in Bali, I embraced the chaos and crowded lineups and stayed right in the thick of it. After doing a bit of research, I decided that the benefits of staying in the country’s surf hub would be an advantage for my remote work lifestyle, at least to start off. Rental apartments are plentiful, there’s fast wifi, and I have access to surf supplies should I need ding repair, for example. I’d just have to deal with the crowds and keep expectations in check.

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On my first day in Taghazout, my goal was to find a month-to-month accommodation. I’ve learned throughout my travels that you can usually find better prices by just going somewhere and asking around. Not everything is advertised online.

I walked up to a surf shop that was on the ground floor of a building with an “apartments for rent” sign on the door. The guys working told me that the apartments were full, but then they started to converse in Arabic and told me that they had a solution for me. Mohammad, a rail-thin 19-year-old local with a sun-tinged Justin Beiber swoop haircut, told me to follow him.

Mohammad took me to a guy he knew, who sent me to another guy who called his mother and then called a friend. Soon enough I had a team of Taghazout locals searching for my apartment. I would later confirm that, aside from the warm hospitality, they were all enthusiastic about a business opportunity because they could ask for a cut from the owner of whichever apartment I landed in, as well as a tip from me, the tourist.

Eventually, I landed with a fixer named Youba. He connected me with an older man named Mohammad who had one arm and, in very Arab business fashion, wanted to sit and get to know me before talking money. We chatted about family, Morocco, life, and the curious fact that he doesn’t rent to “Moroccans, French, or hippies” (good thing I don’t have a dread anymore). I never got a clear answer why some demographics are blacklisted, but I didn’t care to push the topic further. We finally got down to business and discussed the lodging.

I ended up taking his top-floor one-bedroom apartment with an ocean view and open-air living room. The shower runs hot, the wifi is more than acceptable, and I have a perfect view of the crimson desert sunrises each morning. On the other hand, I am a stone’s throw from the mosque, so the loudspeaker calls to prayer blare particularly loud in my living space. But I’ll get used to it; it’ll be a fine home for my month in Taghazout.

That brings me to where I am now, writing this post in my penthouse apartment. I’ve had some other random observations like how some Moroccan cafes face all the chairs towards the street as if it’s a movie theatre, how men rent swaths of curb space in Taghazout for the right to charge $1 for parking, and how the traditional Moroccan (vegetarian) tajine dishes are oddly devoid of any sort of seasonings. As expected, things are going much more smoothly now that I am settling into a living arrangement and have spent ample time in the water. That doom of the initial 48 hours in Marrakesh is all but a distant memory. I think I can get used to this place.