If you ask the average surfer what the capital of Morocco is, I’d wager that most will have no clue. I grew up with a talking globe that could quiz you on capitals, so I consider myself fairly proficient at memorizing them, and even I would have had to rack my brain to remember Morocco’s capital is not any of the well-known cities like Casablanca or Marrakesh — it’s Rabat. On the other hand, if you ask a surfer where the famed Moroccan surf spot of Anchor Point is, they’ll have no problem pointing out the tiny coastal village of Taghazout on a map.

Once an obscure fisherman village in the northern suburbs of a commercial port, Taghazout has undergone a dramatic transformation in the last couple of decades, driven almost entirely by surfing. Surf camps, lessons, shops, hostels, and guiding services are the economic forces of the village. I’ve mentioned in previous posts on my blog that I was hesitant to visit the town at all in favor of less-traveled surf spots with thinner crowds, but I decided to give it a shot. I originally booked four days and ended up extending my stay for six weeks.

The first thing I learned about surfing in Morocco is that you will not do much surfing at all if you don’t have a car. From Taghazout you can walk to Anchor Point or Killers Point in about 20 to 30 minutes, but if you want to surf anywhere else you need to hop on the highway and drive to other spots. During my travels, I’ve never rented a car other than for quick getaways, opting not to shell out the cash for a rental and the corresponding fees that come with it. But here in Morocco, I realized that the quality of waves I surf would be severely hindered sans vehicle, so I begrudgingly dedicated a not insignificant portion of my budget to a tiny Kia Picanto stick shift.

Taghazout sits tucked away in a quasi bay, protected from the pesky northerly winds that ravage much of the Moroccan coast. But it’s also sheltered from swells that originate from too much of a northerly angle (similar to my hometown of Santa Cruz, California). Thus, Taghazout is prone to go flat at times — even during the prime winter season — and that is exactly what I experienced during my first two weeks in the town. I had to make daily forays 30-40 minutes up the coast, outside of the protection of Cape Ghir, to find some serviceable waves to surf. I often found myself surfing mediocre beach breaks or weird novelty against-the-grain lefts — not what one travels to Morocco for.

Then, around the New Year, the Atlantic Ocean roared to life with a series of more westerly oriented swells that could wrap around the cape and into the numerous right-point breaks that the region boasts. When all the points are on, it’s rather anxiety-inducing to pick a spot; there are so many to choose from. I drove north and south, trying out new waves, getting a feel for the nuances of each spot, and learning how to navigate the rock and oyster and urchin-riddled entries and exits. I even made the pilgrimage an hour north to the village of Imsouane, arguably the longest wave in Africa and perhaps the best example of how the surf school boom can alter a surf spot; hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of beginners bob around the world-class longboard wave.

But as the Atlantic swells continued to pound Morocco, I found myself more than content with staying put and surfing my “local” wave at Anchor Point, which is notoriously the most crowded in the region. Its extended rock point is visible from the hills in Taghazout and there are three live Surfline camera angles so you don’t even need to get out of bed to check it; it’s no secret to when it’s firing. I’d often paddle out just as the first photons of morning light arrived from the east and get my wave quota filled with a minimal crowd before the sun even came up. By the time the sun was fully visible to the east, the crowd would thicken and I’d move down the point to the no man’s land sand bars — a section of the wave that closes out nine times out of 10 but offers the occasional heaving, sand-spitting tube, the type of wave that can make your day (or week).

The lineups in Morocco have their own unique feel. Ninety percent of the crowds are Europeans on quick surf trips of one or two weeks. I did run into a few fellow Americans, but most of the visitors were from just about every corner of Europe imaginable (and as a result, most Moroccans assume I am Dutch or German). Then you have the local surfers who rule the spots close to town but are less common at those that require a bit of driving. It creates an interesting dynamic.

At Anchor Point, for example, the locals dominate the top of the takeoff spot. They don’t mind if you sit near them, hoping a wave slips through unmolested, but if they paddle it’s very clear that, as a foreigner, you do not even consider paddling. The locals get their pick of wave and — I hope I don’t get canceled for saying this — several of them have developed some unpleasant localism habits that tend to keep the vibe on edge.

Morocco has been going through a surf boom. The best spots are infested with traveling surfers from pros to van lifers to beginners, so perhaps those not-so-uncommon bad attitudes are a result of the unique environment. I personally think you can hold down your spot in a respectful manner without yelling and profanity, but maybe I’m naively pacifistic.

On one occasion, one of the top young surfers was unhappy with a visiting French surfer who dropped in on him. The French surfer was profusely apologetic and the young Moroccan snapped back at him with something along the lines of, “Speak to me in Moroccan English! French is shit! Don’t drop in!” (Apparently, some resentment of the former colonizers of this country lingers.) On another occasion, an American surfer also committed the sin of the drop-in on a local bodyboarder. When the American paddled over to apologize, the Moroccan greeted him with a “Fuck you!” The American guy clearly wasn’t one to back down from confrontation and he replied, “Ok, if that’s how you are going to respond to my sincere apology, then fuck you too.” Oh, how I love surfing.

Escaping to the donkey town

Life in Taghazout got comfortable. I had my apartment, my car, my typical eating spots, and the familiar faces of people around town. But Taghazout is a bubble. It’s not representative of the whole of Morocco and I knew I’d be sorry to stay there the whole time without experiencing somewhere else. Some fellow surf travelers from Australia that I crossed paths with in Costa Rica had tipped me off about a little village up north with a remote, right-point break that was less crowded than Taghazout. I bid farewell to my apartment and my one-armed landlord, gave my friends at Cafe Yoba a parting gift of honey with a thank you card for helping with my stolen phone, and hit the road to a new village.

I booked a room in a large two-story house in the tiny village and was greeted by Walid upon my arrival. He was a kind, young Moroccan man with an overpowering unibrow who manages the bookings and upkeep of his family’s property. Walid gave me a tour of the house and stressed one important rule: You must close the gate whenever you come in and out. If you leave the gate open, the wild donkeys milling about the town will waste no time in feasting upon the well-manicured garden. My room was a tiny box that could hardly fit me and all my bags, but the house was nice and spacious with good wifi. It had a nice third-story hang-out room with a view of the ocean and an equipped kitchen to do some cooking. And unlike Taghazout, cooking meals was imperative in this village.

The village has no supermarket. Two minuscule, dusty shops that I would liken more to convenience stores sell the staples: bread, eggs, water, and the rejected vegetable harvest (I bought a very disappointing onion). Since I arrived without groceries, I opted to eat out for the first night. There are two restaurants in town to choose from. I walked into one of them, sat at a table, and the Moroccan behind the counter gave me a puzzled look that asked without words, “What do you think you are doing here?”

“This is a restaurant, right?” I asked in French. He explained that it is indeed a restaurant but if you want to eat dinner, you need to place your order before noon. I was more than eight hours late. Oops. I left that restaurant to try my luck at the other one in town. I walked inside and it looked dark and closed, but someone appeared, luckily for me. Their vegetarian menu was nearly non-existent, so I ordered spaghetti and tomato sauce, a seemingly safe bet. But I was sitting on the toilet with diarrhea about one hour later and decided that I would be cooking my own food for the remainder of my stay.

This donkey village is much less visited than Taghazout, but I wouldn’t say it’s a secret either. French surfers in particular make yearly pilgrimages to escape their freezing winter waves back home. What keeps the crowds down is the access to the wave. From the village, you need to drive a mile down a rutted, sandy road that only the most capable 4wd’s can successfully navigate. Little cars, like mine, need to stop at a parking area then you must hike another half mile to the wave.

The wave itself is a surfer’s playground. It’s a right point with several sections; when it’s working, there are powerful tubes at the top that work their way past a rock section where it slows down and lends itself to more graceful, mellow turns. There are shallow reef shoals far on the horizon where the waves crash in massive walls of white water, indicating that a set is approaching.

When I arrived on my first day, a crowd was bunched up in the more mellow middle section, while only two surfers were daring to race the rock sections at the top of the point. I am very calculated with where I position myself in a lineup, often looking for strategic inefficiencies — places I can sit that give me the best chances of getting a wave. So I opted to go surf the less crowded, faster peak at the top that requires keeping close tabs on menacing rocks.

I hadn’t even paddled past the middle pack of surfers when I started hearing a chorus of whistles coming from the land and sea. I didn’t think they were directed at me, but when I swiveled my head I was met by the stares of a half dozen locals.

“That peak is locals only bro,” one of the locals said in a less-than-inviting tone of voice. “You surf down here, ok? It’s better than nothing.” I retreated to the worse of the two peaks, understanding why it was the more crowded as I looked around at the faces of fellow foreigners. Moroccan localism was not exclusive to Taghazout, I discovered.

As I got to learn the spot, I gathered that the locals rarely surfed on weekday mornings, so the sacred peak could be surfed by foreigners for the first few hours of work days. One day I took off on a wave, raced a few fast sections, and while I was staring straight into the rising sun, I saw a board appear in my peripheral vision, coming straight over the lip towards my head. “HEY, HEY,” I shouted because I can’t make the preferrable whistle sound. The warning served its purpose and the surfer, able to see that I was already on the wave, pulled back and avoided a collision.

I paddled back to the lineup and didn’t feel inspired to say anything despite almost being skewered by a surfboard. I’m not one to bring aggressive vibes to the water. But the culprit of the near-skewering had a few words for me. “No one yells at me,” he said. “I’m a local and you should go sit over there (pointing to the gutless end section of the wave).” I didn’t feel an apology was warranted and I tried to keep the conversation cordial, but I was already at the end of my session anyway. I paddled in to let this guy sulk on his own in the water.

The hard-to-access right point was non-stop during my first two weeks there. I was almost begging for a break but swells kept marching in from the Atlantic Ocean. Every time I went through the arduous trip to the spot, I didn’t regret it. One early morning I was hoping to paddle out at first light and be one of the first in the water, but I came across a pair of English surfers who had brazenly attempted to take their two-wheel drive car through one of the dangerous deep sand sections of the road. They were stuck and several surfers walked right by them, more concerned about getting in the water than aiding the stranded vehicle.

When I encountered them, I stayed to help. I have the benefit of not being on a quick surf trip, so I can afford to miss a bit of surfing compared to those trying to maximize their yearly vacations. After about 20 minutes of struggling, I helped push the car out and the surfers were on their way. I missed my window of opportunity to be the first in the water, but the crowd was fairly manageable anyway.

During that session, one particular double-up wave lurched over a boil, creating an overly critical takeoff. I realized that my nearly rocker-less fish wasn’t going to make it down the steep face in time so I ejected, jumping feet first off the board and pencil-diving deep to safety. However, when I surfaced, I saw that my board did not escape as easily as my body. The lip had come down right on the deck and split it in half, perfectly down the middle. Just my luck. My two-board quiver had been, quite literally, halved to one.

I started thinking about the butterfly effect, a parallel universe where I hadn’t stopped to help the stranded surfers, where I hadn’t paddled for that wave and my board hadn’t broken. One of the surfers I had helped saw my board and told me that he thought I would have had better karma for that session. That got a chuckle out of me.

Morocco has delivered

Morocco is unique as the only country where Arab and ocean surfing cultures collide in such a grand fashion. I’ll write more extensively about that mixing of cultures as I continue gathering experiences in this country — I’ve got some thoughts. But for now, from a traveling surfer’s point of view, Morocco is well worth a visit. The surfing aspect has not disappointed.

In many ways, Morocco is to European surfers what Mexico is to the U.S. — a quick, easy, and affordable surf trip getaway. I don’t mean to overshare the localism experiences because many of the local surfers are welcoming and kind — but the localism stories were common enough in my experience that it would be dishonest to omit them. I can’t ignore what my eyes have seen. I conjecture it’s the result of the extremely skewed ratio of visitors to locals, as well as the nature of the surf spots, which usually have relatively narrow takeoff zones. I have a few weeks left on my Moroccan tourist visa, so here’s to surfing a few more rights during the final countdown.