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Travel
Get swept away by Morocco’s coolest adventure sport –
Wednesday October 10 | 2018
TAKING FLIGHT A kitesurfer performing tricks above a camel – who luckily didn’t get the hump
kite surfing
An opportunity to ride north Africa’s waves brings Stephen White to the pretty coastal town Essaouira READY TO BRAVE THE WAVES Stephen White with his surfboard
L
IKE a bolt from the blue, an unexpected sunbeam of an invitation to visit Morocco lands in my inbox and instantly brightens up my ever-darkening September. It promises sun, sea and sand, alongside the sights, sounds and tastes of the ancient port city of Essaouira. Oh, and the chance to learn kitesurfing… “Yes, please.” But as the date neared, I began to wonder how I, now the wrong side of 60, grey of hair, carrying more pounds than I’d like to admit, and more in the habit of drinking oceans than surfing them, would cope with it all? After a smooth as silk three-and-a-halfhour flight from Luton, we touched down at Essaouira’s beautiful airport (think mirrored walls and palm trees).
A minibus carried us past the beach where a line of camels was silhouetted perfectly against the sun just beginning to dip below the Atlantic, before dropping us outside the old maze-like medina close to our home for the next couple of nights, KiteWorldwide’s Riad Essaouira. WARMING HOSPITALITY Here, we enjoyed our first experience of Moroccan hospitality; an impressive and delicious dinner prepared in the tiny kitchen by locals Zahira and Reguraguia. It was a beautiful smorgasbord of traditional tagines – mixed vegetables, aubergine, lamb with prunes and apricots and, my favourite, chicken with tangy olives and lemon. In a flash, it was 5.45am the next day, and the still-dark silence was shattered by the piercing
voice of the muezzin from a nearby mosque, calling the faithful to prayer – as he does five times every day. After breakfast, we enjoyed a 15-minute walk in the sun to the wide undulating beach south of the city to meet Nasser, owner of the Explora Surf School, and his team of instructors. We changed into wetsuits and headed barefoot across the animal-packed beach, full of horses, camels and dogs. And I soon realised that the small, round, dark brown objects strewn everywhere, some of them shiny and new, weren’t pebbles! The wind was too light for the kites, so it was on to a bit of surfing. Our instructors were expert and keen – they demonstrated how to position yourself on our board, how to catch a wave, then slide to your A TASTE OF THE MOROCCAN BLUES Essaouira port after sunset at ‘blue hour’