More Adventures (Legzira Plage)

A few weeks ago now (that keeps happening…), during our month of independent research, Charley and I decided to travel around Morocco as much as possible. We first headed to Marrakech together to meet up with her friend from school, travelled around there again (discovered I liked it better the second time), then went back to Essaouira. Unfortunately, Charley and her friend picked up food poisoning (from a can of whipped cream we’re guessing, not from Morocco) so we spent those days hanging around our hotel. After two days, we got Charley’s friend on a bus back to Marrakech then set out to get to our desired destination: Legzira Plage. I read about Legzira in a short paragraph in my guidebook, looked up pictures of it, and knew immediately I had to get there. With the food poisoning and visiting friend it looked for a while that I would need to go on my own. Luckily, it worked out in the end that Charley could join me. And due to the travel adventures that followed, I’m so relieved it worked out that way.

Legzira Plage is located just south of Sidi Ifni, the last real southern “town” of Morocco, before the Western Sahara. After lots of asking, we learned our best option for the first leg of our trip would be a bus to Agadir. So we went to the reliable, time-listed bus company. They told us the bus was full for that day and the following day. So un-Moroccan. We usually show up 5 minutes before a train or bus is about to leave with no problem. The woman behind the desk recommended we go to the other bus lot with multiple bus companies that went to multiple locations. So we grabbed a taxi and headed to the station.

As soon as we stepped out of the cab, a man grabbed my suitcase, lead us through the lot filled with buses parked in all directions, and set it down next to his bus, telling us to get on and go to Marrakech. We told him we weren’t interested, grabbed our stuff, and walked away. But we had no idea where to go. The lot was full of people walking in all directions, men shouting out amounts and locations to reel in riders, and we could not see the inside station. Luckily, we found a cop who was able to help us. He told us we could go to Agadir or Inzegane, which was more of a transport hub, then led us inside the station we had failed to see. There, multiple people still called out to us to buy tickets to various locations, but we stuck with the police officer who lead us to a counter where we bought a bus ticket to Inzegane leaving at 3:30. It was then a little after 2pm so we decided to sit at the café right next to the lot of buses. A man who had tried to rip us off earlier came over after about fifteen minutes and told us the bus was leaving. We choose to ignore him. He came back soon after and said, “You’re going to Inzegane, right? The bus is leaving. It’s full. So it’s leaving.” That sounded more like Morocco. We realized he was not messing with us, but instead wanted to make sure we didn’t miss our bus. We dropped off our bags at the bottom of the bus and boarded. We were certainly the only tourists on the bus. Possibly the only non-native Moroccans. The bus was packed but we were fortunate enough to find two seats together. Once we were seated, Charley and I looked to each other and said “This is real traveling.”

During the ride, a man occasionally walked up and down the bus aisles carrying a tray of common Moroccan pastries and cakes for sale. At one point, I saw a big white bucket get passed to the back. A short while later, I heard the noises of someone peeing in a bucket behind me. About an hour into the ride, we began to rock side to side as we climbed up and down mountains. I had taken a Moroccan-version of Dramamine so I felt mostly fine, but I looked up and saw a little girl throw up in the seat in front of me. (For those of you who don’t know, I have a slight phobia of throw-up). As we were winding through the mountains, my backpack was at my feet and began to slide to the motion of the bus. This wasn’t a huge concern for me until I started to feel something at my feet. I first assumed it was someone else’s things shifting in the seat behind me. Then, I realized it was skin that was touching me. With all of the bus rocking, there was no way I was going to be able to bend around and look under my seat, but I began to think there was maybe a child crawling under the seat and was maybe trying to get into my backpack. So I clutched my backpack with my feet as tight as possible. But then I began to feel rubbing. It became clear that another foot was rubbing my foot. I would try and shift my feet, but the other feet would follow me. I looked behind me and saw that it was a man who tried talking to me. I ignored him. Then he began to rub my arm in the space between the two seats. Charley and I were both sleeping/listening to podcasts and didn’t realize that the same thing was happening to the other until the very end of the 2 ½ hour ride when Charley turned to him and said “Safi!”. “That’s enough!”

The bus stopped in Inzegane and we were once again the only non-westerners. Inzegane looked as I imagine India to be: bustling with people, terrible traffic, and streets lined with vendors and food stands. We went into a building listed as a police station and asked how to get to Sidi Ifni. The man behind the counter told a boy to help us and so we were instructed to follow him. He led us around a huge lot full of grande taxis (the taxi’s you take to get in between towns). We wound through the cars as the boy asked multiple drivers for Sidi Ifni. After some questioning, he left us at a car that was headed to Sidi Ifni.

The way grand taxis work (at least for Moroccans) is that there is a set price to get to a location, and that price assumes transportation for six people in ____ car. So you wait until there are six people to leave. Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long for our taxi to fill up, so Charley and I squeezed in the backseat with two other men. Strangely that still felt like a huge relief from the bus. After another 2 ½ hour ride, we arrived in Sidi Ifni and were dropped off at a much smaller taxi lot. It was dark and the rest of the town was quiet. We told our driver we were now looking to get to Legzira. He looked surprised and asked “Tonight? I can take you in the morning.” After a little negotiating, we managed to convince him to take us right then. It was about a 20-minute ride, where we could see nothing around us, but only the parts of the road lit up by the headlights of the car. We turned onto a rocky dirt road and drove down a hill. Our driver stopped the car, got out, and grabbed our suitcases. All we could see was a dirt parking lot with maybe three surrounding buildings, all hotels. Our driver pulled out a flashlight and rang the doorbell at one of the buildings and a man soon came to the doors. He told us the price of the room for the night, we told him it was too much, listed what we were hoping to pay, then he took our bags as a gesture showing he accepted our “offer” of $20 a night for the two of us. When we entered the hotel we realized we might very well be the only guests that night, allowing us to get an ocean view room for $10 each.

That was adventure day 1.

The next day we awoke to the incredible view of long stretches of beach lined by red stone cliffs and arches. We walked a ways on the beach and spent the whole day feeling at ease. Besides maybe 10-15 other tourists that would trickle in throughout the day, we were maybe the only people that staying in Legzira for the night. And that was fine by us.

The following day, we decided to wake up early to maximize our beach time.  This time we headed in the other direction of the long beach stretch, towards the picturesque cliff arches. We walked for about an hour and reached a spot where it appeared we could go no further as the protruding cliff had no arch to walk under. But as we got closer we saw that the water was only a few inches deep, so we walked around the cliff in the shallow water and continued walking. We then reached a spot where we really could go no further, so we set ourselves there for the morning.

It was secluded and beautiful.

We layed there for a few hours until we saw the tide was approaching our towels: a sign it was time to head back. We followed along our same path, then reached the same spot where we had, a few hours earlier, walked around the cliff in shallow water. That spot now had several feet of water and crashing waves. Charley and I laughed to each other and prepared to get wet. We tied our things so that we could hold them high above us and entered into the water. But we soon found out it was going to be more challenging than we thought. The way the water came in around the rocks created a whirlpool effect, which made it impossible to maintain balance, along with digging up sand and creating large drops in unexpected areas. After being thrown around in the water and beginning to fall, we realized it was not going to happen. We also were carrying our journals from the semester and cameras, along with other things that would easily be destroyed by water. We decided our only option at that point would be to climb up the red-stoned cliff.

We tried to climb up one section but quickly found it would be far too steep. So we walked further back and found another section. We only had flip-flops but the rocks of the cliff were too loose and steep, so we had to climb barefoot. We crawled up the cliff, using our hands for balance. Once we reached the top, we were able to see the tips of some buildings and realized that we would be ok; there would be no need for us to spend the night on the beach. We walked over the cliff and found a less steep path that lead back down to the beach. But just as we could see the sand we hit a 15-foot drop. So we climbed our way back up. We realized our best option at that point would be to find the road and follow the road back to our hotel.    

30 minutes later we reached the road. And a total of 2 hours later, we reached out hotel. It wasn’t until we were back within sight of our hotel that we let out all of the thoughts that passed through our heads to each other: “Ok, we can ration our few sips of water” “Ok, we will just have to wait until 8pm, then the tide should change so we won’t have to sleep on the beach” “Ok, you can survive off of no food for at least 24 hours” “Ok, we’ll be ok.”

And that was adventure number two.

We managed to make it back to Rabat rather painlessly and managed to avoid taking any buses. But we were glad we got the experience that we did. We spent our last week of our independent study project (in which I worked on a Moroccan Cookbook!) in Asilah to write. It is also where I woke up the morning of my 21^st birthday before heading back to Rabat the same day. Tomorrow marks the last official day of our program. It is yet to hit me. My family arrives on Saturday, which has allowed me to save my goodbyes. Because I am not ready.