Out and About

Morocco itself is a country of unique character and contrasts, a sensual experience of sounds, smells and colours, desert, mountains and fertile valleys and plains, a country to fall in love with. The Berbers are the indigenous population, converted to Islam by the Arabs who named Morocco 'Al Bilad Al Maghrib' - the western edge.

Our B&B house is in Aourir, a Berber town 10 kilometres north of Agadir and 2 kilometres south of Tagazhout, the surfing centre of Morocco. The beaches here are sandy with lots of good surf breaks. Best waves can be found between the months of October and March. Around the end of March the weather hots up and the surf drops to 2-3 ft. The town of Aourir is also a short ride from the famous Paradise Valley and the surrounding mountains, where you can walk or cycle to your heart's content. Aourir has its own open-air weekly souk, which sells anything you might need. As well as the colourful piles of fruit and vegetables and spices there are stalls selling mats, carpets, cushions and blankets, pots and pans, traditional jewellery and clothing and some second hand goods.

Aourir is also a centre for the small, sweet bananas of Morocco and has a street bordered with quality tagine restaurants where lamb, goat, beef or chicken and vegetables are steamed in their own gravy in a conical pot called a tagine. Tagines are usually served with freshly cooked flat bread and mint tea.

In Tagazhout, the nearby surfing village, there is the Paix Restaurant, which serves excellent, cheap food and has European style toilets. Agadir is close for your banking needs and in Agadir there are also several nightclubs and a large, European style supermarket called Marjane. There is an excellent fish market where you can share a platter of various fried seafood with family and friends to the accompaniment of street musicians.

There is plenty to do in the area. Nearby red-walled Taroudant is worth a visit, home of the leather industry and with a wonderful souk for carpets and lanterns. Tiznit, further south is home of the silver and gold jewellery trade. We can also point you in the direction of some excellent but less-publicised surf breaks in the vicinity Or you may take a couple of days and progress even further south to another good surf break at Sidi Ifni, an ex-Spanish enclave where Spanish is spoken rather than French and the buildings are colonial. You may even hear some excellent flamenco. If you travel north you will reach white-walled, Essaouira with its harbour and artists' colony, home of wind-surfing and beautiful artifacts made from thuja wood.

There is a great diversity of wildlife in Morocco. In the last few years many management programmes have been introduced - mainly for the argan forests, producers of the exceptionally fine argan nut oil - and wild bird colonies. The Oued Souss estuary and Massa Lagoon, 40km south of Agadir, provide rewarding views of a variety of waders and wildfowl, including the greater flamingo, spoonbill, avocet and greenshank to name a few.

The bird song in Morocco is wonderful. There are also wild boar in the mountains and a variety of bugs, beetles, tortoises, snakes and lizards, all of them harmless.

Morocco is a vegetarian's paradise, producing a huge variety of fruit, vegetables and pulses including the sweetest and largest oranges and pomegranates in the world.

Morocco is a treasure trove of geological wonders. In our locality alone you can travel from the blow holes in the Jurassic coast north of Agadir to the natural caves, formations and cascades on the road to Immouzer in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The road to Immouzer passes through 400 million year old fossil beds and there are many shops along the route selling remarkable examples of huge ammonites and fossilised sea animals.

The weather in the Agadir area during the season September to March is unpredictable. You may have days with blue skies and hot sunshine, rather like an English summer at its best, or, less frequently, days of high winds. Around December there are also days of much-needed rain, after which the tomsin (wheat) begins to sprout, the spring flowers and greenery arrive and the rivers are fed more water and cleansed. The mountains are particularly beautiful at this time. Nights can be cold but we provide warmth with thick, colourful, Berber blankets.