Sitting on the beach drinkin' rocket fuel

We found ourselves at a little known town called Safi, famous for two things, the phosphate mine and the pottery. With a cool Medina and the most authentic souk we found in Morocco, this town did have a surprise appeal. We even caught some of the Olympics on a local TV.

The town itself was great but we were on a surf trip so we headed off in search of a beach. We found an incredible beach about 10 km North of town, that was actually used in a well known Pro Surfing tour and decided to camp. This beach is well known by the locals as a free camping site, as such there was very little impact of tourism.

It was Mariannes birthday so we befriended some local guys and had a party.

Our generous host at the beach invited us home to meet the family and eat lunch. It was awesome.

Now we have noticed something about the impact of tourism that deserves comment. Most new age hippy wanna be backpackers are in search of an authentic off the beaten track adventure, this means they are predisposed to poo poo the idea of tourism. I can understand that, if you've been to the Gold Coast in Australia you can see what tourism can do to a place, but... there are some positive effects too. Specifically I am referring to environmental advocacy. I don't want to spoil the images of this awesome place, but the lack of planning for effective waste disposal leaves a bad taste (and smell).

Among other things thrown into the water at high tide are some heavy metals.

This once secret place is still used by big name surfing tours and hopefully, in the future the increase of tourists will improve the environmental policies in the area.

Ok. I am off my soap box now, it is folded up under the bed for another day....

Now back to the story...

After Safi we headed further South to the capital of wind sports in North Western Africa.