Surf's Up

This amazing beach is located just south of Asilah. Locals call it Playa "something" and it’s been a favourite among the locals there for years. Mehdi, who grew up in Asilah, has spend most of his summers on this beach and knows the road like the back of his hand. It’s a rough road to get there, almost half an hour of extremely rugged terrain over the hills and cliffs of the countryside to arrive in paradise no less.

The beach is so beautiful and spans as far as the eye can see. The very private and surprisingly simple Hermes beach house sits on the edge of this shore overlooking the vanishing Atlantic. The sand is a beautiful orange colour and the terrain is rocky and ruggedly romantic. Since the beach is so remote and difficult to get to it remains almost private and therefore it's a wonderful gathering place for the local families. Overlooking the beach is the only restaurant where we all congregated and lunchtime. Once they know how many people are on the beach, they send out someone to go get fresh fish and food to cook for us. It was wonderful.

For lunch we started with simple fresh salad of veggies drenched in local Moroccan olive oil. Then moved onto grilled sardines which were huge and delicious. We all just pulled them apart with our hands one by one directly on the table. No plates, no utensils, it was exhilarating! There was a very delicious Spanish omelette tortilla which we destroyed in no time.

The main dish was a tagine of local fresh fish drench in the most delicious sauce made with local spices accompanied by thinly sliced potatoes and tomatoes. It had the perfect kick to it.  Sadly only two fish remained so we had to share them among almost 10 of us. It was a mix of Mehdi’s family and some friends from Spain who have also come to this beach for years. We were all just so happy together and divied up the food to share and we were all most than satisfied. It felt so good just to be out there in nature and to eat among wonderful people. William even played us a little guitar while we polished off a bottle of rose we had brought along for lunch.

La vie est trop belle. I felt so incredible lucky.