Imsouane village

After eight weeks in lock down, we are getting to know the village a little better. The area is all about surfing. We do not surf and nobody else is supposed to be surfing. I have no idea what makes for good surfing conditions but every few days it appears to happen. Probably something to do with waves. The surfers go out. A little later, the police arrive and blow their whistles. There is then a fair bit of running around as the surfers try to avoid being caught and getting their boards confiscated. There is probably not too much danger of losing their boards, as the police seem disinclined to run in the heat.

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Most of the buildings here are to support surfers. Hotels, apartments and other types of holiday accommodation. Mostly they appear to be aiming at the cheaper end of the market. Nearly all the buildings are empty just now giving the whole place an air of abandonment. Like many Moroccan villages, there are numerous unfinished building projects and this adds to the overall sense that everyone has packed up and left. Painting is much more common here than the inland villages. I guess this is a nod to surfer culture. Many buildings are painted bright colours. Murals are quite common, although some of them are only distinguishable from graffiti by taking a generous view of their intent.

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So far, I have found eight shops. There is a pharmacy and a tobacconist. The other six shops all sell exactly the same limited selection of products apart from one who does not sell vegetables. Trying to photograph a shop is difficult. Quite a lot of the locals do not like photographs being taken. Not of them, or the shops or anything. The other day someone threatened to throw a stone at me just because I was carrying a camera. This attitude must be counterproductive in a resort so heavily dependent on tourism. Superstition and fear underlie much of this. In city centres, there are locals who encourage photography on the clear understanding that they will be paid.  In the more rural areas, there is a fear of witchcraft and exploitation once someone has taken your photo. Fortunately the village is quiet enough that I can grab a few pictures on the deserted streets.

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This last picture, a map of temperature, explains why we came to Imsouane. It has been quite hot in Morocco over the last week or so. In Marrakesh it has reached 38°C. At Errachidia, where we started our long drive to get here, it is 36°C. Further south, some of the places we visited in Western Sahara have been in the mid-forties and Atar, in Mauritania, is regularly around 48°C. Look carefully at the map and you will see a thin, cool (yellow) strip running along the coast. This is the cooling effect of the Canary Current, a wind-driven surface current that is part of the North Atlantic Gyre. It brings cooler water south from Portugal and carries it all the way to Senegal. This is why the coast of Western Sahara and Mauritania can be reasonably pleasant while just a short way inland the heat becomes brutal. We are north of Agadir, marked by the X. Inland are the Atlas Mountains. These also contribute to cooling. You can see the cool yellow area ENE of where we are. So we are staying here, staying relatively cool, until we are ready drive north for the ferry. With the extension of the lock down period, we have chosen to go for a later ferry, June 15^th. Our hope is that some of the travel restrictions will have been lifted by then and it will be easier to get around.