Moulay Boussleham – a long name, a beautiful beach (During Ramadan)

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Moulay Boussleham – a long name, a beautiful beach

The hot summer sun in North Africa is unforgiving… That statement is a fact. Foregoing the consumption of water to better experience Ramadan, coupled with 110+ degree daily temps, makes a cold dip in the sea sound extremely inviting! However, even those extreme circumstances were not enough to get us into the insanely cold Atlantic Ocean. Yes, even in July, the water was freezing at our beautiful African beach!

The Beach at Moulay Boussleham reminds us so much of our now faraway Florida home. The sound of the waves crashing into the shore and the smell of salt and sea brought much nostalgia. So many miles from our family and friends in the US, this trip to Moulay, led us to finally talk about how much our lives have changed after eight months here. But, even with all of the changes, our many journeys made during this time, and the continued fulfillment of our long-time need to experience other cultures, our deep love for the beach and all that comes with it remains unchanged.

This small town is not a place you will find when searching on the internet for sights to see in Morocco. It should be. Also, it does not have easy to find hotels or advertising for tourists. It should. We were only lucky enough to learn about the place because a Moroccan friend’s family spends the summers there and she really just wanted us to see it. We had heard from other locals that it should not be missed, so how could we resist the trip? Ksar el Kebir had become a literal ghost town due to the heat, summer vacations and Ramadan.

As usual, with travel in Morocco, we knew that getting there and back would be its own adventure. When we learned that the only way to get there was by grand taxi, we headed off to find one that we could hopefully negotiate for a decent price. One of the constant challenges in Morocco is that almost everything must be bargained for, except for staples such as milk, bread, eggs and fuel. Although we both feel we are pretty good negotiators, Moroccan bargaining is a unique game of its very own, which is learned starting in the crib. We are getting much better at it, as our language improves. However, the battle over prices remains stressful at times. On top of not having Moroccan-honed skill, we also don’t look like the locals either, even though Clay wears his dress most days (the dress is a whole other story).

Grand Taxis… Ah, the grand taxis are also a story in themselves. However, let’s just give you the short of it. Grand taxis are all Mercedes Benz, but nothing like what you are thinking when that name comes to mind… oh no. They do not have air conditioning. Most of them have close to flat, bald and very scary tires. They do not have seat belts, although if they did, no one would wear one. There is no automatic feature of any kind… including the transmissions. The rare grand taxi might actually have a window crank available for use in the back seat, but you will have to ask the driver for it, and you might be charged to use it. We are actually thinking about buying a crank to carry with us on our travels. The grand taxis have two separate seats in front with the gear shift in between. Let us make this point very clear… there are two regular sized seats in the front of the grand taxis… period. Now, the driver occupies one seat and the other seat is actually counted as two spots. That means that two passengers ride in the other seat… you know, the other normal sized seat up front. Now, the back seat (which could theoretically hold three people comfortably, provided none of them is to large) is for four passengers. Yep, four ride in the back. The grand taxi will only leave for its destination when all six places have been purchased… or a reasonable amount of time has gone by waiting for that event. Reasonable, in this case, is based upon the driver’s opinion… period. However, you may buy as many places +as you want, so if you want to leave right away and no one else is waiting to go, you buy all six places. We usually buy the four back seats and avoid unpleasant long trips. We learned our lesson early on when one of the passenger’s butts made us have to sit sideways in order to fit… quite literally. However, if you are traveling alone, purchasing two seats and occupying the front passenger’s seat is a good idea.

For the trip to Moulay, we ended up renting the entire taxi (6 seats, or “sta blasses”) as no one else was going in that direction. After some negotiating, it cost us 300 Dirhams, or about $40, which is not cheap for Morocco. But, after seeing what the taxi went through on the drive, it seemed like a great bargain. It is an understatement to say that the road from Ksar el Kebir to Moulay Boussleham leaves much to be desired. At some points, the road disappeared and at others, rocks were the road. There were donkeys and horses with carts, as well as large trucks to be passed. There was some confusing road construction out in the middle of nowhere, which tried to discourage our driver from going to our destination at all. God bless Moroccan stubbornness!!! He was relentless and against all warnings of danger and missing road, he drove on. So with fingers crossed, eyes closed, sweating profusely and with no hope for a drink of water until 7:30 p.m. or so, due to Ramadan fasting… we plowed head first towards Moulay.

We were lucky enough and very thankful to have a window crank for this trip as it was over 100 degrees outside. After a hot and muggy, approximately 2 hour ride (arriving at about noon), our driver and ourselves thoroughly dehydrated, we were dropped off at a roundabout overlooking the ocean. We called our friend, who was waiting for us to arrive and while we waited, we were the subject of many stares and had one solicitation from a gentleman offering to sell us some hash. Of course, we declined. It was only a short wait until our friend showed up and rescued us.

Our friend had arranged for us to stay in the bottom floor of a house for the two nights we were there. In small towns in Morocco, you will not find any accommodations unless you know someone. For example, if you look up our own town of Ksar el Kebir, which has over 100,000 people, you will find little information on it at all. Moulay is much, much smaller. There are no internet postings, no signs or newspaper ads for available rentals. The house was in a typical Moroccan neighborhood. It was warm at night so the windows had to be kept open (remember… A/C just doesn’t exist here) and mosquitos were happily buzzing and biting. And, because it was Ramadan, people were up the entire night and kids were playing soccer outside our windows until 3 a.m. or so. Sleep eluded us, as did clean sheets (when it was clear that the beds had not been changed before our arrival, we ended up sleeping in the living room) or ponges (Moroccan couches). As an added surprise, the refrigerator had a previous guest’s food in it and it was unclear as to how long ago that was. It was a mystery why the man who had met us earlier to take our money and give us the key was proud about having personally cleaned the place. Oh Morocco…

We now have three wonderful, stand-out memories from this trip. First, we had a delicious and intimate meal, breaking the Ramadan fast, with our good friend and her parents (the breaking fast meal is called “luh-fit-tour”) on our second night there. As the sun set over the blue water, which was our view from the balcony of their summer place, the smells of traditional homemade soup (“ha-rear-ah”**) filled the air. We had the most wonderful fresh, peach juice and let us say there is nothing like it! There were savory and sweet pastries, dates and “sha-beck-ee-ah” the traditional sweet dough served at this meal. We all conversed as best we all could in our different languages and had some laughs. But, best of all, we shared a Moroccan tradition with people we care about. It is so hard to explain how communication happens in our mixed up language attempts, but it does! We told our hosts that the food was “bah-neena!” (meaning, delicious). At the end of this wonderful experience, we were left with full bellies, full hearts and a standing invitation for dinner anytime.

The second memory involves a woman whom we met our first night in Moulay when we had our own break-fast meal at a restaurant. Restaurants offer the elements of the l’ftour meal for a prix-fix price (traditional soup, dates, 2 kinds of sweet pastries, orange juice, a hard-boiled egg and coffee or mint tea). This woman, currently living in Indonesia, but previously from England, sat at a table behind us, and was strangely entertaining. Surprisingly, travelling alone as a woman in Morocco, she was kind of a hippie type, probably late-50’s and had tales of living all over. She made it a specific point, every so often, to detail the times when YOUNGER men had courted her attention in Morocco. All of this free came without the assistance of any alcoholic beverages (no alcoholic beverages are available in Morocco during the month of Ramadan. Let us repeat: NO alcoholic beverages are available to purchase in the entire country of Morocco during the entire month of Ramadan!). We (well, let’s be honest… Clay) offered our home to her for a night or two as she was traveling up north, but she never contacted us.

The final thing we will take away from our experience is the beauty of this exquisite beach, which provided a reminder of our former home. Unfortunately for the locals, there are so many missed opportunities for tourism. In addition to the fact that there is no advertising for this place, there is also a great hill of garbage and dilapidated shacks, where people live (with beautiful views!) on the water. Garbage is a general problem in Morocco and one of our lessons for the youth with whom we work involves teaching about the value of a clean environment. Some say that the introduction of plastic bags and coke bottles caused the problem in Morocco, but to us, who observe what’s really going on, it appears that there is no real concern or education about even using a garbage can even when it is available. For example, it is common practice to eat a pack of cookies and just throw the wrapper on the ground.

Another problem with tourism might be due to the issue of harassment. We have heard that there is significant harassment of women in Moulay and that tourists are not overly welcome. We did not experience anything unfortunate, but then again, Clay wears a traditional dress and we speak some of the language, and people love that fact.

The ride on the way back was as hot, dehydrating and bumpy as the way there. We negotiated a little bit cheaper price for the return, which gave us some satisfaction. When we got back to Ksar, we were home…. home for now, anyway... and glad to be so. Wherever it is, there’s no place like home, Toto.





*** Hareera is a blended tomato based soup with chick peas, a trilogy of herbs (celery leaves, parsley and cilantro), onion, garlic, ground ginger, paprika, red pepper and some other things.

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