We lingered several days at Sidi Ifni and our lives settled into a pleasant routine of walking up a long flight of steps from the beach camp site into town. Sometimes we stopped for a coffee at one of the many pavement cafés where, if you wanted a strong white coffee, you asked for (sounds like) “nos nos” (Arabic: meaning half and half). There were no Moroccan women in the cafés, just men and us tourists.
If we needed anything done, the camp site gate keeper acted like a concierge. We asked him to find a welder to repair our steps. The following day the job was done – the repair cost less than £20; in Spain we had a similar job done and it had cost €180. Jawad, the travelling barber was summoned to cut our hair. He was bald and almost reduced Tony to a similar style. I fared a little better.
We needed a new plastic matting for outside the truck and a local shopkeeper arrived on a moped precariously balancing a roll of matting 6 metres x 2 metres. The price he charged, including delivery, was £18.
And then we discovered the generator was not working. Tony spent a frustrating day trying to diagnose the fault and concluded it must be the starter motor, a major problem. A mechanic was contacted and he found that the problem was actually a faulty generator battery. Off he went and returned with a new battery and the problem was solved – such a relief! The new battery cost £65 plus £30 for the mechanic’s time.
Most evenings we would wander next door to Hotel Ait Baamrane for a beer; we would sit on the terrace overlooking the beach watching the windsurfers. Sometimes we would stay and have supper in the dining room – Moroccan salad, bottle of wine, fresh grilled fish or chicken skewers with French fries and fresh bread – total food spend £16 plus £17 for the beer and wine – alcohol was relatively expensive in Morocco.
Moroccan salad was one of our favourite starters – finely chopped onions, peppers, cucumber, tomato and fresh herbs – served drizzled with olive oil. We’ve tried to replicate it at home but it was never as good. The salad was freshly prepared and served at room temperature – as opposed to being pre-prepared and stored in a fridge. We had simple food served by friendly waiters who were really eager to please. Made us feel that we, the customers, were valued and worth looking after. It was a good feeling.
