Afrikisurf – A surf trip to West Africa

It’s been a while since the last post.. Surfed a bit every now and then, but nothing great due to many missed days (because of the car-trouble, too much wind, sickness, sidetrips..) but it’s been alright. Staying in N’Gor village since the beginning and rented different places, all overpriced compared to what locals pay. And it can be superloud here, so far three people died in the neighbourhood since we are here and this means endless ceremonies with singing, talking, cooking and noise throughout the night, every time for three days. Haven’t done much but enjoying holidays with my girlfriend Astrid; she came to see me for some two weeks which was fantastic! Unfortunately both of us got sick a lot, never-ending stomach-troubles for two entire weeks, both of us. It was so nice to discover all the things with Astrid, it’s the first time for her in Africa and she got used to wait, to be in tight taxis or to eat whatever there is (whick led to the stomach problems..). We had the funniest rides ever, one cabdriver almost ruined his car because he was mad with me as he didn’t knew where we wanted to go and I had no clue either. So he got nervous, asked around but never seemed to understand what people told him, pulled over where there was no way and the whole car shook and jumped around.. Anyway, went to see a few things (she also spent more than one day with us at the customs, very exciting no?) and did a great trip by ferry down into the Casamance. Learned a few things about travelling again; by now I am used having my own car and all that, without that it is a whole different thing. Had to get tickets, only pullman-seats available which was a trip to hell for a whole night.We tried to sleep in the gangways or other places but we were not allowed. And on deck it was very windy and wet, so no option. The seats were right in front of a TV, airconditioned and not enough clothes (stupid me..), noise and a sore body after the first hour. Arrived in Ziguinchor the next morning, tired as hell. Straight to Cap Skirring where we took whatever room they showed us and got mad on it later on as for this price you should get the whole hotel.. Anyway, the following day we moved to a friends place out in the bush and right at the sea with kind of a private beach as there is no one else, and this was the time to relax for us, finally. Spent some lovely days down there, ate huge dishes of shrimps and fish and just enjoyed not doing much except a little walk here, or a swim in warm water, just in boardies. It is already a whole lot different down in the Casamance, people are very nice and there is a lot of fruits and tropical stuff around. It’s green and a lot warmer (but still colder as last year, it seems to be way colder all in all). On the way back we managed to get two places in a cabin and slept like babies, what a great night on the ferry compared to the other one! So if you plan to take the ferry, book in advance and take food and drinks on it, it is superexpensive.

Now we are back in Dakar, in N’Gor Village again. Astrid just left back to Vienna, back to the cold and fog. For me it’s time to team up with Marc again and move together with my good friend Pascal (traveled together on the last trip) who arrived a week ago. Will rent a place together at the far end of the village, right at the sea and away from the noise. Hope to get some surf the next days; today we will go to the customs again and try to sort out the car-disaster. Once this is done we have to get some visas and then head towards Bamako, Mali in about ten days or so..

After many phonecalls we figured out the car should be free to roll, the final papers done. Well, at first it seemed like, but reading it closer it wasn’t. All the documents we needed to do, all the application forms and stamps and signatures to get the paper we need (admission temporaire exceptionelle; for a car older than five years and without carnet de passage) finally got us this admission. And we were nearly out of it, people telling us “yeah you can drive now for a month without problems..” but I doubted it. There was this one paragraph I didn’t understand, neither someone else in the first place. They came to the conclusion that our demand was actually refused from whoever at the customs. And we got ten days to get a new dossier (price 35′000 CFA, about 55 Euro) with a permission to Re-Ecport the car. And an agent from the customs has to drive with us to whatever border we will choose, taking 75′000 CFA each way which is about 120 Euro. I got mad at that and thought it’s bullshit, the problem was that for this I had to negotiate with two guys that deal with it and I haven’t seen them before. After a while one made clear that if I really do not want this agent, then the sum is negotiable. Well, if it is negotiable and avoidable, then it is bullshit right?

At the moment we got the car back, all the papers we need and we are allowed to drive. But we have to figure out if we want to give a shit on that Re-Export thing and just try go get out of the Senegal without it and rist to get stuck either at a checkpoint or eventually at the border, or if we want to deal with it more time..

Still trying, spent more days and are still not sure wether it will work out one day. Sooo many papers, stamps and signatures needed and there’s always more and more.. The car has to stay at the “Depot” of the customs in Dakar for some time until everything is sorted out. What we managed to do so far is not paying any bribes and we also made sure we won’t pay anything as we know this is kind of the legal way; the problem is that some of the people that do the work for us and make it faster (believe me, without any help through friends of Marc we would not get the papers, we would have been refused already the first day) will ask for some gifts or money at the end as this is the way things are handled here. Some of them really do just help us out, others will have some interests in it.

What we know by now: It would be easier to do it the illegal way and pay someone to organise the papers for us with bribing. It may sound paradox regarding the current law which says you cannot import cars older than five years and you are not allowed to sell your car in the Senegal, but it would actually be easier to sell it than to get the legal papers for it! The main problem we’ve got is the very slow and complicated burocratic system which involves so many different offices and branches of the government. Each of them needs to set up another paper, and the head of the branch finally has to sign and stamp it. They are not always there. They are busy. They are not interested in doing it. They want money we won’t pay. They think of another solution which doesn’t work out eventually. This is what happens, every day.

By now we’ve got so many documents that i can’t even remember what they are for. At one point we even had to go to Interpol and they checked our Chassis-Number and figured out that everything is fine with this car, it’s not regarded as stolen or anything like that. Or yesterday for example: arrived at 8am, waited the whole morning with some things done in between and at lunch time we were told that we will get everything at 4 or 5 pm and will be able to drive away with the car, all done and good. Well, unfortunately one signature was missing and the guy left already, so come back another day. At 6 pm we stepped out of the office and the car was gone. Before that we had to leave the key as a deposit until the papers will be ready, so they were so keen to drive it away. Not far though, just down the road where the “Depot” is but it sucks anyway as we will need more time to get it out there again…

Quick Info: After trying hard to get into the Country we still do not have any correct or legal paper for the car, and this is on day four.. If you come by car, do not take a car older than FIVE years, and take a Carnet de Passage. The law changed mid last year so be warned. And do not take the border at Djama anymore, it`s the biggest trouble you can imagine, more than 50 cars and trucks waiting to get in since weeks! We made it to Dakar somehow, not very legal but at least we made it without bribing. More Infos soon..

Infos for those who plan to cross the border into Mauritania: Leaving Morocco is easy, in our case the whole procedure was slowed down as we arrived right at lunch time and the custom-guys just left for one and a half hours. Luckily the car-scanner was out of order, so it was still faster than last year. Leaving Morocco and entering Mauritania, with all the paperwork, customs, insurance and stuff on both sides took a bit more than three hours, last year it was double the time. It’s all easy and people will help you, just ask your way through the different offices. You do not have to take any guides or outside help for anything. The No-Man’s-Land called Kandahar, a stretch of 4km in between the two countries, is an easy drive over a few rocks and sandpatches, if you are not sure about the way just follow another car or truck. The paper for the car called “Passavant” can be purchased right after customs, insurance for Mauritania as well. To change money is possible, but as usual with a lower rate than in the next town. Driving through Mauritania is a lot easier if you have some “Fiches de renseignement” prepared, a piece of paper with all the necessary infos about yourself and other people in the car, as well as details about the car. This is handy already in Western Sahara, so you should have it ready anyway for all the checkpoints.

And most important: Mauritania is safe, there is no more hijacking or attacks and they do their best for your security. An Al-Quaida attack on the president could be prevented; just outside the capital city Nouakchott the military chased a suspicious truck, they shot on each other and finally the truck with tons of dynamite exploded…

We’ve spent five days in Nouadhibou, between Cap Blanc and some other areas around the city. Got to surf again for a bit, tried several points and a reef but the wind f***ed it up again when we finally had a bigger swell. Again, maybe next time…
Our encounters with the military is unbelievable and can’t be told here, just one thing has to be said though: Due to a phonenumber i got from lastyear we hooked up with THE man from the military in this area, and from then on everything was easy and smooth, we only had to mention his name if there was any doubts. This lead us to several invitations too, and we got to know quite a bit of the mauritanian culture.
The Cap Blanc is worth to visit, not just for the amazing view and wildlife but also for very friendy people. We’ve spent most of our time there, cooked together with the three people who live and work there. One takes care of the lighthouse and you would not believe how he moves around and does stuff with his body and hands while speaking in the funniest way ever, the other two work for the Parc National des Bancs d’Arguin and their knowledge is unbelievable. We got to see seals, tons of fish and thousands of birds including pelicans and an eagle eating a fish and covered in blood, all just right next to us.
Nouadhibou itself is not very nice, it’s Mauritania’s economical capital and it’s far away from beeing eco-friendly with several harbors, heavy industry including petrol-raffineries and all kind of mineral treatments. The amount of fish here must be endless, at least they fish as it would be endless. Let’s see in a couple of years…

Unfortunately the winds never seem to stop, so surfing wasn’t much of an issue over the last weeks. If it would have been bigger, lots bigger, we would have been in the right places, sheltered from the strong winds. Maybe next time…
Despite that, we had a very good time around Dakhla, mostly because of Marc’s friends Sami (mentioned in the last update) and his crew. Whenever we ate something it was the most delicious moroccan food one can imagine, well prepared and eaten with pleasure. Waiting for it to be ready is another story, this tought us patience, for hours sometimes. Let’s put it that way: We made plans to do a BBQ-night at the beach together, so we showed up at Sami’s Café around seven and went to the market for fish and all that. Barça-Real was on TV so we watched the game first, chatted for a while and then went down to the beach, started with preparations slowly. It was 1:30am by the time we started eating, a bit later than we expected.. Dakhla is such a nice and moon-like area, it’s stunning and very different than the rest of Morocco’s coastline. No wonder that so many elder Europeans travel down here in their luxury camping cars to spend a few weeks or months in the sun.

Luckily we got to see at least a few mountains around Tafraout in between the rain, clouds and fog before we headed back to the coast. Mirleft was nice as usually but not much surf. We took a look at the stunning rock-arcs at Legzira before entering Sidi Ifni where we got a few good waves in a decent swell, unfortunately not at the famous Boats Point but at one of the regularly surfed reefs in front of the town. Sidi Ifni is kind of the border between the average surfers who travelled all the way down here from Europe or who come to Agadir for two weeks, and between those who are commited to enter the Western Sahara and travel far down, either to Dakhla or to other countries. Here it spreads the crowd; if you go further south you will mostly surf on your own, you will have to find spots and ways to get to them, and you will see amazing potential. In our case there was barely any swell and very strong northwinds for more than five days. And this is about the time it took us to go down to Dakhla where we can spend a few days relaxing and prepare ourselves to enter “Black Africa” when crossing the border to Mauritania.
From Sidi Ifni it is roughly one thousand kilometer to Dakhla, another four hundred to the border. Landscape doesn’t change much once you passed Tan-tan, colors are all the same and it is either sand or rocks. This year it’s been raining lots, there was a lot more bushes and water around, everything greener even past Laayoune where there isn’t much else than wind and dust.
In Tarfaya we got to know the local Surfclub and headed straight to a wind-sheltered wave with them, only knee high but a perfectly shaped spot. After that, once again we were invited all the time for great meals or the one hour lasting tea-ceremonies. We got to eat typical food from the Saharawi-people, as for breakfast for example it was kind of a soup similar to porridge, but very thin, tasteless and richened with olive-oil. Everything was Saharawi-style, the sugar in large chunks and the dades from their own oasis in the Vallée du Dràa. Nasjid, the owner of the Surfclub, took us to the beach with a Char à Voile, it’s like  windsurfing on wheels as you sit in a chair with the sail above your head. These things go pretty fast, especially with that strong northwind along the beach. As we both have no idea about windsurfing and that thing you couldn’t say we had much control of it, it was more like “go with the flow” and trying not to fall over at full speed.
South of Boujdour, while looking for a sheltered spot to spend the night in between weird rock formations, we bumped into an illegal fishing village. Illegal because every boat down here is allowed to catch a certain amount of octopus within three months; once they reach that, some of them continue in places out of sight. That doesn’t mean no one knows, it’s the opposite and everyone is involved. So the police get their piece out of it and the guys from the Ministery of Fishing get a couple of hundred Dirham here and there. Apparentely, fishing octopus in Morocco has never been paid so well as now. Foreigners buy it straight off the fishermen, so they pay less as there is no more dealers in between, and the fishermen get much more than before. This example can be used for many other things as well, let’s say olive-oil or hash or whatever. This means, with the crisis in Europe and because of that less jobs for Moroccans in France or Spain, that Morocco’s economy is doing very well and the need to find work in Europe isn’t as strong as it used to be. Many Moroccans come back as they earn more money here than they do in Europe, and it goes without saying that life is cheaper, they got friends and family here and all in all a better life.
Dakhla is probably Moroccos fastest growing city, within only few years it tripled in size and population. They’re not building a house here and there, it is several hundred houses built here and several hundred built there, at the same time. It’s greener due to a lot of groundwater, so there’s palmtrees, bushes and grass along the mainroads, there’s parks and gardens. People here are probably the freest within Morocco, as most of them migrated down from the north. It is not as strict here as people don’t know each other, it’s not like in any other village or town where everyone knows what the other one does, and it’s amazing how many people are strolling around at night, even kids and women.
Here in Dakhla, we are teaming up with my belgian friend Walther to cross Mauritania. I know him from last year, and you might remember the pictures where we park in the shelter of his huge Unimog (check www.wildmog.com). We will all benefit from traveling together, not for security reasons but for experience and for the ability to cross whatever sanddune we would like to. Also met other people down here, for example Will, an english guy i got to know in Portugal, a true soul surfer, charging on his own. Through him we know where to apply for surfing the best wave in the area (no swell yet, still waiting for that..) and he showed us a hot spring with sulfur water, almost at the beach. It’s coming out of a pipe from deep down and it’s just perfect temperature. We spent a lot of time with Samir, a moroccan friend of Marc who lifes here since a couple of years. At daytime he is teaching, at nightime he takes care of his Café/Restaurant. He is probably the funniest and most westerly guy in town, and on top of that his knowlegde is incredible. With him we finally got to eat a homemade Cous-Cous, which is a typical meal on friday, after going to the Mosque. And now it’s time for a small-wave surf and to get some fish for a BBQ at the beach tonight… Next news will be from Blach Africa, from Nouhadibou in Mauritania, so stay tuned…

Picked up the Visa for Mauritania in Rabat; still a big mess at the embassy, but at least there were less people and it was less trouble than last time. We already had everything we needed (application forms filled out, fotocopies and all the rest they ask for). Took us two hours until our passports were in there, taken in by a french lady ahead of us so it was less of a waiting. Surfed the same day and next morning in Bouznika, picked up the Visas in the afternoon. All good so far, got the right passports and details, thirty days to cross Morocco, the Western Sahara and we have to be out of Mauritania on February 15.
Stopped in Casablanca / Dar Bouazza for two nights to see a french friend of Marc and i got to hear some crazy stories of the two when they were living in the states in the late nineties. Walked around Casa a bit, too big, too much traffic and pollution for me.
Drove down the coast for some 400km to Sidi Kaouki, just south of Essaouira. This is the spot were I had my very first surf in Morocco in 2002. It changed a lot here, more Campsites and rooms for rent, higher prices and more people in the lineup. But still a nice spot, and the area is absolutely breathtaking. Bays and hills with a mix of sand and rocks, Olives and lots of sheep and goats, thorny bushes and the beautiful and endemic Argantrees which look spooky in the night, but funny in daytime when they can have a bunch of goats on them, eating the nuts and climbing around on the thin and thorny branches. Got ourselves some delicious oliveoil, honey and some other stuff that’s produced right here. Everything is of great quality, fresh and dirtcheap.
Stopped in Immesouane for a night, no surf and not much to do there except walking around and drink a tea here and there. My friends Hassan and Mohammed welcomed me again with a smile and a “Hello Patrick”, always great if people remember you. It changes every year, by now there are several surf schools, surfshops and even internet. So it is on the way to be the same crazyness like Taghazout. And that’s where we headed next, but only to see a few friends there. First of all we had a good laugh with Luis, the F**king Brazilian which came with us last year from Dakhla through Mauritania and into the Senegal. This time he rented himself an appartment right at Anker Point and surfed it for two months. Unfortunately another friend of mine, Marc from South Africa, was on crutches when we saw him: He got robbed in Agadir and chased the guy, but broke his leg while running after him. 10 screws and a piece of metal in the shin, out of the surf for a few months. Sorry to hear that bro!
No surf in Taghazout for us, left it quickly as there’s too many annoying dudes around, it’s been raining a lot and it got stormy by the time we left it. We watched a movie almost every night since a week, so we got kind of our own homecinema going on as there is nothing else to do here in a rainy night.
Went straight through Agadir, just missed the arrival of King Mohammed. Military and police everywhere, officers standing on both sides of the road every 50m. Flags all over, it’s just pure madness.
Kept going inland, at the moment we are in Tafraout, to the southeast of Agadir. On the way here we bumped into an accident, the road was blocked and two trucks stuck together. Both drivers with cuts and bruises, but nothing serious as it seemed. At first we didn’t do much, around 20 people gathered there already and ripped everything out of the front from one truck as the driver was squeezed in. Handed over some bandaids and painkillers, Marc ended up helping the driver out pretty much by himself, used olive oil to get one of his legs out and our little saw to cut some stuff, and finally he was out. Intense moment, and likely to happen anytime as they drive like they are the only ones on the road. Always in the middle, always too fast around the corners.. The trucks were still stuck together, but we found an offroad-shortcut before that hill with the 180 degree turn and made it on the other side and then to Tafraoute where we are waiting for the rain to stop…

We bumped into all kind of people here, and I think it’s alright to say that those who aren’t used to tourists are usually the friendliest. Since we were staying in the same spot for more than a week it seems like people knew us and knew what we are doing. We wouldn’t recognize most of them, but it happened that some would show up, saying „yeah yeah, you were over there three days ago, up there yesterday..“

Some of the more outstanding people were just nuts, for example Simo, a guy that is about to build the worlds biggest Surfboard, 17m long, 50 people will be paddling on it and it will be in the Guinness Book of Records, Inchah’allah. Or his friend Samaka, a Moroccan actor that would normally eat two chicken or 12 Burgers by himself, drinking Yoghurt-drinks in between.

At Medhya Plage it’s hard to find fruits and vegies, dates and figues and all that. Usually we had to go up to the village on a little hill with a stunning view to the port and the beaches. As there is nothing to do at night except walking around, snack whatever we can find or get a tea or juice, we went to the Hammam the other night, the typical arab bath/sauna. I’ve only been once so far, and that was such an intense experience that i was afraid of going again (back then, Matthias and I did it full on and paid some guys to shrub the skin and wash us before we got the most painful and unhealthy massage ever). This time it was without any extras, but still an intense experience. It wasn’t too busy but overall there were more than 50 men in the three rooms with different temperatures, sitting or lying around, either just sweating in the steam, washing eachother, pooring buckets of hot/warm/cold water on themselves or getting a shrub or massage. Used to be alone, to have privacy while showering, this is a different experience, but great anyway and there’s nothing wrong with washing our hair once a week and putting on some clean clothes.

At a juice and yoghurt-bar we got to know two fishermen, Achmed and Mohamed, both from Medhya, married and straightforward Muslims. These two guys and their friends, mainly Chafikh, Murat and another Achmed, are some of the most generous, friendliest and caretaking people I have ever met. The days were almost too short for all the things they wanted to do with us, all the places and people they showed us. A minttea here, some amazing food there, see this guy’s house, say hello to that family, eat this and try that. And they insisted in paying for the food and everything, we had to be very sneaky if we wanted to pay food before they could. Very soon we were Marc and Patrick anymore, our new Arab names were Karim and Abdullah, and that’s how people started calling us.

We decided to go fishing with Achmed who owns a boat, met at 5am at the port but had to wait two hours for some daylight as it was foggy and still 8 foot swell, so too dangerous to leave the port. Once at sea, we didn’t do much on the nutshell, the two fishermen did most of it and we just watched and chatted with them. They pulled out a net that was set some days ago with anchors and buoys, not much fish unfortunately. A few spidercrabs, some shrimps and a few kilos of different fish, mostly Sol, Spanish Makerel and Sardines. And hundreds of small crabs which they smashed with a stick, so we were covered in crab juice and all kind of things. This didn’t really help my stomach which got a bit funny out there. We were back at lunchtime, just right for another feast at the restaurants right at the port. Fresh fish, more than we could eat, some shellfish and sauces, just perfect and great moroccan food. We got to hear many stories about missing fisherman, about boats who leave to Spain from here, about how much they can earn on a good day, about weather and waves. And lots more, but as our Arabic is limited to 10 words and their mix of a little French, Spanish and Enlish is not the easiest way to communicate, we didn’t understand a lot of things they tried to explain us.

All our new friends loved to drive around with us, so one night we went to eat out in Kenitra, the closest big city. Delicicous food again, after that we went to a place where salesman, mainly Chinese, offered all kind of unnecessary stuff. Imagine Mohamed, a propper Muslim wearing a great beard, a moroccan Jelabba and Muslim-hat, trying out some electronic-mussle-stimulator on the back, the arms jumping up and down and with the biggest smile ever! Or all of us watching a guy promoting a kitchentool for 15min, and, while walking away, Achmed just said in a very funny way that this is useless, his wife will do it much better and cheaper! Couldn’t stop laughing…

They are strictly against drinking, drugs and smoking and are all very traditional in a way, but totally open in another. All of them have cellphones, some got E-Mail and Facebook. Mohamed used to be a bodyboarder and got barreled in Morocco’s sickest waves, they have satellite-TV and know all kind of stuff you wouldn’t think they’d know. They would share everything with us, of course they also wanted to know if we wouldn’t like to marry a moroccan girl and live here. I guess that would have been arranged very quick for us! The only thing that we were not allowed to see was their wifes. They said, maybe if she if fully covered we will see her one day but not now.

Things like those we can’t understand, but we treat it with respect and have to accept it. Morocco is getting closer to Europe in many ways, is developping fast and the progress is clearly visible. But there’s a lot of things, traditions and habits that will never change. Some of them are great and should stay like that, others are not fair and should not be practiced anymore. We will see what happens in the future, Inchah’allah.

Info for those who want to go to Morocco by car&ferry: Tickets are cheapest at the office of Mr. Guiterrez, located just in the back of the huge Carrefour at the Palmones shopping area to the east of Algeciras. No idea how he gets his hands on these tickets, but he seems to be the cheapest seller around so check it if you plan to go there. Right at the terminal, the regular price for our carsize and two Pax would have been, after bargaining, 135 Euro with the slow ferry. At his place we paid 110 Euro for the fast ferry and, even better, the tickets came along with a bottle of Sidra and a Chocolate Cake.

Marc and I left Spain on January 8 from Algeciras to Tanger. Arriving in Morocco has never been as easy as this time as they’ve just opened a new port called „Tanger Med“ with terminals, police and customs, all very well organized and welcoming, about 35km east of Tanger. No ennoying guys around that want to make money helping you getting through it, police and customs were friendly and it took just a few minutes. We arrived at 3pm, over here at that time of the year it gets dark by 6pm so we thought we will leave Tanger behind us on that day. But 500m outside of the port we couldn’t believe our eyes; a nice lefthander with only three bodyboarders out, peeling off in muddy water. The bodyboarders left, came straight to us and we shook hands, got infos about spots and everything we needed and they left the wave for us. Nice session right in the beginning of the Morocco experience.

As both of us have been to Morocco several times already, it’s not like arriving in a country you’ve never been before. Everything is familiar, you aren’t surprised about things too much, you’ve seen most of it before. You know where to get the things you want, you’ve got an idea about prices and know what you like and dislike, you know the people and mostly you can tell wether you should stay away from someone or not. And if you surfed here before, you know which places you have to check out on certain swells. So far, Mehdya is the place where we’ve spent our time. And, compared to the 2 1/2 months we’ve spent in Morocco on the last trip, the conditions are ridiculosly good and the swells don’t seem to stop anymore. Here in Mehdya it was very disappointing at the beginning as all the sandbars changed dramatically, my preferred lefthander in Morocco totally disappeared and the righthander was neither visible anymore but we got told on bigger swells it could still break. Day one was all crap. Then we discovered a pretty good sandbar on low tide, every day the same: sunny and warm, mostly offshore, good waves at lower tides, and nearly no one out. Marc scored some barrels but snapped a Board and hurt his shoulder later on, nothing too bad though. With the swell rising up to 9.5 foot it was maxed out on the beach and we’ve seen some more broken boards. And that’s when the righthander off the jetty started to break and when the heart started to beat faster. Not all of them were surfable but it was pretty good, wipeouts were a bit more serious and currents just makeable. I snapped a board too on one of the heaviest wipeouts I ever had so far, luckily I didn’t get hurt, just had an interesting way back to the beach afterwards. So there’s only five boards left out of seven..