“Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, left his home many years ago and has not returned. This is his story.”
This is the opening line of my debut book, The Odyssey, which I wrote at the age of 7.
It was inspired by the TV series of the same title, which was showing in Poland at the time. I loved the storyline, and started writing long before the brave Trojan War hero returned to the shores of his kingdom.
I felt I was onto something special, and hoped that nobody else would have the same idea and that I would be the only one who put it onto paper. When, two months later my parents told me that some guy called Homer had beaten me to it 28 centuries before, I sulked for a week.
Amelia and I stayed in Kefalonia for ten days earlier this month. Ithaca is a stone’s throw from Kefalonia, 45 minutes by ferry to be precise, so we knew it had to be done. We booked ourselves on a day trip to the tiny island and it was lovely.
Ithaca has no tourist resorts or sandy beaches to speak of, but it still attracts large number of visitors, mainly day-trippers like us, brought here on the strong winds of cultural, literary and historical snobbery.
Ithaca’s entire PR effort is geared towards Odysseus and Homer. The statues are everywhere. The port of Sami, where ferries to Ithaca depart from, features Odysseus Theme Park.
Our guide, Vanna, spoke pretty much non-stop. If I had a Euro for each time she described something as ‘gorgeous’, I could have probably paid for the pork souvlaki and Greek salad lunch for everybody on the coach. To be fair to Vanna, Ithaca is gorgeous.
Our first stop was Vathy, the island’s capital. Amelia and I took a long walk around the bay, snapping happy as we went.
After that, it was a hairpin bend ascent to the Kathara Monastery, which offered us, yes, you guessed it, gorgeous views of the coastline.
Next stop was Kioni, for an unrushed lunch break. Kioni, like every other village in Ithaca, was a quaint little place, busy with sailboats coming and going at a steady pace.
Our final stop was Stavros, hailed as the Odysseus birthplace, but I had a strong suspicion we stopped there mainly so that Vanna was able to earn her commission from a local cafe. She herded us inside and gently nudged us towards the ‘local delicacy’, a rice and honey sweet called Rovani. It was an okay tasting rice pudding, which Amelia polished off happily.
This post is based on my trip to Athens in September 2023. I wrote it, saved it in the drafts folder and promptly forgot it. Publishing now, because I think it can be quite useful for any good people debating whether to check out Athens or head straight to the islands.
“Athens is not a graceful city. It looks terrible from just about every approach, its air pollution is dire, and its traffic and postwar architecture are a disaster.”
Greece, The Rough Guide
Athens has such bad rep among travel books writers, it sounds almost personal. Having visited Athens earlier this month, I would like to say that the reputation is unfair and undeserved.
My daughter Amelia and I spent three days in Athens.
First half day was dutifully taken up by the Acropolis.
September is meant to be the month when the tourist traffic begins to calm down, but it was still pretty heaving on the uphill paths.
Despite every website telling us to, we did not pre-book, and spent about half an hour queuing up for the Acropolis tickets. There was one, ONE digital ticket machine available.
Tip: Acropolis, as well as every other piece of antiquity in Athens, is free of charge for under-25 EU citizens, the photo on the phone is sufficient to prove your European provenance.
The Acropolis hill was everything we were hoping for. It was beautiful, humbling, moving, fascinating, amazing, ancient, awe-inspiring, thought provoking and full of cats.
When we got our fill of the Parthenon, Theatre of Dionysus, and the rest of it, we walked down to the Roman Agora, followed by the Ancient Agora, where we feasted our eyes on the Temple of Hephaestus, the Stoa of Attalos, and more cats. It was so beautiful and peaceful, we stayed until closing time.
The Acropolis done, we could relax and spent the next day walking around the city. We set off from our accommodation, Kolonaki Nest (a masterpiece of Booking.com creative photography, but it served the purpose of giving us a bed in Athens), stopped for breakfast at Syntagma Square, and headed towards Panathenaic Stadium, followed by the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and ended up near the Acropolis again, loitered around tourist shops and restaurants in Plaka and took the Metro back to Syntagma, and took the funicular to the top of Lycabettus Hill (Lykavitos) for the most stunning views of Athens and beyond. Highly recommended, if a little bit out of the way.
After Lycabettus, we went back to Syntagma Square, which was a great find. It is the main square in Athens, the Greek Parliament building stands to the side of it, and it also turns into the roadman capital of Athens by night.
In the true Heasley sightseeing style, we clocked up well over 25,000 steps that day. We would have done even more, but were frequently slowed down by cats. Amelia is physically incapable of walking past a cat without stopping to stroke them, and take several carefully composed photos of them. And there are a lot of cats in Athens.
The third and last day in Athens, we took a bus to Cape Sounion and the dramatically placed Temple of Poseidon, which was just under two hours drive along the coast. We spent the whole day hanging about Cape Sounion, waiting for the sunset, when Amelia took hundreds of photos, and we took the last bus back to Athens.
Champagne sunset trips to Cape Sounion are being sold to cruise ship loads of Americans daily, and, unbelievable as it sounds, they really do sip the bubbly from elegant champagne flutes, perched on the rocks around the temple, by their thousands.
And finally.
Do not listen to disparaging guidebook opinions, and go to Athens! It is a great place to spend a few days. Amelia and I had the best time there.
The only word of advice, you would be wise to skip the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The best thing about it is its name. Other than that, it’s just two tall columns and a lot of scaffolding, on the side of a football stadium size load of burnt grass and rubble. Still, you will probably ignore my advice and head to the Temple of Zeus on your second day in Athens, like we did, because he is Zeus, the big guy.
Time flows differently here. The practice of looking at your watch every few minutes is virtually unknown. If you only have half an hour for a coffee, or an hour for a tagine, you might run out of time in some Taghazout seafront restaurants.
Cats are everywhere. On the beach, on the chair next to you in a cafe, under your table. There are thousands of them and new ones are born all the time. Not all of them are in the best of health, some of them look like they’ve been in wars.
Taghazout is a cash only village. Leave your cards safely locked away in your room with your passport.
Everything is cheap, but because it’s so cheap, it’s only too easy to lose track of how much you spend a day on all these cheap things.
When you are buying souvenirs, and you hear that something costs 200 dirhams, please say 150 or go as low as you dare. Mild haggling is expected as part of every transaction with street sellers. You will know when you’ve gone too low, because they will stop smiling and will shake their heads firmly. I was mindful not to go too low in Taghzaout. I did that years ago in Egypt, the seller walked away, and as he did, he shouted at me ‘you no good woman!’. I felt ashamed and very small. Since then, I have probably overpaid for many bracelets and fridge magnets, just to make sure I did not offend a North African market trader again.
Be careful who and what you photograph. Do not try to take sneaky snaps of old men in their hooded jalebi robes. The ones who look most Instagram worthy already know it and they do not wish to feature in your reel. When they spot what you are doing, they will shake their walking sticks at you in a menacing way, and will give you a dirty look and you will feel ashamed of yourself, as you should.
Dress code. To state the obvious, Morocco is a Muslim country. You will be more comfortable wearing loose modest clothing to blend in and to show respect for the culture. Leave sexy outifts for Magaluf or somewhere they will be appreciated. Tshirts and 3/4 trousers or long skirts rather than short shorts and revealing vests in town. Beachwear on the beach only.
Today I allowed myself to get up a little later than usual. I was woken up by the rooster and the morning call to prayer at around 6.30 but I fell asleep as soon as the eager chicken and the muezzin stopped their invocations.
I woke up again at 8.50, got dressed and went up for the rooftop breakfast.
There are now five Polish people at the hostel, all in their twenties. They were talking, I listened. It was fascinating, because I quickly realised that I was unfamiliar with this kind of young Polish people.They were not the same Polish people I worked with in London. They were much more like the young English people I knew, but they spoke Polish.
After breakfast, I followed my son’s advice to look for ‘trash goats’ who lived at the very top of the village and ate rubbish, hence the name.
I turn left of my front door, kept walking up, and sure enough, I found a group of goats. They were eating rubbish, just as my son said they would be.
After the goats, I went all the way down to the main street, you need to be fit to walk up and down Taghazout.
I had the whole day ahead of me all to myself, until dinner date with my son.
I decided to start with another climb up, this time to the skate park. It was worth it. A great viewpoint and the skaters were on top of their game. I stayed there for at least an hour, snapping happy.
After that, I did some trinket shopping. Bought a few pieces, not sure now if they are going to be gifts for other people or for myself. I did some half-hearted haggling with the sellers, got the first asking prices down a notch, which I am pretty sure was still well above their last price.
The shopping done, at least for today, I felt hungry, so I went for a simple lunch of cheese omelette and a coffee.
After lunch, I decided that my frantic morning activities, the goats, the skate park, and the shopping needed to be balanced out by a relaxing afternoon at the beach. I walked past the main surfing crowd, paid 30 dirhams for a deckchair, and read my book for a few of hours.
Deckchairs are folded away at 6pm, so I got walking again. Sunset was at 7.29, I made sure I got a good view of it at the small beach in Taghazout centre and let myself be mesmerised by the daily show of the big ball of light going down.
After sunset I met my son and his friend for dinner at Cafe Tayoughte. Chicken tagine and Moroccan tea, lots of talking and laughter. I got to my hostel around 9.45pm, went through the daily black tea ritual on he rooftop, WhatsApped with family back in England, and read Flowers for Algernon before sleep.
The best thing about travelling solo is that I can do only the things I want to do and at the pace I want to do them. I choose how long to sit over breakfast, without having to respond to ‘shall we make a move then?’, or having to be the one asking the question if my companions take taking their time to an absurd level.
Today I chose how long to stay at the skate park and I chose how to fill my whole day. In the evening I felt that I did everything exactly how I wanted to.
The worst thing about travelling solo, for me, is having nobody to share my reactions to what I see and how I feel the moment I see and feel it. Today, that meant nobody to comment to on the skate boarders amazing skills, and nobody to discuss how close I should come up to the goats, especially that there were two baby goats among the group and perhaps a protective goat parent might try to chase me away if I came too close.
If it hadn’t been for dinner with my son, the only conversation I would have had all day today would have been with a metal detectorist guy, who was also the person in charge of the deckchairs. He showed me his loot, several old looking half-rusted coins. He tried to tell me something about them, but he had no English, and my French is, well, let’s not dwell on it. He said something with the word fifty in it.
The freedom to do what I want and the aloneness of it clash constantly in my mind.
I cannot decide if I like it or not. I enjoy the free moments, and I love Taghazout, I think that it is one of the perfect places to go solo. Logically, I am also aware that in a few short days I will be back home, no longer solo. The jury is out. I will keep debating the topic tomorrow, another day with me, myself and I.Â
Things have slowed down the last couple of days, as the Taghazout choppy waves wash away my frantic London pace of life and I find myself staring into the sea a lot.
I thought a bit more about the kind of people who come here. Now that I have spent the full four days in Taghazout, I am a bona fide expert on the place. Obviously.
I guess the first step in the natural selection of visitors comes when prospective Taghazout travellers ask themselves the all-important question, do we want to spend our holiday in a place where we cannot have a beer or a glass of wine with our dinner? If the answer is no, they cross Taghazout off their list, and book Tenerife, again. Win win for everybody.
The absence of drunken thrill-seekers makes a big difference.
The majority of people who come here have indifferent relationship.with alcohol, and the fact that Taghazout restaurants do not serve any is of no consequence to them. There are exceptions.
Trigger warning: national stereotyping ahead.
The other night, a man with a very strong Irish accent joined the rooftop dinner crowd. He introduced himself and after rushing through some rudimentary small talk, he asked, where one can get a drink around here. After a short silence, somebody said, I am not sure but I think there are some bars at the end of the village. The rest stayed silent and the Irishman got up and said his goodnights. The next day he came late for dinner, told the group that he had checked out the bars, and yes, they served beer there, but it was very expensive, London prices, London was where he lived by the way, and they did not have much of a range. Again, he was greeted by hushed silence from the rooftop audience. He checked out the next morning.
European visitors who come to Taghazout are here either on a hardcore surfing holiday or they book themselves for an extended stay which combines surfing with remote working. The latter makes them digital nomads, the holy grail of economically active generations.
Taghazout digital nomads is a catch-all phrase for anybody who fits in regular work into their Moroccan lifestyle, be it as an employee or an entrepreneur, working on an existing business or laying foundation for their next big thing. To become a digital nomad you need to announce that you are one, a laptop, and the self-discipline to actually do some work.
Digital nomads enjoy an elevated status compared to plain holiday makers, the name itself has a vague Star Wars ring to it. They live slowly and mindfully, they dabble in creativity and spiritual renewal, they do not do all the touristy things all at once, if at all, and they eat a lot of couscous.
If you fancy yourself as a digital nomad in Taghazout, you want to search for accommodation with the word ‘co-working’ in the name. Co-working place is still basically a surf hostel, but in addition to a rooftop canteen, it offers another communal space with desks, where the working nomads work. Checking yourself into a coworking place in Taghazout for a couple of months really is a great way to spend your winter.
I found a seahorse on the beach today.
At first he looked like a piece of seaweed as he floated on the surface, but when I looked closer, there was no doubt. I picked him up, put him on wet sand and took a picture. Unfortunately, there was no banana nearby but he was about 10 cm.
And then he spluttered! He was alive, sort of, only just. I jumped. He spluttered again, like somebody who nearly drowns and then they splutter and they are fine. I picked him up by his middle bit and ran back to the water with him, and he kept choking and spluttering and then I hurled him as far out into the sea as I could hurl something which weighed next to nothing.
I am staying at Onda Surf hostel. Every place in Taghazout seems to be a surf hostel.
If you don’t surf, don’t do yoga, don’t sketch or at the very least are not half way through writing a book, why are you even here?
Onda Surf offers the perfect view of the sea and a long stretch of the Sable D’Or beach. Additionally, I was tricked by booking.com clever photography of Onda’s dreamy balcony into thinking this was going to be my private balcony. It is not. It’s a communal rooftop, a focal point of every surf hostel in Taghazout. Rooftop is where breakfast is served, from 9am to 10.30. Rooftop is where guests bring their sketchbooks, their George Orwells, and their surf stories. It’s where they mingle. It’s where I watch them and where I write.
It’s also where I am most acutely aware of my age, because no matter how earnestly my son tries to convince me otherwise, hostels are ruthlessly agist, even if they do not mean to be. They make me feel I had missed the vibe by 25 years, give or take a few.
In the evenings, I loiter on the rooftop anyway. I come up every night after dinner to make my Lipton Yellow Label.
I align my tea time with the communal dinner time, which gives me a chance to eavesdrop shamelessly whilst my tea mug gives me a reason to be here and the feeling that I belong on the rooftop too. Almost.
The other guests are all surfers, they come from all over Europe. They have strong bodies, piercings, tattoos, and flawless skin. A lot of them smoke, which was a surprise. They wear cool baggy clothes and are all so bloody young. Quite a few of them are here on solo adventures, with no definite end date. They are living their best lives, and they use the rooftop dinner time to swap stories of how their day went.Â
They are friendly to me, and we have had some perfunctory chats, but I feel acutely out of place. Not badly enough to give up my rooftop tea time, but pretty awkward.
Taghazout beach is a beginner surfer’s paradise. Surfboards are everywhere, and surfers get in your way, cut in front of you along narrow winding streets of Taghzaout, akin to cyclists in London.Â
They give themselves the right of way, and if you know what’s good for you, you do not argue with a surfboard.
Today I went to Anchor Point, some 20 minutes walk out of town in the opposite direction to the vast long beach on one end of it. Do not ever ask me for directions.
I was told Anchor Point was where more experienced surfers strutted their rubber-clad stuff, so I thought I’d check it out.
I perched myself on a comfy rock, and stared at the sea littered with black figures gyrating acrobatically in gusts of wind. It took me two hours to realise that my brain had not registered a single full surf run. I totally zoned out and could not zone back in.
I got up and walked back to the village. It was time for another cappuccino.
Taghazout has a vegan cafe, called Red Clay. I made a mistake and asked for normal milk with my cappuccino, but normal turned out to be oats milk at the Red Clay.
Coffee, orange juice, fruit salad with yogurt arrive, followed by fried eggs, and several pieces of baguette. Then a plate of three American pancakes drenched in syrup is also put in front of me. I say, no thank you, it’s too much. She takes the plate away.
– Do you want a Moroccan pancake instead?
– Are Moroccan pancakes the ones they sell by the mosque?
Did I really just say that? Why did I say that? I don’t want any pancakes, the breakfast is huge as it is.
– Yes. Do you want one?
– Yes please.
OK, so breakfast confidence needs work. Until then, I can see myself fold the m’smen, that’s the name of the Moroccan pancake, in half, and sneak out of the rooftop with it in my hand every morning.
I took the pancake to the beach with me today. It might come in handy later.
After breakfast, a beach walk. The beach is beautifully empty at 10am.
I entertain myself by playing out a never to happen conversation with the young Taghazout butcher in my head.
I Google translate ‘When is the next time you are going to open the cow’s head, s’il vous plait?’ into French. I say it aloud a few times. Duolingo content creators would have been proud of me.
I cut the walk short, because today is hamam day. My son arranged a pick up for the hamam at 12pm. The drive is 10 minutes away from the beach and into the mountains.
Hamam is not for everybody. If you are coy about bearing it all, and I mean, all, in front of strangers, if you have an issue with the said strangers kneading and prodding every inch of you, don’t do it.
If you are uncomfortable about anything which might feel remotely sensual, even when it really never is intended that way, don’t do it.
If you have a low pain threshold, do not do it.
After I strip off to my bikini bottom, it’s off to the steam room, where I lose the panties too, to be replaced by the skimpiest most useless paper thong. It’s a bit late to worry about my modesty anyway. The very polite very considerate young lady smothers me in some brown goo, answers my quering look with a curt ‘savon’. Next, I am laid down on a marble slab and she sandpapers me methodically from my toes to my chin.
When I am all scrubbed down to the bone, she hoses me down with pleasantly hot water, and smears another goo all over me, this time with a strong aniseed smell. I want to ask her what it is, but the only French sentence I can think of is, when is the next time you are going to open the cow’s head? I give the conversation a miss. Second round of prodding and a few minutes alone in the steam room follows.
After that, the paper thong comes off, I am given a bathrobe to walk to the next room. In there, another very polite lady takes the robe off my shoulders, wraps me up in a towel and points to a massage bed. I lie down on my belly, face goes through a hole and then she asks me, ‘massage strong, medium or relaxing?’
Strong, please, I say, God knows why.
Who needs enemies when I have myself.
Strong hurts a lot, but it’s also strangely enjoyable. I wish I had taken paracetamol beforehand.
To round up the experience, I am offered a glass of Moroccan green tea and a couple of biscuits. I have earned every crumb.
My son was sick today, so my supported solo travelling experience ended up being unusually unsupported.Â
I went to a restaurant for lunch all by myself. Cheated a little, because we went there together yesterday, so Abdullah the manager recognised me, which meant I could pretend I was lunching at an old friend’s place. I ordered a tagine, and when it came, I asked one of the waiters to take a photo of me, so I could send it to my family to show that I was able to survive perfectly fine on my own. At this point, an old man in the corner of the restaurant asked what was going on. Abdullah explained. The old man sent one of the waiters to fetch a sisal cross body bag from a wheelbarrow, apparently part of his merchandise. He insisted on gifting it to me and absolutely refused to take any money. I thanked him and took the bag. Sometimes it’s best to accept a gift with a smile. I don’t know why he gave me the bag. He might have felt sorry for me eating all alone, or maybe I am his wife now. Fifty fifty.Â
Today’s undisputed highlight goes to watching a cow’s head getting de-brained, if that’s the correct term for it.
As I set off on my first solo stroll around Taghazout, a half-skinned cow’s head, ears still on, caught my attention. I subtly edged closer to where the head sat on butcher’s block, and casually hovered and lingered, as the young man made a hole in the cow’s forehead with a few swift hacks of an axe. He then removed the brain, perfectly intact, and scooped it into his hand. Glued to the spot by this sight, I stared at the neat folds of the perfectly spherical brain until the butcher started throwing me dirty, lady you ok? sideway glances.
Other things happened too.
On my first full day in Morocco, I woke up to the sound of a rooster fine tuning his vocal cords, followed by a call to prayer, followed by motorbikes revving up all around.
My solo travelling experience was put to the first real test this morning. Breakfast is served on the rooftop from 9.00 till 10.30. I was there at a stroke of nine and proceeded to spend the next few awkward minutes fidgeting around the open kitchen area, not sure what to do. I was saved by a softly spoken young woman, who greeted me and asked me if I wanted tea or coffee with my breakfast. Structure and order thus restored, I could sit down and eat.
After breakfast, the day sort of whizzed by punctuated by a series of short activities. I walked up and down Taghazout Sable D’Or beach twice, got my feet wet in the cold sea, took photos of camels, cats and dogs, had coffee, walked a bit more, had tagine lunch with my son, had another coffee and a banana milkshake, eyed up some possible gifts trinkets, watched my son surf, watched the sunset, had dinner, had an after dinner pancake by the mosque, said goodnight to my son and went onto the rooftop of my hostel. As I climbed up, I got suddenly struck by a genius idea that since they were serving dinner, I could ask them for a cup of tea. They were very happy to serve me tea, as long as I was happy with Moroccan mint tea. I was not. I climbed five floors down, went to the shop next door to my hostel, and without holding out much hope I asked if they had tea. Moroccan tea? No, not Moroccan. This one? The shopkeeper pointed out to a box of Lipton Yellow Label. Happiness is a box of Lipton Yellow Label in Taghazout! Climbed the five floors to the rooftop in seconds, fine, a minute per floor, and asked the young man working there if I could have this tea please. He tried to dissauade me at first, and said it was too late in the day for black tea, and I might have trouble falling asleep. Bless him. Half an hour later, with two mugs of Lipton Yellow Label in my belly, 26,846 steps under my belt, my day two was truly complete. Â
Inspired by a friend who had recently left her well established London life and went to Africa to write and to re-assess everything, I have decided to keep a diary of my trip to Morocco. My trip was booked before I found out about my friend going to Africa, so I didn’t copy her and anyway 10 days holiday hardly gives me the scope for the journey of self-discovery, but she inspired me to write while I am on my break. It might lead to something bigger later. It might not.
I am writing this to myself and for myself, writing for the sake of writing, a gentle stretching exercise after a period of inactivity. To see if I still can, if it flows, if it still makes sense. To me.
I am flying to Agadir today, then it’s off to a village of Taghazout, where my son is spending his winter months. He is cool like that.
Day 1
The holiday is going well.
Except, Weatherspoons at Gatwick North stopped serving Eggs Benedict and Eggs Royale at 11am. Who knew. So it is possible even for me to arrive too late to the airport. Actually. On the day of travel, I live for the moment I get to choose between the Eggs Benedict and Eggs Royale. Oh, well. I have 3 hours before boarding, so I search the whole airport for the eggs, I find a place called The Breakfast Club and have my Royale.
I’ve had better. My eye catches the price on the recept. £23.50, including the smallest cappuccino in the South East. Oh, well.
Next, my very slick very stylish also very not 45 cm x 30cm x 20cm Sanquist backpack failed the Cinderella glass slipper test and didn’t fit into the metal cage for small backpacks. It was painful to watch as it got stuck half way down, Boris-on-the-zip-wire style.
Oh, well. Win some lose some. I knew I was taking chances. Travelling light was never my thing.
Onwards and upwards. No children on the flight. Not one. Yay!
Spoke too soon. There was one. ‘I am hungry’, the mini-person announced as she waddled past me, stuffing her face from an open bag of Cadbury’s originals Sugar Rush.
I am in 20F, window. I am next to two well-nourished ladies. I battle for the arm rest with the 20E. I lose. The two of them sip white wine and Sprite like the pros.
We are cruising over Spain, we are told, as I write this. The white cotton wool fluff above Spain hides the rest of Spain.
The 20E and 20D are on their third small bottle each.
I can’t decide how I feel about this solo travelling business.
Window seat next to strangers is all well and good, but what if need the bathroom. The air between me and the 20E is still thick with the recent armrest hostilities. Their tables are littered with wine bottles, cans of Sprite, chocolate wrappers and plastic cups. Folding them to let me pass would mean a fuss. I amuse myself by playing out a scenario whereby I nimbly hop from armrest to armrest to get out.
They have bought crisps now so the smell of white wine mixes with the whiff of ready salted. They reach into their crisp packets with slow synchronicity. If only I could see Spain.
The dulcet tones of Joan Baez in my headphones make it all soothingly unreal.
I sleep.
I wake up with a panicked thought that I must wake up the foster kids for school and college.Â
The 20E is sinking her teeth into a Snickers bar.
I have given up on Spain, if indeed we are still over it.
I need this holiday so badly.
Half an hour to landing. I read five pages of Flowers for Algernon, had a lukewarm Easyjet tea, and am now on my peach tea bottle. It’s such a bliss being stuck in my cramped 20F, with nothing to do, no emails, no calls, no Tesco, no hungry cats, no arrogant teenagers, no wind, no rain, nothing.
Coastline.
The flight flew by. Three and a half hours.Â
Passport control. The queue is something else. There is an option for Rapid queue for 300 dirhams. Not many takers. We crawl forward.
A blue rinse lady from the plane strikes up a conversation. Turns out my glass slipper backpack attracted some attention, and now a small group of my fellow Easyjetters want to know if I was the woman who was pulled over.
Did they let you go? Well, clearly.
Did you have to pay extra? Yes.
How much?They roll their eyes in horror and disbelief.
My rebellious side takes over. ‘I don’t mind, I don’t care’.
Free airport WiFi is a tease. I am yet to find an airport where WiFi works for longer than five seconds.
None of this matters any more. I am outside.
A crowd of taxi drivers with signs awaits. Looking for my name. Nope. No Ania Heasley anywhere. Did three rounds, no joy. Found somebody with Sundesk sign. That’s where my son lives, so looking promising. Yes! He is my man. Muhammad is a taxi driver of few words. It’s now dark outside, getting darker by the minute. Obligatory silhouettes palm trees and the last blood orange vestiges of daylight. Sewage smell as we drive. Exciting stuff.
I kept asking Muhammad questions until finally he gave in and told me everything that his limited English allowed him to say.
One hour later, I met Matty and we went for chicken tagine, followed by whirlwind tour of Taghazaout. Proper first impression will need to wait till tomorrow, but for now I can say it’s a pretty laid back place, chilled, chaotic, warm, did I mention chilled, cats are everywhere, trendy looking tourists stroll around, the sea is 5 minutes walk away, can’t wait to see it all properly in the daylight.
My room at Onda Surf hostel has three beds, towels, blankets and a private bathroom with toilet and shower room. No kettle. I didn’t think there would be one. Coffee at communal breakfast on the rooftop at 9am.
My daughter and I continue our borderline obsessive quest to get to the bottom of the music legend called Bob Dylan. Not his actual bottom, that would be inappropriate. And gross.
After seeing the man himself in concert in Liverpool in November last year (yes, really, he is still alive), today, we saw Timothee Chalamet in A Complete Unknown.
We both agreed that today’s experience was much more enjoyable. At first sight, baby face Chalamet is not the most obvious choice for the role, but he had grown on us by the minute. The transformation was gradual, as he acquired his iconic brown leather jackets and I am too cool for my boots mannerisms. By the time he rode into the sunset on his motorbike, 2 hours and 20 minutes later, Timothee WAS Bob.
As the more attentive readers of my writing efforts might recall, my daughter and I had been bearing a grudge against Bob since that evening in Liverpool. My daughter and I, let’s call my daughter Alexia because that is her name. So, Alexia and I were properly peeved when Bob Dylan had not sang a single one of Bob Dylan Greatest Hits for us.
Little we knew that we were by no means the first ones to feel cheated by Bob the Great. We learnt today, with a raised eyebrow, that Dylan started the trend of not giving cat’s whiskers about what his audiences came to hear at Newport Folk Festival in 1965. He shocked his fans there by playing an electric guitar and debuting his rock’n’roll sound when thousands expected to sing along to his folk staples. Nearly 60 years before not singing Mr.Tambourine Man at the M& S Arena.
We felt a little less special as it looked like disappointing his fans had been Bob’s party trick since either of us was born, and that is a very long time ago!
Then again, perhaps the right way to look at it is to see ourselves as privileged enough to be part of Bob’s inner circle of the fans he goes on pissing off through the decades.
Apart from being personal to us, the film was also beautifully nostalgic, full of cigarette smoke and the musical greats of the early 1960. My top scene was Bob’s duet with Joan Baez. And finally, Edward Norton for supporting actor gong at the awards season, please.
Ania Heasley 