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.