What's it like to learn to surf in Taghazout?

Taghazout itself sets the tone before you ever touch a board — a scruffy, sun-bleached fishing village turned surf town, all whitewashed houses tumbling down to the sea, boards stacked against every wall, vans with roof racks, and rooftop cafés where tanned travellers from everywhere nurse coffees and watch the swell. The pace is horizontal. Nobody is in a hurry, the call to prayer mixes with the sound of the surf, and you find yourself unclenching within an hour of arriving.

The lesson is humbling in the friendliest way. Your instructor runs you through the pop-up on the warm sand — paddle, push, jump your feet under you — and it looks so simple lying still that you feel almost embarrassed. Then you wade out into the whitewater, the Atlantic shoving at your chest, sand swirling around your shins, and the actual sea declines to cooperate. You paddle, you catch a foamy little wave, you try to stand, and you are instantly and comprehensively dumped, surfacing with a sinus full of seawater and a grin you can't help.

And then, usually on day one or two, it happens. A wave picks you up, you scramble to your feet at exactly the right instant, and for three or four impossible seconds you're upright and skimming toward the beach under your own balance, the water hissing under the board, the whole village swinging into view — and you understand, completely and forever, why people rearrange their lives around this. You fall off immediately. You paddle straight back out, arms like jelly, chasing it again.

It's an easy place to be a beginner. The beach breaks near town are forgiving and sandy-bottomed, the water's warm enough for a thin wetsuit even in winter, and the surf camps fold lessons, board hire, and a bunk into one cheap, sociable package. Mornings you surf till your shoulders give out; afternoons you sprawl on a rooftop with a tagine and a mint tea, salt-crusted and sleepy, watching the better surfers work the famous point breaks down the coast. You'll leave bruised, sunburnt, addicted, and already planning to come back.