This is far too good to languish in the Footage thread.
Incredible all round - Sour rules.
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Morocco was already topping the polls for next years skate trip looks like that’s going to confirm it
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A bunch of my mates and I used to go to Morocco for a couple of months at a time. We’d go each winter for a good few years back in the early to mid 90’s. Great weather, people, food, smoke and skate and surf spots. At the time most of the skate spots hadn’t been touched either - I’m pretty sure I was the first person to skate a couple of those spots in the last Lucas video. I can highly recommend it. Place is fantastic.
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I’ve only been to the medina (the old town) of Marrakech, the Atlas mountains and the Sahara, pretty rural places where there wasn’t much to skate but the place itself is awesome. Good food, delicious freshly squeezed orange juice, dope architecture, friendly locals… I highly recommend it. Get leather belts in the souks when you’re there, useful souvenir that will last. Check out the palaces in Marrakech and if you can, watch the sun rise in the desert as it’s quite an experience too. It’s like a Windows 95 wallpaper except you’re in it, innit.
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I went to that diy concrete park on the hillside in taghazout last year. Looked great but didn’t have my board, sadly.
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The last time I was there for an extended stay was ‘95. I went with just one friend. We had so much stuff with us, (surfboards, skimboards, bodyboards, fins, wetsuits and skate stuff), that we flew direct to Agadir and just posted up in Taghazout for the whole time. We had been through there on the previous two year’s trips and had wanted to stay longer each time.
I was in the water every day except Thursdays. Thursday was my skate day. Agadir solo missions. That was until I met a kid in the city. He watched me skating for a bit and came up and said that he had ‘one of those’, pointing at my board and ran off.
He came back 15 minutes later with a OG Powell Lance Mountain. Some German surfer had left it in his uncle’s cafe. He could ride about solidly but had no idea about tricks. He’d never even seen an ollie.
I skated round Agadir with him, (I think his name was Ali but can’t be sure), leading the way and showing me stuff he thought I might like to skate. At the end of the day we ended up at that quarter pipe looking seawall that was on the cover of Free. We arranged to meet up the following Thursday in the square by the double set with the narrow banks that Lucas Puig does a nollie heel nose wheelie on in that last edit.
I caught the bus in for six Thursdays in a row and hung out with him. On the last time I took the bunch of magazines, (which included the first two or three issues of Sidewalk from winter 95/96), that I had bought with me on the trip and some other skate related odds and ends in a rucksack and gave them to him as a thank you for being so friendly and a top guide to spots and places to eat etc.
On seeing skate mags for the first time he was mindblown. It was almost as if he had no idea that anyone skated other me and him and the German guy who left the board behind. I explained that people all over the world skated, told him about videos and that there are skateshops - showed him the ads - he said he thought there might be a shop in Casablanca that sold skateboards - and I remember telling him that if he had his skateboard with him, no matter where he was in the world, he could always find another skateboarder and he’d have an instant friend.
Initially he didn’t get his head round the fact I was giving him the bag of stuff. He said he didn’t have anything to give me in return and felt bad about it. I told him not to worry it didn’t matter and the stuff was a gift. He insisted on giving me something and gave me his kufi. Dude even shed a tear when we said our goodbyes at the end of the day before I got the bus back to Taghazout, bless him.
I wonder what happened to him after that. Did he carry on skating? Did he order a setup or anything through the mags I gave him? Is he the guy who grew up and started the skateshop in Agadir? Who knows.
Taghazout was a great place to stay. It was nowhere near as busy as it looks these days. People still came through and it noticeably filled up mid surf season - On the beach at Mysteries I ran in to Andrew Ridgley from Wham one year 
and Thomas Campbell the following year 
. No yoga or surf camps back then though. The idea of that park being there above Anchor Point would have seemed an impossibility at the time. Most of the locals had never even seen skateboarding until I pushed round on what limited skateable ground they had. It’s one of those places that, on one hand,I’d love to go back and visit, and on the other, I don’t want to spoil the memories that I have of how it was.
TLDR: Morocco is a nice place to visit. Sour video was good too.
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