The next day we hit the road again and headed back up north a few miles to Lalla Fatna. We never actually saw the town but got dropped off at a road leading down to the beach. It wasn’t an ideal day for the beach. The sky was overcast and it kept dribbling dirty grey bath-water onto us. We were basically soaking wet, freezing and not in the best of moods. As we trudged down the winding road the sun kept teasing us, appearing for a moment then hiding again. I am quite annoyed by its childish displays but all my irritation vanishes when we come in sight of the beach. It is magnificent, a grandiose arena of sand surrounded on all sides by steep sea-cliffs, hundreds of feet high and rising straight up from the beach. On all sides there are steep hills reaching off into the distance as far as the eye can see. We quickly hurry down to the beach, passing an empty parking lot and a small cabin on the way. We play in the surf for a few brief precious moments of sunshine then quickly head back up the hill, searching for shelter against the rain. On the way we catch sight of a few men standing around in the rain and go to greet them. We exchange broken pleasantries and one man with the biggest toothy smile I’ve ever seen and an afro of dark-orange curls introduces himself as Yassine.
As the world goes on somewhere else, we exist in a dreamy overcast den of Moroccan hospitality; the days go by and we don’t count them, we let the place and the people watch over us, they heal us like a medicine. Yassine takes us everywhere with him, showing us all the treasures of this isolated beach. There is a constant flow of people coming to visit us for the nightly tagine-making party and during the day we collect bottles discarded by last year’s tourists to exchange for a few dirhams. We play games like children in the height of summer vacation; we show off our tattoos and guitars to the appreciative Moroccans and laugh until our voices give way and then we croak our happiness. It is a good life, joyous in its simplicity. Nothing troubles me here, amongst friends and generous laughter.
One day Yassine informs us we are going to a hidden water source on a nearby beach to take a shower (at this point we really need one). This place only exists at low tide, so we wait until the sea recedes and head for the hills. We walk low, as close to the water as possible, hauling ourselves over huge boulders and dashing across stretches of beach in an attempt to escape the ever-present crashing surf which has shaped this land forever. The sand sucks at our feet, wanting us to stop and enjoy the scenery, but we are heading for a special, secret place. Here there is no sign of human habitation: to our right, the endless ocean, to our left an insurmountable cliff. We walk for hours.
Over the years mighty rocks have fallen from the cliffs; they lay half-buried but still huge in the sand like relics of a lost age. They are giants out of a fairytale; I half-expect them to rise as I cling to them, searching for a foothold, and demand an explanation for this intrusion. We are too late to take a freshwater shower; the source is already covered in swirling foamy sea.
But no matter. There is a place, Yassine tells us, in the hills, which we should see.
“Once there was people there,” Yassine says quietly. “Now there is no one”.
I am curious to see the place, and so we begin our ascent up the cliffs. I am glad I don’t have any equipment with me, it would be impossible to climb with. Rocks slide under our feet as we cling to the stones, pulling ourselves up forcefully, hand over hand. Every once in a while stones dislodge themselves and fall, their clattering echoing endlessly down the rock face. Looking down I can see the ceaseless ocean, pounding the rocks smooth and shapely; I can see the sleeping giant boulders lodged in the beach beside the cliffs. I can even see the tufts of green grass sticking out of the sparse soil like wisps of babies’ hair.
Quite abruptly we come to something I did not expect to find here: a staircase, carved into the mountain out of stone and worn smooth by years of use. It ends suddenly at the point where we now are and I realize it must have fallen, crashed into the sea or broken on the backs of the boulder-giants many years ago.
Once we start climbing the staircase the going gets easier and we soon come to a place about two thirds up the cliff face which I can tell immediately is ‘the’ place. It is a relatively flat explosion of green grass striving slowly but surely to cover up what once was here but now is only ruins. There are two structures that once were houses and one that looks like a place of prayer. We step around them reverentially and with respect as this place demands. The air is still here, it is full of old magic and things we do not understand. The ever-smiling, eternally laughing Yassine has turned introspective and so do we. We enter these places with the respect that they demand, they are old and crumbling in places yet they stand still, a testament to their age and the love with which they were built. In one, the ceiling is made of stones smaller than bricks. The ceiling is vaulted and the cornerstone is slowly disintegrating from the weight of the rest of the roof. I think soon it will crumble and the grass will cover it. I am happy I got to see this before it disappears, for it is breathtaking to be here, where there once were people but now there is none.
Sidetracked Travellers 