Agadir and Imourane Beach, Jan 2026
Another trip to Agadir, and accidental discovery of an amazing beach
10/01/26
Back to the Village for the 4th time. It has been freezing all week. North and
west suffered most. Glad to get out of it. 10 days in Morocco for a bit of sun
, hopefully. But there were no trains to Gatwick! Luckily we managed to book a
last minute cab. We were booked on British Airways flight 12.55. We don't
usually book BA. When you book it doesn't say that the seats are extra. £50 ,
and those are the cheapest ! BA do not issue boarding passes until the day
before. When we tried to check in, my bag was rejected. We had to find someone
to book it in manually. We had a sight seeing tour round Gatwick on the bus.
The reason - there was a problem with our designated plane. We had to use a
" spare " one parked at the end at of the airport. I don't know how
long it had been parked up, but it sounded pretty ropey when it fired up, like
a washing machine that had seen better days. It didn't inspire confidence
seeing the engineer working on it.
Anyway it got off the ground ok . Only 10 minutes late, but we arrived early. It only took 3hr 15 minutes, maybe flying at 37000 feet helps. The plane was almost half empty. We were warned that security had been tighten and boarding passes had to be shown on arrival. I failed to see how that would stop undesirables entering, maybe it was something to with the AFCON football tournament being held here, anyway I wasn't asked to show mine. We collected our bags found our taxi driver waiting outside arrivals, and got to the hotel at 6.30. Not bad considering they are an hour ahead of us. It's 25km from the airport and nearly all motorway all the way.
You have
to pay a tourist tax in Morocco, which varies according to the hotel, ours worked
out to 16.50 Moroccan Dirham , Dam, per person a night , 330 Dam in total for
10 days ( 12.05 Dam to £1). No one else was in reception, apart from a Brit complaining
that he hadn't had any hot water for 4 days, Oops,
He was
leaving the next day. Don't think he will give a good review, especially as the
weather last week was cold and wet.
The
hotel was only about half full and our block only had one other room occupied.
The apartment blocks are on 2 levels, scattered around the main pool and
restaurant area. Ours was room 2013,1st floor, twin bed with balcony. We've had
bigger but it was perfectly adequate with working tv and air-conditioning. I checked
the hot water !
Imourane Beach, looking towards Taghazout
Sunday No fruit juice at breakfast. They have got a new machine but it is out of order. Just had to have fresh sliced grapefruit instead ! It feels colder than last year. Everyone complaining about how cold and wet it has been, but the day was sunny. Nice to see some of the old faces from last year. The beer ran out at the pool bar at 4 , but it is was available at the reception bar. Hardly anyone seems to use it and it is quite peaceful sitting in the garden outside by the waterfall. Some local celebration going on at night, I was woken up at 2.00 by car horns blaring !
"Sorry
sir, I will get someone to look at it right away ".
I wasn't
expecting much. But it was working by the time I got back. The apartment blocks
have big gas bottles that connect to them. I guess ours had just run out.
Strange they don't have solar panels on the roof to heat the water, but that
needs investment, something somewhat lacking here.
You
always get one, don't you. Prat with the hat ! Been drinking rum and coke all
afternoon, now he's got a problem walking to the bar.
"I'm
on my own, the girl friend's left me."
I can't understand why .
Tuesday Yennaya, New years eve. The local Arabs, Berbers, have a different calendar from us , this was their new years eve . They dress up and celebrate in style. Unfortunately it rained in the evening ( the 1st time I have seen rain here ), which rather put a dampener on it. Their traditional music is entertaining but it gets a bit monotonous. At least the Chivas regal was back to normal strength. ( it was watered down the previous night.)
Wednesday, There is a new tea man at
breakfast. Last year there was an old guy in Arabic traditional dress sitting
in the restaurant with his teapot dispensing mint tea. I don't like the stuff myself.
Especially when there is perfectly good Boston tea, or coffee. Wonder what
happened to the old boy ?
The
cleaner took our towels, only leaving one ( there was no need to have taken
any! ). The receptionist looked suitably shocked when I complained. She
produced one from under the counter.
Thursday, the plan today was to have a bus ride. There is a little town about 20 km up the coast, Taghazout. I liked the name and I had seen pictures of it. There are 2 buses that go there, L32 and L33. They both run close to our hotel on the main drag into town N10 , (past the bus station ) . They take cash, and they were supposed to run every 30 minutes or so. We got to the bus stop at 10.30, but we had to wait until 11 when an L32 turned up, maybe we just missed one. We got a ticket without any issues ( 7.50 Dam each ). It was a relatively modern, comfortable coach, not too crowded. It went past the fort and up the coast road. In all honesty it isn't very scenic, anyway we got off at what I thought was Taghazout. ( We found out later it was actually Tamraght). It didn't look very promising but we followed a track to the beach for about half a mile that led to a gorgeous beach, 3 beaches really, called Imourane beach.
The Beach Track
The central one is a tiny cove with a rocky outcrop that you can walk out to - quite idyllic. There were a few shacks on top of the rocks that double up as surf board hire and cafes ( it was noticeable that there was no alcohol ). It's a favorite spot for surfers and there were lots of them out chasing the rollers. They were good too, much better the ones we had seen at Agadir the year before. We spent a lovely day on the beach, before walking back past the fishing boats on top of the cliff and a large tarmac area where a load of camper vans were parked up. This was called Banana point, because it is near the village of Aourir, famous for it's bananas.
The bus
back was 10.50 Dam, an L33 bus . We only had to wait 10 minutes.
Friday, no towels or pillow cases
now ! We got some after complaining, but they didn't need to be changed. I
spoke to the cleaner b4 she did our room too.
A bit
more rain later in the evening.
Saturday, walk to Jardin IBM Zaidoun
. A pleasent garden just off the N10 with massive palm trees
AFCON
final tonight Morocco v Senegal.
Sensation
! Senegal walked off when Morocco were awarded a controversial penalty. They returned
after 17 minutes and went onto win 1 - 0.
Sunday, no evening entertainment
tonight, presumably because of the final. They usually have dancing round the
pool. It gets quite lively but it's a bit samey after a few nights. The music
doesn't change much.
Monday, no Internet at all in the
restaurant. I saw 2 of the locals carrying out what looked like a router. Flood
damage ? It was working at reception though. Last full day, so just the usual routine by the pool in the morning and then beach later when it has warmed up. The private hotel beach is still here, although you would not know it unless you asked. Very few people use it.
Noticeably fewer people here this week ( there weren't that many last week ). Part of the restaurant has been closed off. Still plenty of food though. I've heard people complaining about the food, it's traditional Moroccan, I only saw chips twice, but I like it. It is varied and well cooked, if a little on the cool side. Sometimes I had to use the microwave to warm it up. Maybe the appearance puts people off. I saw some people get McDonald's delivered. ( McDonald's is quite near, on the N10, A big Mac is about the same price as UK. ) I guess some people just want what they are used to back home. If you are interested in the hotel and the fort you can just make out in my opening photo, check out my earlier blog AGADIR 2024
Tuesday, another nice day, although it's all set to change from tomorrow. More cloud and rain. Well, we haven't done badly, although it's definitely been cooler than normal. Day temperature varied 18 -22, and it dropped down to 7 at night. We had a good flight time back, 13.20, with a pick up time of 9.50. Plenty of time for breakfast. It was very quiet at the airport, and although we were not able to download boarding passes we checked in ok. We actually took off 10 minutes early! There was some turbulence and it took a bit longer than the flight out. An indication of the poor weather at home while we have been away. It's nice to get away for some early sun.
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