I usually avoid leaving bad reviews on here. If I have nothing really positive to say, I tend just to avoid the subject. However, after four days in Sidi Ifni, we left early and headed back to Agadir to spend our only night in a hotel.
We try really hard to ‘live like locals’ and show our kids how local people truly live however after suffering from diarrhoea and sickness twice in two weeks, having no wifi, being surrounded by rubbish and sexperiencing constant harrasment or disparaging looks, we felt tired (like drained of energy), dirty and craving cleanliness.
Let’s start at the beginning
My husband, Rich, works away at least two weeks out of every month, sometimes more, and whilst we were staying north of Agadir he found out that he had to leave for China. We had already planned and booked to go to Sidi Ifni so myself and the three children decided we’d still go down and stay by ourselves.
By this time we’d already been in Morocco for nearly a month and, to be honest, patience was starting to get a bit tight. Morocco is one of those countries you either love or hate and sadly for us, it was the latter. We’d already visited Tunisia (which we loved) so we weren’t new to North Africa and since then we’ve also visited Sudan (which we loved) and Egypt (which we vowed never to return to) so
Sidi Ifni
Located in the Souss region of Morocco, Sidi Ifni served as a Spanish port from the mid-19th century until it was ceded to Morocco in 1969. From the 1930s until the late 1960s, the town hosted a large Spanish population and the guidebooks promised crumbling Spanish-built fortifications, Spanish signposts and funky European art-deco architecture next to traditional Moroccan homes. Not to mention ‘the best beach in Morocco’.
We thought this would be pretty cool to see…. so we headed off.
Where’s the road?
We arrived in on the road from Aglou; a partial coastal road that leads through what can only be described as half-built tourist complexes and shabby, decaying Moroccan towns that have seen better days. Sometimes, I wonder if this is too harsh as a description and maybe too privileged but I think the description is correct.
Eventually, after an hour’s drive we arrived into a town with no surfaced road, dust and dirt everywhere and a stench that would turn a corpse!
I think they must have been relaying the roads by hand, because four days later (although there were people working on the roads) no progress had been made.
Where are all the women?
Throughout the town, the roads are just dirt tracks with orange-tinted soil covering them. The main road is lined with cafes and an abundance of men, everywhere.
Even walking through the smaller walkways of the souks and other roads, you’ll be hard pushed to find many women out during the day. We found this very difficult because the men can be quite misogynistic; they’ll stare, call out, beg, make comments and generally it made us feel very uncomfortable!
As a lone parent with three kids, I was honestly not expecting the level of disrespect to be so high. I covered up the whole time, wore long trousers and nothing tight. I also only took my camera out once as I felt so uncomfortable and therefore I don’t have many photos of Sidi Ifni. Now, I know the culture is very different there but I wasn’t expecting it to be so very draining and mentally hard.
Poooo, what’s that smell?
The kids were desperate to go to the beach, so making our way past the lighthouse we took the track down to the beach passing what could only be described as a flow of raw sewage.
It stank like raw sewage, it looked like sewage and it was meandering its way down to the beach. I’m guessing it’s also a regular occurrence because the locals were just hopping over it and carrying on.
Rubbish!!
I was aghast at the beach – I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much rubbish. If we thought Aglou Beach was bad this was a thousand times worse.
I didn’t even want the kids to take off their shoes, let alone paddle because it was DISGUSTING! From dirty nappies floating in the water to plastic bottles and everything in between. I was horrified and all I could think of was cholera!!
Cleaned up for the summer
When I asked about the state of the beach, I was told it was ‘cleaned up for the summer tourists’… but why not just keep it nice ALL the time?
Locals clearly throw rubbish over the cliffside.
What a CESSPIT!
I would never return again. The thought of returning makes my skin crawl but I hate to end on a bad note, so here are some photos of the sunset 🙂
I Have Nothing Positive To Say About Morocco At All
It’s so sad that we went to Morocco with such high spirits but left never wanting to return again. I hate to end a post on a bad note too. I’ve heard that the north of Morocco is nicer but I haven’t been further north really than Marrakech. Sometimes I think to myself, “we really should go to the north, just for a visit” but my husband says no. It’s just not worth it.
I’m really hesitant to spend money going back to Morocco to see if I like the north. If you liked Egypt (side note we didn’t) you’ll probably like Morocco. I am hoping this doesn’t come across as anti-Africa; I liked Tunisia and Sudan.
But, if you’d like to visit, because each of us if different and you might absolutely love it. You can use this map to search for accommodation in Morocco.
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