Village visit

A late start today – we do not head out until 10 which gives everyone the opportunity to sleep in the a/c until we wake naturally, and lounge at the outdoor breakfast where the bees are drawn to the honey soaked pancakes delivered to the table. Last night there was a wedding going on at a neighboring hotel and the festivities –including loud cheering and banging of drums – went on until 3am. Hopefully this is the last, and not the first, of the 3 days a Moroccan wedding takes.

So we begin our walk into the village where we meet Charif, our local guide. He walks us around the village through narrow paths of olive trees and blooming oleander bushes, with the hot buzz of cicadas all around us. There are chickens and children and women and even a dog or two. These homes are adobe which only lasts about 100 years so carbon dating does not work here, but it is known this area has been populated for as long as 2,000 years. We see a very old olive press, and a much newer French game warden’s station – boar, hare, and large horned sheep are all hunted in these mountains. We are invited into a family’s home – Fatima, dressed in 3 layers of sweater and a long skirt graciously tours us through her home – 3 rooms all tidy and spotlessly clean. They have made fresh bread and mint tea for us so we settle into a sitting room. There is a choice of fantasic homemade honey or olive oil for dipping the bread. I am so hot I am soaked through my clothes, and I do not know how Fatima dresses the way she does. Mark says they wear more than we do in the summer, and less than we do in the winter. There are 6 family members living here, and two more sleeping rooms we did not look into.

After lunch at an open air restaurant, we head back to La Rosaraie for the pool and some reading. Our kids make friends with a family of kids from London and play for hours in the pool while we adults read and nap and occasionally take a dip ourselves. No one takes advantage of the spa, but this feels like such a restful, easily paced day we are all very happy. Our dinner is in the garden again. We pull out the map and mark where we trekked, about half an inch. Clearly we need a better map. Mark says it was about 30 miles, I am quite certain he is wrong and it just feels a shame to be leaving this great place!