MOROCCAN ROLL
La Sultana Oualidia menu, for which as much as possible is sourced on their doorstep.
Organic herbs and vegetables grow in the kitchen garden, too, and chickens lay eggs for breakfast. It wouldn’t be true luxury without an infinity pool, which falls away into the view of the lagoon. There’s also a traditional hammam spa (an experience not for the shy).
Each of the grand-beyond-belief rooms has its own large private terrace complete with an outdoor daybed and hot tub to sink into as the sun sets, palm trees framing candy colours spread across the sky.
With only 12 rooms, there’s a genuine feeling you’re being looked after. Each guest is handed a smartphone with Nabil on speed dial.
Such love and enthusiasm for this place, and its locally sourced food, runs in Nabil’s blood – his grandmother farmed the lands just the other side of the property and agriculture is still most people’s livelihood here. This side of
Oualidia is best experienced as part of a guided bird safari by (who else?) Nabil.
“When I was a boy, it was all tomatoes growing here,” he says. A problem with yellow fly in the 1990s wiped out much of the red crop and many families sold up and moved on. These days, the lagoonside lands are most likely to be filled with rows of carrots and turnips.
“Cormorant!” Nabil points. And soon the banks are awash with storks and egrets. The protected lagoon has a rich ecosystem, with
400 species of bird coming to feed in autumn and spring. Further along, flamingos balance in salt marshes mid-migration from Spain to sub-Saharan Africa.
Morocco is more famous for surf than storks, though. Safi, an hour from here, is considered to have some of the best waves in Africa, but the gentle undulating waves inside Oualidia bay are safe enough for beginners.
It’s my first time and Medhi, a laidback 24-year-old instructor from Surfland Surf Camp, greets me with a fist bump and declares “It’s easy!”.
Over the next hour and a half, he persistently gives me a push onto each wave, encouragingly yelling, “Stand up now! Bend your knees now!” and sometimes “No not like that!” He’s determined he’ll make a surfer of me yet.
We almost have the waves to ourselves, bar a couple of local surfers giving me a wide berth. Even being splashed repeatedly in the face with salty water can’t dampen the life-affirming exhilaration of riding even the smallest of waves in this unassuming little pocket of the world.
Get here before it gets busy.
LAUREN TAYLOR