KNOCKING OUT CAMELS IN MAGICAL MOROCCO
Penny Smith embarks on a whistle-stop tour – with an arty companion obsessed by only one thing . . .
IT IS a bit odd going on holiday with someone who keeps knocking out camels – and I’m not talking fisticuffs. My pal, TV presenter Anneka Rice arrives in Morocco with her suitcase stuffed full of paper and paints. We’ve barely settled at the authentically delicious Les Deux Tours hotel in Marrakech than a slice of our enormous suite is converted into a studio, and brightly blanketed camels are emerging so fast that we could start a caravanserai.
Morocco is the perfect place for a break: a three-hour flight from the UK, no time difference, dry heat and excellent opportunities to furnish your home, yourself or your garden. Throw in the sea and t he Atlas mountains and you’ve got it pretty much covered. Particularly if you’re partial to a tagine – or a camel.
During our stay at Les Deux Tours, we take walks to the long, luxurious pool where Anneka easily completes a few l engths; and through the gardens replete with birdsong and a tangerine tree to the cool, terracotta-coloured restaurant for yet another nibble.
But after an all too brief stay in the city, we head west to the seaside. ‘I think you may have left your swimming costume in your room,’ says the receptionist as we check out. ‘How can you know that when we have just left the room?’ asks Anneka, sketching a camel with the receptionist’s pencil.
Mysteriously, the receptionist in correct and the costume is hurried to us. Four hours later it is unpacked in a village on the Atlantic coast called Sidi Kaouki, which is popular with surfers and windsurfers.
Our base, Rebali Riads, is a cluster of modern houses with their own pools. During your time here you can visit a Berber village or argan oil co-operative, do a food souk tour, play tennis or learn how to get bashed repeatedly on the head while snorting salty water up your nose (surfing/windsurfing.)
We wrap ourselves up in scarves and brave the wide, white, windy beach looking like Thelma and Louise. Only older. And not on the run.
LATER, Youssef, the smiling chef ’s assistant, makes us a superb chicken and l emon dish, followed by strawberries, and mint tea. The night guardian, Habib, stokes up a fire as the sun goes down. Anneka stokes up her paints and conjures up another even-toed ungulate.
The next day, we take a taxi to the stunning port of Essaouira, 15 miles away. Everywhere you look is like a photograph. Boats in varying hues of blue. Cobalt doors. And in the medina, brightly col- oured textiles, softly polished pots, and glinting silverware. Anneka strides off: ‘I’ve got everything I need,’ she says. ‘It’s such a relief not to want to buy anything.’
I buy some egg cups in glorious primary colours with silver rims, a cotton scarf in royal blue, and a small metal sculpture of a dog or a griffin. Anneka appears: ‘Can I
borrow 200 dirham? I’ve found some fab rugs.’
We lunch at a rooftop restaurant and head back to Rebali Riads where one of us sits in the shade reading and the other knocks out another dromedary.
The next day we have cheese omelettes for breakfast. I don’t know why we’re so excited since we have dined like kings in Morocco – and eaten an oven-load of possibly the best bread in the universe.
We wave goodbye to the superb staff and drive into the High Atlas mountains. The Imlil valley is awash with blossoming plum, almond and apple trees, while tiny villages cling to the dusty slopes and are framed with snowy peaks.
Halfway up a hill, our driver stops and says: ‘You have to put your bags on a mule now and walk to the hotel from here.’ Well that’s a first. On go the suitcases and Anneka’s stripy rugs while we wend our way to the Kasbah du Toubkal. It’s breathtaking. A tan and grey stone building of varying heights, silhouetted against the mountains. We enter through the giant gate to a quiet courtyard garden and find we’ve been upgraded to a beautiful suite with a view of Mount Toubkal itself and a tumbling river of snow melt.
‘Oh my word,’ we say in slightly breathy voices, since we’re now almost 6,000ft above sea level. As the publicity blurb for Kasbah du Toubkal says: ‘Forty miles from Marrakech, a million miles from anywhere.’
For the first time, we go to bed without a new camel. ‘To be fair,’ says Anneka, dabbling in the nut bowl, ‘we have been travelling all day. You know, these nuts will be my undoing. They’re so moreish.’
‘Moorish? How marvellously apt,’ I reply.
The next day, a guide takes us on a two-hour walk through villages where mules are the local form of transport. We see one hitched to a shady door.
‘Ah. The garage,’ nods Anneka. Far below, more mules are
bagged up and waiting to go. ‘That’ll be the car park, then,’ I respond.
At a shop near the hotel, Anneka spots a scarf she fancies. A man called Ibrahim demonstrates its huge versatility by winding it around her head in various ways.
‘This is in winter,’ he says, tightening it into a kind of helmet. ‘No windy ears like this. Lovely jubbly.’ He then changes the style to leave a tail over the shoulders. ‘And this is in summer. Lovely jubbly.’ Of course Anneka buys it. Abdul meets us the next day, and we lope up to the snow line of Mount Toubkal – the highest mountain in North Africa – where we buy more scarves and drink mint tea.
Finally we feel we have earned our evening meal with all its attendant bread.
The food has been delicious but the holiday is over and we need to go on a diet.
I read beside the fire. Anneka paints a sheep.
It wasn’t happy, but it does look pretty in pink and stands out against the vegetation.