It’ll be fun.. She said.
Famous last words..
We woke up early as Carol-Ann had arranged for us to go for a pleasant short 2-3 hour hike to a local Berber village to experience an authentic Moroccan tea ceremony…
We met our guide (Akmed) at 9:30. He was from another local village called Fatima. He’d hiked around where we were staying for over 10 years and had climbed to the peak of Toubkal (the highest peak in Morocco and North Africa at 4,167m) over 10 times… I think our definitions of a gentle hike were about to be very obviously different.
To be fair the scenary was amazing. I was picking out bits of single track that I would love to ride left, right and centre, but I was also that I’d rather do it in the winter and not at this time of year - the temperature at 9:30 was already 28 degrees.
The first real interesting sight we saw on our hike were some goats - naturally Carol-Ann got very excited, I would show you some pictures but I was stopped by the female shepherd (shepherdess, shepherdette..?) that I’d have to pay her for a picture! Erm no thanks.
The hike involved some very interesting routes. Put it this way, I reckon we were probably the only people to have walked this route this week, it was that random.
After about 2 hours and a few stops for Carol-Ann (she had now realised the error of her ways in organising a hike) we arrived at the Berber village. We were shown into a room of the small homestay where there were a couple of makeshift tables put together and some glasses and a fairly standard metal teapot.
The father of the family came in and said hello, but didn’t speak any English at all so Akmed translated. He asked where we were from and that was about it.
His daughter brought in some freshly baked flat breads with some apricot jam and olive oil for us to eat. Somehow it seemed to the father and Akmed that I was about to eat with my left hand (big no-no is Arabic cultures) and a comment/joke was made about it. Carol-Ann thought the father insulted me but I’m not convinced - when you see her ask her about it… But after a brief joke the Tea ceremony started. We’d had authentic tea ceremonies in Japan. This was not one of those. An old metal kettle was brought in along with a mini propane gas tank with a burner attached on top. The water was boiled and then a small amount was poured into the other metal teapot, swirled around and thrown out. Then some tea leaves were added to the empty kettle, along with some mint leaves and finally what could only be described as a rock of sugar. Not one of those cute sugar rocks you get in restaurants, this was the size of a tennis ball! Then the water went in and the teapot placed back on the gas bottle to boil again.
After a few minutes of boiling the tea was ready, well almost. It had to be poured into a glass then the glass emptied back into the teapot about a dozen times, before being served to us. There was no pomp and ceremony like Japanese tea ceremonies. I probably had more of a ceremony making tea at home.. But it did taste good.
After about 20 minutes or so it was time to leave. We headed out of the village and Akmed told us we’d take a short cut back as by this time it was 11am and getting seriously hot. Only problem was the shortcut was also the most direct - ie straight line up and down, no tree cover (which we did benefit from on the way up)
To be fair, it was shorter. Not sure how much though. By the time we’d got back it was 1pm and we were toast from the heat. Literally. I did ask Carol-Ann a few times on the way back if she still thought a hike was a good idea. She didn’t see the funny side.
You can check out a short video overlay of the fun here… https://www.relive.cc/view/vRO7dRjp5K6
When we got back to the hotel we went straight for a nice cold shower and then into the freezing swimming pool.
Then we sat under the trees next to the pool. And didn’t move. Until it was time to eat.
At dinner we went with the usual format of going straight to mains - something about the heat really hits your appetite.. Carol-Ann picked up on the fact that when taking our order the waiter asked for our room number - standard - but then as he did so the head waiter was walking past and told the first waiter which room number we were in. I thought nothing of it - just assumed we were recognisable/memorable.. Carol-Ann thought otherwise. When it came to dessert, I had my eye on a chocolate noisette number and Carol-Ann wanted a Mango panancotta.. We didn’t get them. To be fair it was really nice of them to make us a small cake, with 2 candles on. And wish us happy anniversary.
