The Good Life in Morocco

Cycling along the promenaded at Agadir beach.  Bicyles can be hired from your hotel for about £5 for half a day a great family activity after breakfast. There are now 2 Sofitel's at Agadir on the beach, a luxury one and a standard one, they are both good and often have good offers on. Wonderful heated pool in the winter too at both hotels owned by the Sofitel in Agadir.  Children get dinner and breakfast free too and one child can stay in your bedroom for free. These pictures show the excellent motorway from Marrakech to Agadir and also the Argana national park where all the Argan trees grow.  Agadir is famous for its Argan oil.

We sometimes manage to escape for a couple of days to the wonderful Moroccan Coast.  Agadir is south of Marrakech and now with the new superb motorway it is just 2.5 hours of smooth easy driving through the stunning hills from Marrakech.   Agadir is great for a chill out.  The weather is balmy, warmer nights and cooler days although this weekend it was 29 degrees C in the day so pretty warm, but with the cool breeze off the sea it's really relaxing. One of the great things about Agadir is if you stay in a hotel on the sea front, there is a long clean promenade 5 kilometres along the beach to the pretty port at the other end.  This time we hired bicycles and cycled to the port and back which was really nice after breakfast.  The bicycles cost 80 dhs for half a day and your hotel will arrange it for you.   The port has some shops including my favourite Max & Jan and also a Zara.  There are a few classy restaurants too for lunch or dinner. We mainly like to arrive

Today my friend came over and brought me these gorgeous hand made cakes from her sister in Safi on the Coast of Morocco about 2 and 1/2 hours from Marrakech .   These delicate little pastries are called Mazgan and are delicate thin pastry filled with marzipan filling which surprisingly is not overly sweat which makes them very moorish. I was told that the original recipe for these was originally from the Jews of Morocco.

  The last 2 Boucherouite or vintage Moroccan Rag Rugs in the Zamzam Collection. I hope you love them as much as I do.

This is the 3rd rug in my Boucherouite collection which can be found in the Zamzam Boutique - www.riadzamzam.com Quite hard to photograph to show all the colours in this rug.  It has white and pretty pink sides.  With different coloured block stripes running through it.  This rug would make a gorgeous hall carpet.

This is the second in my Boucherouite collection.  A stunning pea green with lots of colour down the sides. Again wonderful eco rugs made by Berber ladies in the Mountains.  Visit www.riadzamzam.com for more stunning Beni Ouarain and Handira.

Everyone knows that beautiful carpets are hand made in Morocco and that the Berber Vintage Carpets with their soft wool and ancient but tribal motifs are every designers dream. I who only like cream and black/brown or very muted soft colours has suddenly gone mad for these stunning colourful Boucherouite rag carpets.  I also love the way they are made from recycled cloth in a totally eco fashion.  They are made by women in the countryside and can often be seen on the side of a mountain as you drive through the Atlas or at the beach.   . I have seen a few of these Boucharouiate carpets now and only one has really moved me until I found these.  They are so me their colours out of this world.  Every carpet is unique and these particular ones I have just bought dance around your head as you look at them.  Finding these was like a visual orgasm.  They sang to my soul and filled me with excitement. I hope you love them too. The deep indigo blue of this one with the b

I have just bought these 3 Beni Ouarain runners, I love love them.  They are so hard to find so when I found them that was it.  Over the years clients have asked me to find them and it has been so hard.  Ive actually only seen 2 in 5 years.  So now I have 3 gorgeous ones!  first come first served! email me if you would like one.  zamzamriad@gmail.com they are varying sizes 3.80 - 4.85 meters x 1 meter. For those of you new to Beni hunting.  They are wonderful hand made Berber carpets.  You can also see more wonderful items at the Zamzam Boutique http://www.riadzamzam.com/zamzam-boutique/

We spent our days in the Luxury Desert Camp sand boarding! which has now been added to the list of things to do on the Zamzam Retreat in March.  Laughter is a therapy after all!! See the full programme at www.moroccoretreats.com The dunes were so stunning real sand mountains.  It was so much fun driving over the dunes in a 4 wheel drive.  15 years ago I pushed a truck over the Sahara with a group.  So much pushing so much sand matting I can recommend it if you want to get fit and slim fast but this was much more fun now being in the driving seat. We walked up the highest dune with our sand board ready to whizz down.  When I turned around there was a vast sea of dune stretching to the Algerian border, simply soul touching. Sand boarding down the dunes, cool we loved it.  For help organising trips in Morocco email zamzamriad@gmail.com we have a number of partners that provide excellent Moroccan experiences.

We left Marrakech across the Atlas Mountains with heavy rain looming.  We were tired and thought we would never leave Marrakech everyone wanted a piece of us as it was the night before Eid.   Having driven throughout the Atlas Mountains past an interesting Alpine hunting ground we got stuck in a village.  Cars at loggerheads as they would not make way for a tourist bus trying to get though.  As is the way with Moroccan traffic.  We decided to park up and get lunch.  We ambled towards a smoking bbq cafe full of the hubbub of lunch and became smoked ourselves as the wind changed and we ate our tagine and chips with smoke pouring over us.  I quite like being smoked out as it reminds me of African fires and my childhood in Nigeria. Into Ourzazate a town which many people are rude about but I quite like and onwards towards the Dra Valley to Agdz, town of the old Kasbah's and beginning of the Dra.  We came over the hill with high spirits knowing that in less than an hour we wou

THE VIEW FROM FEZ  click on this link to read the wonderful review on my cakes.

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