Morocco Countryside

Mom and the kids weren’t quite sure what to expect heading to the countryside outside of Marrakesh by themselves. Again, God provided and directed us as we’d originally hoped to spend the majority of our time in Morrocco in Marrakesh and Tangier, but as plans came together we found ourselves drawn to this farm-like stay in the countryside instead of Tangier. What a gift this proved to be given our circumstances. We were thrilled with our set up which was an adobe structure with three separate bedrooms, mom felt so spoiled having her own room and bed with a clean towel for the shower and another for the pool! There were also plenty of outside sitting areas to enjoy, which were great for getting schoolwork done. We quickly set out to explore and discovered the grounds were covered with lemon, orange, pomegranate, and olive trees and there were peacocks, ducks, goats, chicken, bees, pigs, cows, horses, pigeons, dogs and cats to have fun with. Another confirmation of sending Dad home was that there was no phone service this far out, and the wifi was very sporadic and only in a small area of the complex. Had our whole family been here, there is no way we could’ve kept up with life back home to be there for our friend. While it’s great to be off the grid, it was also really hard for everyone with all that was going on.

We spent time getting caught up on some sleep, writing and reading. We were spoiled by the meals which consisted of everything local from the farm, and we devoured the melt-in-your-mouth orange blossom honey and homemade goat cheese and yogurt. In fact, eating three meals a day was ironically such a rare thing for us, that the boys were complaining that they were too full to eat dinner and so we opted to just have breakfast and dinner our last day as three meals felt so gluttonous – funny how we don’t even realize some of the aspects about our travel life that have become “normal!”

Beautiful peacock that welcomed us!

Our oldest has found his happy place

View overlooking the pool to the snow-capped Atlas moutains

The most incredible homemade yogurt, juice, goat cheese and orange-blossom honey!

We enjoyed hiking around the countryside, learning how to make adobe structures, milking cows, making homemade lemonade, learning how to care and train the horses as well as ride them in the countryside, playing games of Dutch (favorite card game) by the fireplace, and SJ made some friends with a couple of girls visiting from Paris. Our couple of days here seemed luxurious and were a welcomed interruption from our typical travel style and itinerary, which allowed us all to process aspects of this past year and the many emotions we were experiencing.