Skoura, Morocco - Day 2

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Our day began today in Skoura, Morocco at L’Ma Lodge. The air temperature was surprisingly cool after the sun went down last night, so we all snuggled in our beds for an extra long time this morning. With nowhere specific to be today, we spent our morning having a buffet-style breakfast in the hotel lobby, and then relaxing around the property grounds.

This may have been the first meal we’ve had in Morocco where we were able to serve ourselves, and it was a welcomed change. The food has been fantastic in this country, but the quantities are so large. And when a dish is prepared especially for us, Andi and I can’t help but stuff our bellies past their capacity. For breakfast this morning, we enjoyed a selection of homemade jams, Moroccan bread and mseman (which is like a crepe), yogurt, hard boiled eggs, fruit, tea, coffee, and lemonade.

There are several other groups of guests staying at L’Ma Lodge, so it was fun to meet them over breakfast and share travel stories. There’s a couple from the Netherlands, a family from Belgium, and two ladies from France all staying on the property at the same time we are.

The one downside to staying at this property is that the internet only works in the main lobby, so after breakfast the four of us hung around the seating area there uploading pictures, publishing a blog post, and catching up on work. Tory and Aden are both missing their friends, and hoping to talk with them today since it’s Saturday. The time change on this trip has made it challenging to connect because when we’re free in the morning, it’s the middle of the night in the USA. When it’s evening for us, the kids’ friends are still in school. Most of their friends aren’t available to talk until 6:00pm - 8:00pm CST which is Midnight - 3:00am for us in Morocco.

So, in their downtime, Tory and Aden have been listening to music and watching shows on their iPhones. They moved from the hammock to a cloth tent set up in the grass, lined with blankets and pillows.

Andi and I each had a massage on the L’Ma Lodge property this morning. I love getting massages in other countries because they’re all so unique. This masseuse used a variety of smells and oils (wouldn’t have expected anything less in Morocco) and used a sort of “flicking” technique where she massaged and then whooshed her fingers away from the skin. Andi thought she might’ve been writing something in Arabic on our skin with her hands. There was no draping of a towel for privacy in this massage which didn’t surprise me. People in other countries aren’t usually as modest as they are in the United States.

Around 1:00pm, one of the employees let Andi know our lunch was ready. We’d asked to skip lunch today in an effort to have more room in our bellies when it came to dinner, but alas that wasn’t the cards. Always so much food in Morocco! We are never starving, that’s for sure.

We sat outside on the patio and enjoyed a goat cheese, tomato, & fig salad, chicken skewers, and steamed vegetables. It was actually the perfect amount of food. The flavors were really light and fresh.

Where there’s food in Morocco, you can usually find a cat or two lingering around the table. I didn’t realize cats beg for food (I thought it was only dogs), but apparently they do. Keeping Aden focused on eating his meal and not touching the cats seems like a full-time job.

Andi asked Safan, the hotel manager, for some recommendations for things to do in Skoura this afternoon. Safan recommended taking a walking tour through the nearby date farm and ksar (village) nearby.

Abdula, our tour guide for the afternoon, arrived to L’Ma Lodge about an hour later. Abdula told us he studied to become a geography teacher but quickly realized the four walls of a classroom did not suit him well. After that, he became a tour guide and now teaches people about his community in Skoura. He was a great guide; very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about sharing his country and culture with others.

We began our tour by walking through the nearby date farm. Dates are an important industry in Morocco. There are over 6 million date palms throughout the country, and they grow especially well in the southern region near Skoura. I thought it was interesting to learn that the Moroccan Medjool date palms found in California can be traced back to origin plants of Morocco. That’s because in the 1920’s, when a disease spreading through date palms in Morocco threatened extinction, eleven date palm plants were sent to California in an effort to save the species. Our family happened to be in Palm Springs, CA a few months ago and visited a date palm farm while we were there, so it was interesting to take the information we learned during that experience and apply it to what we learned today in Morocco.

Farming dates is no easy task. The trees must be hand-pollinated by people which takes time and labor. The fruit is harvested by hand as well. Abdula told us about a fire that roared through the date farm last year. Neighbors from the community pitched in to help protect L’Ma Lodge next door. In the end, the fire actually helps the palm tress by killing off any diseases in the trees and fostering new tree growth. There are now new sprigs of palms growing next to the charred trunks of mature trees.

During our walk, we learned a lot about the irrigation practices of Morocco. Each section of the field has a perimeter of dirt around it. The fields are flooded from a main water source once a week and the dirt borders help keep the water in the area that it is suppose to be in. When a farmer wants water to be directed in a certain area, or stopped from going to another area, he builds a dirt mound to stop or re-direct the water.

After the palmery, we walked through an abandoned Jewish settlement. Abdula told us that many Jewish people lived in Morocco until the 1940’s. I did some research later and their exodus from the country seems to have to do with WWII and Morocco gaining its independence from France around the same time. Today, the small Jewish communities are abandoned.

We continued walking to a local community. Abdula explained that people here live in a community cooperative. They don’t pay taxes to the government, but the government doesn’t give them anything either. They rely on each other for the services they need. Someone is in charge of the water tower, some else is the graver, someone manages the mosque, and someone else manages the school. He said there is zero crime here because everyone trusts each other and works together.

Village women working together to washing clothing in the river:

Houses are made with mud and straw to form bricks. We saw some bricks recently made laying out in the sun to dry.

My favorite part of the walking tour was when we met one of Abdula’s friends on the road. He stopped to greet him in Arabic and they talked for a minute to each other. Then, Abdula introduced us and told us his friend lived in the village. “He’s a great hunter,” he said. Ding, ding! That peaked our interest. Andi and I often tell the kids that the best ways to connect with someone in a conversation is to listen and find a commonality. “We are also hunters in our country,” Andi told the man. His eyes instantly lit up and a bond was formed between them. In no time, Andi, Abdula, and the friend on the road were sharing hunting pictures with each other and swapping stories. It’s in those moments we remember that while our cultures might be very different, we as people are just the same.

Our tour concluded back at L’Ma Lodge. Abdula was so great in answering all of our questions about Morocco, community living, the Islam religion, culture, traditions, and more. We learned so much from our walk through the community with him, and really enjoyed it.

Oh, boy, was it dusty though! Tory wore her slides during our walk and her feet were black when we returned to our hotel. A shower was in order for tonight!

For dinner, Safan told us he’d have the kitchen prepare something other than pasta for the kids. “Let’s switch it up with pizza,” he said. Sounded good to Tory and Aden. Unfortunately, the pizza turned out to be a flavor we would have never dreamed — tuna fish. Yuck! Once again, we felt bad sending food back to the kitchen uneaten but there was no way I could have forced this one down.

For our dinner tonight, Andi and I were served salad with goat cheese, chicken tagine with figs, and slices of cake for dessert.

Tomorrow, we’ll say good-bye to Skoura and make our way to the Sahara Desert. I think we’re all 90% excited and 10% a little bit nervous about riding camels. Adventure awaits!