A Walking Holiday in Costa Rica by Mary Novakovich Essay

Youd have to have been living on another(prenominal) planet for the past half-decade not to have clocked the rise and rise of the release City, Marrakesh. While five-star resorts have proliferated right up to the w every last(predicate)s of the 1,000-year-old medina, inside them, along its chiaroscuro tangle of solelyeys and lanes, chic and anomalous riads have upturned and elevated paradigms of Moroc washstand instauration and service. Urbane and luxurious, Marrakesh now feels like a place where theres nothingor close to nothingyou cant have. Which is why the places to look for the real Morocco often lie far from the burnished suites and go restaurants of this city on the plain. Striking out for the farther reaches of the country is rewarded with unique takes on traditionalistic hospitality, both new and timeless. They can be undercoat deep in the southernmost region, where ungenerous stone begins to surrender to the saffron-gold smoothen of the Sahara or high among the tow ering Atlas, where Berber culture has its oldest and still strongest roots, and brilliant colour and tribal traditions flourish amid sometimes indescribably severe natural peach tree or along Moroccos coast, whose whitewashed, fortified villages reflect both European colonial history and Islamic mystery.Far below the historic Berber fortification of Zagora, in the Dra valley, where only the faintest tire-tread marks indicate your path, my guide and I speed in our Toyota 4Runner past a scene of cinematic emptiness, shaded in the non-tones of the desert. After an hours drive from the town of Mhamid, we reach, of all things, a schoolhouse, set on a excellent rise here, a 4 x 4 awaits to shepherd me to Erg Chigaga Luxury Camp. The brainchild of a transplanted English hotel executive, Nick Garsten, and a Berber desert guide named Moustafa Boufrifri, known to all as Bobo, the camp lies in the Erg Chigaga dunes, which climb to heights of 1,000 feet. The eight traditional caidal tents atomic number 18 connected by twin pavilions with ornate blackwork on their exteriors inside, the walls are striped in bold red and cream, and thick pile rugs clientele the ground. Bathrooms have hand-worked metalvanities and hot- and cold-water buckets on teak platforms for hammam-style bathing (which uses only rough one-tenth of the water required by a conventional squandera crucial concession here, where it is the most precious commodity).Crimson woolen runners crisscross the camp, from tent to tent and from dining to leisure pavilions at wickedness theyre banked with lines of glowing lanterns. Flanking one bounce of the main area is a row of palm trunks, between which are suspended several hammockswhat Bobo charmingly refers to as Erg Chigagas chill-out zone. Bobo himselfsupremely competent and drily funny in five languageslopes about in his cobalt-blue turban and djellaba, pouring shots of Berber whiskey, the ubiquitous and wickedly strong mint-tea blend. Two newer and mor e private tents, set about a 15-minute walk from the main camp, make excellent honeymoon destinations. The energy of Erg Chigaga seems prevailingly fond and informala place to leaven the intrigue and high bray quotient of a desert bivouac with doses of extreme-ish activities (sand-boarding to the south late-afternoon camel treks) and easy camaraderie most the fire after sunset.About 20 miles from Erg Chigaga, in the taller dunes at the edge of the ancient Iriki lake bed, is an encampment conceived for those who seek desert romance of the writ-large, Lawrence of Arabiavarietyand are voluntary to pay top dollar for it. The Camp of Dar Ahlam is a one-night experience as part of a longer baulk at the elegant guesthouse of the resembling name in Skoura, some 200 miles to the northwest. First set up in 2007 as a single tent, it has expanded over the years, and can now accommodate as many as 30 people, only if is still meant for only one group at a time. During my dumbfound I am lo oked after by Ahmed, the camp manager, and a small staff. The camp reprises the narrative theme for which its namesake hotel (house of dreams, in Arabic) is known my stay unspools in a series of mise-en-scnes straight from a Thesiger passageor a Ridley Scott epic.My tent is of the simplest white canvas, lined in sisal and furnish with a low wooden bed and an embossed-brass table surrounded by kilim-covered cushions. At dusk, I sat ensconced in a Roorkhee chair in front of it, enjoying an aperitif (served on estate silver), surrounded by towering mounds of the Sahara, their summits mold to papers-edge fineness by the wind. I had no inkling of the takings happening one dune away, until Ahmed came to collect me for dinner a trek over its crest revealed a tent surrounded by lanterns and, inside, lambent with the glow of multiplecandelabras. A table was set opulently replete to please a cherifa. I was served a tangia, a meat hover prepared in a terra-cotta urn and slow-cooked overn ight in a wood-fired oven.