With over 900 riads offering accommodation, there is no shortage of fabulous places to stay in Marrakech. The same cannot be said once you’ve stepped beyond the Palmeraie however, which is a pity, as places like the small town of Ourika in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains are some of my favourite spots in Morocco. Until now, it has felt like a well-kept secret, known only to aficionados and local residents. I knew it from visiting the aromatic herb garden, Nectarome. Now that the greatly anticipated guesthouse, Kasbah Bab Ourika is finally open, there’s an even better reason to visit – and stay – in the area.

Perched on a hill overlooking the Ourika River and surrounded on three sides by national parkland, the Kasbah has one of the most beautiful settings imaginable. It feels impossibly lush and impossibly grand but nature’s grandeur, rather than man’s. Indeed, the setting is so extraordinary that the magic of the hotel is almost an added bonus. There’s an expansive ease that feels both totally peaceful and wholly embracing. This is a place for unwinding, walking the hills, or discovering the local villages. There are books – good ones – in every room and each of the 15 suites is individually decorated in muted palettes and locally sourced furnishings.

My personal favourite is the cosy Room 9, with a fantastically airy outdoor shower…which I concede might be less appealing in winter months. Carefully chosen antiques line the colonnades of the inner courtyards, and the bar is as intimate and inviting as you could wish. Lunch on the garden terraces alone is worth the one hour roundtrip from Marrakech, although I warn you, you’ll want to stay longer. You might want to stay forever.

Doubles from €150; 00 212 661 25 23 28 / 00 212 661 44 77 89 / 00 212 524 38 97 97; www.babourika.com

By Eleanor O’Keefe

CITY

• For The Independent’s Michael Bywater “Fez is the opposite of Brussels” and all the better for it. As he describes the sights and sounds (you’ll find Al-Karaouine, the world’s oldest functioning university, and the notorious Chouara Tannery) Bywater urges you to lose yourself in the city – “the alleyways of the medina are so sinuous, straitened and overbuilt that there is, quite literally, no view. You never know what is around the next corner as it tilts down towards the river.” Best for getting lost: Fez
• “It’s ridiculous really. The British will visit Romania, Austria, Italy, even the Balkans. But they won’t go to Munich. They can’t pretend it is because there are no beaches – they go to Switzerland.” Alice Thompson at The Times finds that despite its relative unpopularity, she can’t help Falling in love with Munich as she discovers the city’s easy charm, Michelin-starred restaurants and nearby fairytale castles.
• The New York Times’ Jennifer Conlin spends 36 Hours in Istanbul , exploring what 2010’s European City of Culture can offer. According to her “the city is showcasing local artists in both historic areas and new museums – yet another example of how Istanbul is among the world’s most visually stimulating cities.” Recommendations range from a stroll down Istiklal Caddesi (a main thoroughfare) to a Mediterranean-Scandinavian restaurant and a music lounge housed in a former bakery.
• New inhabitant of Venice, John Brunton discovers The Venetian islands locals want to keep to themselves in the weekend’s Guardian, savouring the tourist-free zones of nearby towns – “all you do is buy an all-day public transport ticket then set off on an adventure that takes you from the steps of the Doge’s Palace, across the lagoon to the Lido, and then to the sleepy fishermen’s island of Pellestrina, that traverses the wild wetlands of the littoral, with the beaches and nature reserves of the Adriatic on one side, the calm waters of the lagoon on the other. The final leg, on the water bus, delivers you to the ancient port of Chioggia, a charming mini-Venice minus the crowds.”
• Edwin Heathcote, the FT’s architecture critic takes a tour of the town in the grip of a renaissance – Art Basel’s rising popularity has helped to forge Miami’s reinvention as a design capital: “The latest boom, though, has ended without a conspicuous legacy beyond the endless, bland apartment blocks and second homes. If there is something left over it is the reinvention of some of the city’s less palm-lined streets as design and arts districts. And the stage-set architecture of the city is proving a compelling backdrop to its reinvention as a design capital.”

ESCAPE

• Holly Finn writes about The ancient landscape of the Grand Canyon in the FT. “No faith is shaken when we’re told the oldest rock in the canyon, the Vishnu Schist at the bottom, is two billion years old. And yet, holy moly, this feels like a religious place. Looking into that fearsome 277-mile-long crack in the planet, you want to laugh, clap, sing. Then you want to stand very still and say nothing. You’d have to be wicked to leave here unmoved.”
• Best for sun-worshippers: Bondi Beach says Janet Street-Porter. Writing in the Independent, Street-Porter sings its praises describing it as “the most vibrant beach in Australia; perfect for a fun weekend break from the city. The combination of a beautiful bay, golden sands and a cosmopolitan crowd ensures that this is a beach for everyone”
• Looking for an escape? Well according to the Independent, Cyprus is your best bet. Jocasta Jones explains why – “we finally ventured west to view the ancient ruins and mosaics of Pafos, south to watch the ships pass by the bustling port town of Limassol, north to the fascinating walled city of Nicosia, the world’s last partitioned capital. We drove up into the hills to nibble on stickily preserved fruits in the enchanting village of Kakopetria, where shady squares brought welcome respite from the summer heat.” Best for island escapes: Cyprus
• The Times’ Daniel Finkelstein takes a family trip to Provence and attempts to learn the art of Golf and the flying trapeze at Club Med – “I was able to get out on the golf course. I write that as if it’s something I do routinely. In fact I’ve never been before. My golf handicap is that I can’t hit the ball. I wanted to go out and have a go, though, because the course looked so fantastic and also because I wanted to stand in the middle of the putting green and ring my broker on my mobile phone and tell him to sell my Harrods’ shares. I don’t have any Harrods’ shares, but you get what I mean.”

ADVENTURE/OUTDOORS

• Robert Adams goes on a 6 month adventure around Africa with two families (that’s five children) in tow, visiting some of the wildest parts of Africa – “North of Addis Ababa we took a hard, dusty mountain road to the ancient holy city of Lalibela and marvelled at the monolithic cave churches hewn from bare rock. The boys were captivated by the medieval world around us, the priests with their ornate gold crosses, the tunnels linking the churches, and the macabre sight of human bones sticking out of coffins and carved niches in the rock face.” This is Cape Town to Cairo – and back again
• In The Telegraph Lydia Bell gets away from the urbane pace of Cuba’s cities in search of a more relaxed way of life. Passing through the towns of Cienfuegos and Trinidad “an exquisitely preserved museum piece of cobblestone streets and sumptuous squares” Bell and her husband sit back and soak up the simple charms of these small towns – “On our way home we stop in Plaza Ignacio Agramonte and join the locals on the marble benches. We stay there until the sun fades then walk back through silent streets.” Cuba: Journey to the provincial heart
• In Iceland: Go with the floe Chris Heath from The Telegraph takes an 830 mile trip around the country, stopping for the many curiosities along the way – hot springs full of ‘uncommon’ bacteria, lava formations, waterfalls, glaciers. Culture comes in the form of a poetry reading, whale museum (which is also an indoor golf course) and erm, a penis museum – “Once you’ve been in Iceland for a while it barely seems surprising, let alone remarkable, that in a small fishing town on the northern coast a man would open what he calls the Phallalogical Mus eum, dedicated to the display of the world’s most extensive collection of mammalian penises” – but it’s the beauty of the island which most enthralls Heath.
• The Independent’s Maria Arnold, heads to a beginner-friendly ski resort in Sainte Foy as she heads to the slopes with her children on for their first time skiing: “Two great nursery slopes with magic carpets (gone are the jerky button lifts of yesteryear) got our young children off to a great start, and they quickly graduated to greens and blues. For them, the great highlight was the “Fox Run”, a narrow track through the woods with a big bump every few yards – producing squeals of delight as they came bobbing down, emerging from the trees with huge grins across their faces” Best for reluctant downhillers: Sainte Foy
• “Either everyone needed cheering up or it was national “make fun of a limey” day. Michael Jackson was on the sound system, encouraging us not to stop till we got enough. The women high-kicked, while I just looked like an arthritic old labrador on a one-way trip to the vet. I moved right as they moved left, and I shimmied when I should have sashayed.” The Times’ Will Hide finds himself enjoying the ball game, despite having to go Cheerleading with the Miami Dolphins in Southern Florida.

WILDLIFE/NATURE

• The Telegraph’s Jessamy Calkin takes his son Jonah Whale watching in South Africa, staying near the town of Hermanus, marvelling at the grace of these great creatures – “at one point she turned on to her side and Jonah and I, leaning over the side of the boat, found ourselves looking directly into her eye. I thought of Paul Watson, the eco militant…and the beginning of his fight to save the whales: ‘As the whale slid back into the water we saw his eye, which was the size of a dinner plate, and in that whale’s eye I saw recognition, compassion, empathy and understanding. Something passed between us and it changed my life for ever.’
• “When you are an old man, remember this moment,” I said to my companion, a six-year-old relative called Elliot. “Why?” said Elliot, licking his ice lolly. “Because when you are an old man the snow leopard will not exist.” – Nigel Richardson goes to mountains of Ladakh: Chasing the snow leopard, a creature which, partly due to its endangered status proves to be tantalisingly elusive.
• Sean O’Grady gets an animal education in Best for the wild at heart: South Africa, the Independent’s top tip for safari holidays: “I now know why leopards take their kills up a tree (so dinner isn’t stolen by hyenas), how to distinguish hippo and rhino tracks (hippo drag their feet) and how to age a lion (the darker the mane, the older it is).”
• In the New York Times Tara Mulholland enjoys a trip Into the Wild in Lush Guyana exploring the wildlife and off-the-beaten track isolation, although, she warns, it’s not for everybody – “At the Karanambu ranch, we ran into two Frankfurt-based couples, who, upon finding that Guyana did not provide the on-tap wildlife, chilled wines and lizard-free log cabins that, say, a chic safari trip might, had chartered a private plane to take them back to Georgetown.”

HISTORY

• Tom Chesshyre visits Mandela’s prison island, 20 years on, led by tour guides who are former inmates of the prison: “Tours to Robben Island take about four hours – 45 minutes each way on the ferry, with a walk through the prison compound and a drive around the island on buses bearing the slogan: “The journey’s never long when freedom’s the destination.”"
• In the FT, Andrew Mueller visits monuments linked to the Civil Rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama, in homage to the Ghosts of Alabama’s civil rights struggle and the Montgomery bus boycott – “A museum named after Parks, a few blocks from the King church, recalls the boycott in detail. It’s a heartening illustration of what can be accomplished by determined and reasonable people. Like all of Montgomery’s civil rights heritage, it’s worth travelling a long way to see.”

A month ago we set off from London in two Toyota Land Cruisers. I am travelling with a man called Guy Lankester who was born in Zimbabwe and now spends six months of the year running bespoke tours in West Africa. So far he has organised everything, which is great for me because I can spend what little time we have trying to draw. Some of the drawings are below. The others you can see here.

Having missed the 2am ferry from Dover, we arrive in Paris a little later than planned to arrange our Malian visas (there is no Malian embassy in London; Algerian you can do in London, Tunisian you don’t need as a UK national). This usually takes 24 hours to be ready. After that we had a very easy run down to Lyon where we stayed on the floor with some Tuareg people, and onto Italy to catch the 24-hour ferry to Tunis.

Genoa

My first real opportunity to draw came in Genoa, where Africa seems to begin. A seething port of people, mostly men with their cars packed with everything you can imagine; sofas, mopeds, fridges, dining room tables, and anything that doesn’t fit inside goes on top. Every official we came to said ‘splendid’ and being English we were happy to agree, only later realizing that it was the name of the boat (the other option leaving the next day was ‘Excellent’).

Genoa boat

I would suggest booking a cabin on the boat, as with three beds and a shower it may be the last luxury for a while. I don’t think it is possible to avoid the visa/passport/vehicle paper queues in Tunis port – it took us a couple of hours, and, as I have come to learn, it is easier not to fight or hurry anything in Africa.

Tozeur cafe

After that we headed for the desert, spending a night in a perfectly clean hostel in Kairouan, where there is also a 5 star hotel (Hotel La Kasbah) if it is luxury you are after. The next morning we made a small detour past the giant salt lake called Chott el Jerid. Big enough to feature on Tunisian coins, it is worth driving past before arriving in Tozeur where I had an opportunity to draw the small dark reed market buildings, the friendly shop keepers and the café culture which replaces European drinking.

Before you get to the Algerian you will have had to organise a guide, as it is the law to travel with one ‘for your own safety’. And it is important to get the right one. For that reason I am not going to recommend ours! Travelling with Guy meant that visas and itineraries were all organised, (your guide should be able to do this,) but you will need to check in at each police post and this slows down the driving – along with having to stop for traditional Tuareg tea, which you will learn to love.

Police post

All that organised – Algeria begins to become a fascinating place to visit. Little oasis towns, usually understated in the guide books, are very welcoming to tourists, with cheap rooms available or camping if you prefer. I should also add there was always a more expensive option, although it was not one that we ever took. Each town is usually half-a-days drive away so when we were organised it was possible to drive in the mornings and see the sights in the afternoons. We weren’t allowed to drive much after dark, (another precaution taken after having so much trouble in the 90s) but this did not worry us because we were happy to see the giant Sahara desert and its indescribably large ergs in the sun light.

A Berber

Often we were invited into people’s houses to eat, usually around one big bowl of rice and meat with sauce. I found that the longer I spent in little places such as El Golea and In Salah, the more I enjoyed it, and enjoyed getting to know the shops, the prices and the local food.

As we got further south we left behind the Arabic influences and attitudes and moved into Tamashek territory. The Tamashek or Tuareg are a community of people that live in the southern half of the Sahara across Niger, Mali, Algeria and Mauritania. They are very welcoming and we found ourselves drinking tea with them a lot. The tradition being three small glasses; the first for death, the second for life and the third for love – this is the sweetest!

We were aiming for Tamanrasset, which was the real reason for going all that way. It sits just to the West of the Hoggar mountains and there is some impressive scenery to be explored, including Assekrem, a rival for the Grand Canyon. It is possible to explore the area by camel on a 28 day trek to Djanet over the mountains, though it’s not for the faint hearted. We stayed in the very friendly Campement Toulef just outside Tamanrasset.

As a town I found Tamanrasset had a lot of things to draw; a large market, infrastructure, generous and friendly people, mechanics and jewellery stores. However if it is museums, libraries, historic buildings and other tourists that you are looking for there aren’t very many. Their history is very oral like a lot of Africa’s. So we were really there for the desert, the people, a sense of achievement and the experience. All of which we got.

Our next objective was to get in to Mali…The border areas of Algeria, Niger, Mali and Mauritania are not safe at the moment, as they are home to bandits searching for tourists and selling them on for ransom or to terrorists.

Having left Tamanrasset for Bordj – Mokhtar, we had a stunning drive of 600km with no road, just sand track, through some brilliant desert landscape. We comfortably and quite safely camped out over night. Our guide made Tugula, a type of bread, from semolina and water which was cooked in the sand under the fire, broken into tiny pieces and mixed with our meat sauce.

Timimoun

Having checked in with the friendly Algerian Army in the morning, we arrived in Bordj – Mohktar. Little did we know that four days later we would be doing the same trip in reverse in the early hours of the morning in turbans and boubous for disguise.

The next day we tried to cross the border. We always had a back up plan for crossing between Mali and Algeria. Following the recent spate of kidnappings the plan was to send our tourist-looking vehicles with our two guides who were of no interest to bandits and take another vehicle on the other route to Gao – 900km away. In short, (as you may have read in the Saturday Times,) this plan fell through and it turned out we were the target of a kidnap attempt, which meant we were all too happy to turn around and head for the safety of Tamanrasset. A decision that paid off when our guides took our cars over the border and were stopped and tied up by armed bandits looking for us. Four hours later they were released and continued amazingly with the cars to Gao.

This left us with a scary 600km drive back to Tamanrasset and a decision to make.

Did we now risk the border with Niger, public transport and 2100km detour to Gao or fly to Bamako and wait for the cars and drive up to Timbuktu? Eventually the flight was too tempting. That is one great thing about Tamanrasset: you can get in and out easily to Algers, Niamey, Bamako and the West.

This gives me the opportunity to write about Algers where we waited for our connecting flight to Bamako. As an illustrator it is an impressive city; white buildings with bright blue shutters all in different stages of disrepair. Palm trees and large European influenced buildings are all backed up onto the sea and there’s a commercial port too. Accompanied by a high hill behind it, there’s the usual chaos of public transport and the busy ‘casbah’ market – it is somewhere I could have drawn for a week.

To be fair to Mali and Algeria I should add that this problem of kidnapping is very much local to border areas, where there are vast spaces of unchartered territory and a thousand places to hide. I also believe that it is not vast network of terrorists or even Al Queda as our governments would have us believe. This means that you are not going to be targeted from anywhere with people, so public transport and towns are always safe, as is your hotel or campement.

The only other thing I would say is to read the FCO website, but immediately after to speak to somebody with local knowledge. Understandably the FCO have to err on the side of caution and so have a tendency to blanket areas as ‘no go’ which can be very off putting but is not necessarily a reason not to go to some wonderful areas, as we did, away from the trouble.

For more information about trips to West Africa visit: www.fromhere2timbuktu.com. Guy Lankester has become somewhat of an expert in West Africa and very natural with the locals. It was his contacts that warned us about the kidnap attempt so he is worth speaking to.

I also read a couple of very relevant books on my journey: Dead Aid by Dmabisa Moyo; The Dark Sahara: America’s War on Terror in Africa by Jeremy Keenan; Between Sea & Sahara by Eugene Fromentin.

Here at the Globalista offices we’re looking forward to the imminent opening of Le Royal Mansour in Marrakech. Owned by the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, it looks set to be as opulent as one would expect. It’s located within the medina walls and will be made up of 53 Moroccan furnished riads, each with a private courtyard, fountains and plunge pools. In addition, within the hotel grounds, there will be a spa and fitness centre, hammam and several restaurants. It’s even rumoured that staff will access the riads through discreet underground tunnels….

www.royalmansour.ma

Setting off a series of questions about how the impact of climate change and the use of pesticides means for the future of the olive tree and for olive oil production in general, Drinkwater goes on a quest to ‘find out what stage agriculture stopped working with nature.’ Her journey is intelligently written about, and thoroughly researched with lots of historical exposition on the various places she visits. Interspersed with numerous cultural stops and diversions along the way – she encounters the caves of Altamira, investigates the linkage between the mafia and olive producers in Sicily, and meets a 3000 year old wild olive tree amongst the wilderness of Sardegna – the story contains some wonderfully evocative vignettes, written in prose that ignites the reader’s imagination.

Although the relentless focus of the book is on the olives, this is also a fascinating insight into the nuances and linkages between cultures past and present, one that both fans and newcomers to the Drinkwater series should enjoy.

By Jane Duru

Publisher: Orion Books

www.caroldrinkwater.com

Price: £7.99

ISBN: 978-0-7538-2612-6