Our last day in Marrakesh was relatively quiet.  We got out for a 4-mile run in our area and then relaxed at Starbucks for a while.  The door to the Royal Theater was open so we walked over to get the caretaker’s tour.  These are offered with the expectation of a tip.  No idea what is appropriate – we gave the equivalent of $5, which was likely too much, but we lacked smaller dirhams.  The theater is currently under renovation – it’s a four-year project and they are about halfway done.  The entrance has a chandelier composed of 400 bulbs. The largest part of the structure is the opera house with a full-on stage and auditorium of seats.  Backstage of the opera house or opera stage, you find the traditional theater and it is set up with amphitheater seating and I think it is open air.  We’d really like to return and see the finished project – it seems like it will be absolutely beautiful.  We had two great catch-up calls – one with Aunt Terry and one with Brian.   

The rest of the afternoon was spent finalizing some upcoming travel and we made spaghetti for dinner.

This morning, we got ourselves packed up and left the apartment around 11:30am.  Our next couple of weeks will see us returning to Marrakesh twice – for one night each time – as we navigate the last of what we want to do in Central Morocco.  The Ibis Hotel is across the street from the apartment and since the apartment is not available for the nights we need, we walked over to the Ibis and made our reservations there.  It’s a simple process – they only took my first name and the two nights we want and gave us the price.  Fingers crossed when we show up next Sunday night, we actually do have a room.

Our transportation today was arranged by Imlil Lodge, where we are staying in Imlil.  The drive to Imlil took about two hours, arriving a little before 2pm.  The driver needed to make a stop in the slightly larger village of Ansi.  He had blocked somebody in and we didn’t know where he went.  He did leave the keys so I got behind the wheel for the first time in a couple of months – only to pull forward ten feet and then back up ten feet.  No problem – still a little unsettling because it’s not my car to drive and there is plenty of activity around even in a small village. Hassan greeted us and we settled into our room at the Lodge and then walked into the village.

Imlil is a village of around 5,000 people and is surrounded by beautiful mountains in the High Atlas Range.  This picture is from Imlil Lodge’s rooftop terrace and past the building being repaired in the foreground, you can see the village of Imlil in the valley.

There is just one road that winds through the village – I think there is one short off-shoot – so we walked that and enjoyed seeing the restaurant and shop offerings for our week here in the mountains.  We were hungry so the first stop was to get a mediocre pizza at a rooftop terrace entering the village (seems to be nameless).  The pizza would have been better than mediocre – they just left them in the oven a little too long.

We continued to walk the village and eventually decided to take a break at Café Restaurant Toubkal enjoying mint tea and watching the world go by – including plenty of mules carrying loads from place to place.

After a while, it was time for dinner – the pizzas were not too big.  We went from menu board to menu board and eventually landed at Ait Mizane.  Sandy had an omelet and I had a chicken taco.  Although I am used to just about every menu looking identical here, it is still a little weird to think how similar they all are.  There are occasional differences, but you pretty much know without looking at the menu that the options will be tajine, couscous, tacos, pizzas, salads, and sometimes pasta.  The server gave me a hard time because I am in Morocco and should be ordering tajine or some Moroccan food.  He understood when I told him how long we had been here already and that I’ve had plenty of tajines.

After dinner, we walked the 30 minutes back up to the lodge and enjoyed one of the things I’ve most been looking forward to once we got out of the cities… stars – in their multitudes, scarce to be counted, filling the darkness with order and light (any guesses as to what that reference is to?)!!  It was so nice to see hundreds of stars filling the sky from the rooftop terrace of the lodge.  Loved it!