It’s not all just camel rides
Many of the people who visit us are quite surprised by how much there is to do. Everyone expects there to be camel rides and mountain trekking, but there is so much more within a very short ride of Villa Dinari to keep you entertained for days.
Two of the most popular activities are ballooning and zip-wire, and fortunately, age doesn’t stop anyone enjoying either.
Ballooning
For anyone who has never been in a balloon before, you honestly can’t imagine just how tranquil it is – at least apart from when the pilot has to use the burners to keep the balloon afloat! It’s such a wonderful sensation, gently drifting, watching the world pass by below. And don’t ask the pilot where he intends to land, because he might be able to control going up and down, but everything else is in the lap of the gods and winds.
Maurice Otin, the founder and Chief Pilot of Ciel d’Afrique is lovely, and one of the most experienced balloon pilots you will ever come across, as well as having licences for all sorts of unusual airborne devices. He really makes your trip a delight.
And it isn’t just the flight itself that is the adventure. It begins just after dawn when you are picked up at your hotel, and to see the flames from the burners shooting six metres into the air as night recedes is a fascinating sight. The balloon is one of the biggest in the world, and to see it inflate as Maurice almost shoots the flames into the balloon to inflate it is absolutely awesome.
Zip Wire
Terres d’Amanar is a wonderful sports and activities estate set in 247,000 acres of beautiful countryside beside the Toubkal National Park, only thirty minutes from Villa Dinari. They have all sorts of exciting things to do, such as the Accro park, an adventure course in the forest, Disc Golf, a weird form of golf that you play with Frisbees, archery, climbing and trekking, and one of the best zip wire courses in the area. You don’t have to be hectic, though, because you can simply lounge by the swimming pool or take part in one of their craft workshops. And kids even have their own supervised park with trampolines, swings and slides and a BMX course.
One of the reasons we recommend Terres d’Amanar is that most of the staff are locals, mainly from the surrounding villages. This is really important because like a lot of countries many people from the rural areas migrated to the cities looking for work, particularly the men, and it would often mean families being split up for months on end. With local employment such as Terres d’Amanar this means that families can stay together in their own villages. Like an increasing number of foreign businesses in Morocco now, they try and source as much of their supplies and materials from local co-operatives, which also helps keep communities together.
