Day 181 - Horses, Heat and Life on the Road

We were told the night before that we needed to be up and ready for a 9am pickup to go horse riding, so after a pretty rough night’s sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed and got moving. Maddie wasn’t feeling the best. She had the sniffles, sore legs, and woke up a few times through the night with goopy eyes that needed cleaning out. Kia and I were both up and down helping her, opening windows to cool the room down, then worrying about stray cats climbing inside if we left them open too much. It was one of those unsettled nights where no one really slept properly except Emmett, who somehow managed to sleep through everything.

We had just enough milk left for oats and muesli, Kia and I made coffees, and we slowly got ourselves organised for the morning. Nine o’clock came and went, and eventually our driver arrived around 9:30. Pretty standard Morocco timing by this point.

Once we got to the ranch, we sorted helmets and got introduced to our horses. The day before, we’d been told we’d be heading out for a few hours and riding down to the beach, so we were all pretty excited for that. After a quick rundown on posture, holding the reins and how to sit properly, we climbed on and headed off.

I got paired with Sultan, who I don’t think was the calmest or friendliest horse there and definitely seems to have a mind of his own. Our guide spent most of the ride leading him and keeping a close eye on things, only letting me have little moments of controlling him myself. Meanwhile Kia, Maddie and Emmett all had much calmer horses and were confidently steering themselves around without much help at all.

We followed pretty much the same path we’d taken the day before, stopped briefly at the same little waterhole for the horses to drink, then headed straight back to the stables. Emmett and Maddie absolutely loved it, they felt like real horse-riding pros.

Afterwards they drove us back to the accommodation and we headed out to grab some lunch. We found another local restaurant and, again, realised that food here in Sidi Kaouki is definitely more expensive than we expected. Most meals seem to sit somewhere between 80 and 140 Moroccan dirhams, which is a fair jump from the little local spots we’d been eating at back in Essaouira where meals were often closer to 35–50 dirhams. It starts adding up quickly for a family of four, especially when eating out every day, so we’re definitely trying to work out which places give us the best balance of decent food and reasonable prices.

Back at the accommodation, the kids settled into Lego while I checked emails, looked through some work stuff and spent a bit of time researching possible next destinations after Morocco. That’s still a moving puzzle at the moment. We’ve got ideas, but nothing feels completely locked in yet, so there’s a fair bit of back-and-forth trying to work out what fits us best financially, logistically and lifestyle-wise.

By dinner time no one was overly hungry, but everyone also kind of was, so we went back to the nice restaurant on the edge of town that we’ve started to figure out works best for us. Instead of ordering four separate meals, we got two mains, a salad and extra sides to share between everyone. It ended up being perfect. Plenty of food, lots of veggies, protein and carbs, everyone left full, and the bill didn’t completely blow out. Probably the best strategy we’ve found so far.

The weather was much warmer by the evening and the wind had finally eased off a bit, so when we got back we opened everything up to try and cool the accommodation down before bed. Then it was showers, settling the kids and finally calling it a night.