I needed this one badly. Yet I almost didn’t want to go.
Not in a dramatic way. Just tired.. the kind of tired that makes you tag along more than choose.
After weeks of decisions I didn’t want to make, I got in a taxi to catch a minibus heading toward the mountains near Taounate. Seven girls. The kind of group that feels like family within the first hour.
We arrived just after 1am at Montazah Yfrane, a small mountain retreat where our “rooms” were big tents with real beds inside. Luxury camping, basically.
The next morning we hiked down to Sahla dam, where Mr. Rachid was waiting with his little wooden boat and comments funny enough for a standup comedy club. I relaxed on the boat, my feet dangling in the water, watching dragonflies skim the surface and birds cross overhead while some of the girls swam.
The walk back up was brutal though due to the heat.. And I felt like gasping for air, sweaty and tired, I only needed to lay down but our tents felt more like saunas than shelters..
At 4pm a safari ride was a surprise addition to our program, and no part in my body was feeling ready to move but I didn’t want to miss anything.. and I didn’t expect what was awaiting me!
Old red Suzuki 4×4 with no doors and no roof speeding up through rocky roads, the kind of adrenaline you don’t get to choose in daily life. We ended up at a river I waded into up to my waist before deciding the color wasn’t quite for me. Still refreshing.
The next day was softer. We visited Bouadel, picked up a few souvenirs, and I sat down to paint the first wash of a watercolor; A river scene from the jeep ride still vivid in my hands.
That’s usually how it goes for me. I don’t wait to feel ready. I show up because the group is already walking, and something about being swept along makes it possible to try things I wouldn’t choose on my own.
So I showed up anyway. None of it was comfortable. All of it, somehow, was worth it.. not because the discomfort disappeared, but because I did it anyway.
I keep relearning the same lesson on trips like this one. Mood is not a reliable narrator. If I waited to feel like painting, hiking, showing up to the studio, I’d wait most days.
The version of me that gets anything done is the one who moves first and lets the feeling catch up later, or not at all.
We came back covered in actual dirt. My legs were sore for two days. I’d do it again immediately.
Some trips are about a destination. This one was about getting unstuck.
