New Years Eve in Morocco - 5 unforgetable days in the Atlas Mountains

€500 per person - Special 5 day New Years Eve package with Morocco Carp including a Gala dinner!

A new years eve celebration in the Atlas mountains of Morocco with traditional Berber dancing, music and a banquet fit for a Moroccan King.

Click here to take a virtual tour of the Hotel

Our retro cool boutique hotel has 5 suites and fabulous views over the majestic lake of Bin el Ouidane and the high Atlas mountains.



The weather should be similar to that of a ski resort, cold clear star filled nights followed by crisp sunny blue skied days.


Some of the best carp fishing in the world is on our doorstep and we offer full equipment hire to give you a chance to hook yourself a Moroccan monster.

The lake record is a massive 69lbs but the lake average of 30lbs would please most.


If fishing's not your thing why not kick off 2008 with some off road Quad biking? we have two 150cc automatic Quad bikes for hire and miles of unexplored tracks, ruined Kasbas and stunning mountain scenery.

If peace and tranquility is more your thing why not explore the lake on one of our surf kayaks? unsinkable and safe for even the most inexperienced its a wonderful way to see and get close to the wildlife. Just dont get too close to the Carp fishermen.

A Moroccan food experience.

Your breakfast and dinner are prepared by our hotel kitchens every day and are included in the price, the selection changes daily as we use fresh in season local produce prepared in the traditional Berber style .

The Berber lounge restaurant menu operates from 12pm-5pm.

The Pioneer menu - for ordering pack lunches and drinks when your out exploring or fishing.


Moroccan food is excellent and we hope to show some of its finer points during our Moroccan Gala diner dance on the 31st. This will be an unforgettable evening to stimulate all your senses. The night will commence in our lantern lit gardens where Berber musicians thump out their haunting drum and vocal melodies, live. The rhythm is followed by the pulsating dancers who twirl and shrill in a way that has to be heard.

The smell of the honey glazed whole mutton that has been slowly spit roasted for 8 hours is intoxicating and is the centre piece of a buffet table of locally prepared dishes that will be continually replenished during the evening.

Finally a full bar service is available till the wee small hours for those that wish.


Included in the Price:

• 5 nights Hotel room* single person supplement applies
• Breakfast and 3 course traditional dinner each day.
• 31st December Moroccan Gala dinner dance
• Day trip to the stunning Cascades d'Ozoud.
• Transport Marrakesh Airport - Bin el Ouidane return.

Itinery

Friday 28th arrive at Marrakesh Airport - Morning and afternoon arrivals with a small Marrakesh shopping trip for the early birds. Its a pleasasnt and photogenic 3 hour drive from the Airport with the snow capped high Atlas flanking us all the way to our lake side hotel.The nearest large town is Beni Melal and its just up and over the mountain before you will be checking in and enjoying a typical Moroccan welcome.


Saturday 29th - excursions and activities available or just chill in the Berber lounge and take in the splendor of the mountains.

Sunday 30th - The mini bus departs the hotel at 10am for the amazing day trip to the waterfalls at Ozoud. Dont forget your camera and swimming gear, its a real breath taker. Plenty of shopping opportunities in the bustling local arts and crafts market that winds it way down the cliff side. Enjoy lunch overlooking the falls with wild monkies, its a wonderful place to spend the end of 2007.



Monday 31st - Grand Moroccan Gala dinner dance.
Traditional spit roasted honey glazed sheep and a buffet of delicious Moroccan and Berber dishes. Accompanied by live Berber musicians and dancers, candle lit gardens and the star filled night sky.



Tuesday 1st - A day for... fishing, kayaks, hiking, quads - check out availability and prices with reception.

Wednesday 2nd Jan - return to Marrakesh.

€500 per person* based on double room occupancy SPS of €20 applies.

Ring Fraser on 00212 783 487 33 or email at info@moroccocarp.com
Reserve your place today!!

You might need to bring:
Clothing:The nights are cold and the days are warm so bring clothes that will handle the big daily temperature change. Good fleece and mountain/ski gear is ideal for nights, shorts, t-shirts and suncream for the day.
Swimming gear, towel, water shoes.
If you want to fish: sleeping bag, reels, alarms, indicators and end rigs.
Everyone: A good torch, travel adapter (2 pin round plug) Sun cream, hat, your best French.

Important Info:You need a minimum of 6 months on your passport to travel to Morocco.Try and book your flight tickets to arrive at Marrakesh airport on the 28th December at around 11am or 3pm. The return flight should depart Marrakesh in the mid morning to allow time for the 3 hour drive.
Medical: The Hotel and lake is at 800m (2400 feet) please consult your GP if you are taking heart/blood thining medication prior to booking. Bring Parecetamol (not Aspirin) Imodium for upset tums and some PG tips - Im running low.

Money: The local currency is the Dirham (MAD) get some from the bureau de change or the ATM's at the airport on arrival. Dont change too much as you cant change it back at the end, the hotel will accept payment in other international currencies if you run out of Dirhams.

New marketing campaign for Morocco Carp

Morocco Carp offer adventure fishing holidays to the mythical lake Bin el Ouidane in the middle Atlas mountains of Morocco. Our UK agents, Essex Angling holidays are luanching the new advertising campaign in the UK next week, so steal a march on the crowds and give Paul a ring today.

Essex Angling Holidays taking bookings now

Oliver Alcon Angullo the new Spanish Agent for Morocco Carp is organising a special Spanish week in February / March exclusivly for Spanish Carp Anglers.

The dates will be finalised when Oliver gets an indication of what is best for the majority of the people interested. So if you would like to fish for record sized carp in stunning surroundings with the best Hotel cuisine and UK brand name tackle, then give Oliver a ring today for more information. 0034 661627981

Explore the Cascades D'Ozoud with a 360 Virtual tour

Morocco carp organize exciting family and fishing holidays with day trips to this beautiful location and other attractions in the area.

Click this photo to take a virtual tour of the falls

The cascades d' Ozoud are located in the Grand Atlas village of Tanaghmeilt, in the province of Azilal and it is the most visited site in the region.


The largest of the three falls has a drop of over 100 metres and the hypnotic sight and enchanting sound of cascading water seems to seep inside you, as if by osmosis, leaving a profound sense of peace and beauty.


If you would like to visit this remote region of Morocco and try your hand at some of the best carp fishing on the planet have a look at our web site.

Madeleine McCann - you can help

All of us at The Arm Chair Traveller would like to offer our support for the search and safe return of young Madeleine McCann. Madeleine was abducted from her bed on the night of 3rd May 2007 whilst on holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal.



Madeleine has a very distinctive right eye, where the pupil runs into the blue-green iris.

Here is the link to the official Save Madeleine Website

Please click onto “News and Downloads” and you’ll be able to download the Madeleine Poster. They are available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. Please help by putting up posters in your local town and area.



We can all help by keeping this in the news and media. The search for Madeleine needs to be European wide so please forward this page to all friends and relatives anywhere in Europe.



Please let’s all do our bit to help the safe return of innocent Madeleine.

Travel through our virtual empire

What a wonderful world

What a wonderful..., originally uploaded by Silvia de Luque.

Ronda

Ronda, originally uploaded by Jari Kaariainen.

sunrise-in-Marbella

sunrise-in-Marbella, originally uploaded by Marlis1.

Feria de la Reconquista - travel with a widget

Feria de Reconquista 20-23rd May

Set high on a bluff and protected by the dizzying El Tajo gorge, the mountain vastness of Ronda was one of the last strongholds of Moorish Spain.

Semana Santa or Easter Week sees colorful processions by the town’s religious fraternities. From the 20–23rd of May the "Feria de la Reconquista" celebrates the defeat of the Moors with a series of noisy parades, processions and a fiesta Andalusian style.

If you cant make it to this stunning Spanish celebration then do the next best thing.....

Take the tour of Ronda

Beginning of the 2007 Carnival in Torrevieja, Spain

BEGINNING OF THE 2007 TORREVIEJA CARNIVAL.

From the 27th of January until the 18th of February 2007.

The Carnival events will start on Saturday 27th of January at the Municipal Theater of Torrevieja. During the official opening of the Carnival festivities, the Queens of the Carnival will be presented to the public.

The scheduled events organized by the Cultural Association of the Torrevieja Carnival will go on with the celebration of the Children’s Carnival Dance on the 30th of January, followed on the 4th with the Street Carnival Music Competition where five street bands will compete. On the 11th of February, the big Carnival Parade Competition takes place and to end this year’s Carnival festivities, the traditional Night Carnival Parade will take place on the 17th of February.

Carnivals in Spain are a fantastic experience and offer the chance to watch and take part with the Spanish people, from the oldest old ladies to the youngest children, all dressed in their carnival finery, dancing and partying on the streets all day and more often than not, well into the night.

If you cant make the festival then do the next best thing, take our Virtual tour of Torrevieja.


Thanks to Ewa Anita, Fuzzz for the photos.

Ronda the quintessential Andalucian white village

The natural drama of Ronda will leave you breathless!

Ronda is divided in half by a steep river gorge which falls a sheer 130 m on each side.

The town is divided into three parts and the old Moorish citadel or as it is know in Spanish - La Ciudad is the first part of town you will encounter in the Barrio de San Francisco. Enter the old town through the Moorish gate - the Puerta de Almocábar with its characteristic horseshoe arch and make your way into the old city.




A small Moorish minaret now known as the Minaret of San Sebastián has a tale to tell. After the expulsion of the Arabs this tenacious structure switched allegiance and lived on as the belfry of a church, the church is now gone, but the minaret continues miraculously to survive.



The old city walls are still in existence and visitors can climb and walk along them towards the bridge, passing through the more modern and merely decorative Puerta Felipe V.
Visible below is the beautifully preserved Moorish bath house, the Hammam. In its heyday, the bath house drew water directly from the nearby stream. It is open to the public without charge though not, of course, for the purposes of bathing. The barrel vaults are pierced with star-shaped holes to allow illumination, and this is an excellent place to pause and feel the weight of Ronda's years.

would you like to see a stunning moving image of this photo?

From the Puerta Felipe V, it is possible to see the lower bridge, the Puente Romano, although there may well have been a Roman bridge here at some time in the distant past, the bridge as it exists today, is undoubtedly a much reconstructed Moorish construction.

Overlooking Puente Romano is another Moorish bridge whose origins are hidden beneath its extensive rebuilding in 1616. The Puente Viejo, or Old Bridge, is so called to distinguish it from Ronda's most famous bridge of all, the Puente Nuevo.

Would you like to take a virtual tour of Ronda?

Bull Fighting

Bullfights were popular spectacles in ancient Rome, but it was in the Iberian Peninsula that these contests were fully developed. The Moors from North Africa who overran Andalusia in AD 711 changed bullfighting significantly from the brutish, formless spectacle practised by the conquered Visigoths to a ritualistic occasion observed in connection with feast days, on which the conquering Moors, mounted on highly trained horses, confronted and killed the bulls.

As bullfighting developed, the men on foot, who by their capework aided the horsemen in positioning the bulls, began to draw more attention from the crowd, and the modern corrida began to take form.



Pedro Romero is undoubtedly the most celebrated name in the history of the corrida (Bullfight) he was not the first member of his family to grace the ring. His grandfather, Francisco, born in Ronda in 1698, was a great innovator. It was he who introduced, among other things, the muleta.

It had become traditional for matadors to carry a short cloak over their left arms. Francisco Romero found this cumbersome, and draped his instead over a stick. Romero's innovations soon became known as the "Ronda school" to distinguish them from the "Seville school" which had been the dominant style before he exploded onto the scene. Juan Romero lived to be 102, and fathered three sons - Juan, Gaspar, José - and one legend - Pedro, was revolutionary in an altogether more fundamental way.
He is considered the first matador to truly conceive of the bullfight as an art and a skill in its own right, and not simply as a clownishly macho preamble to the bull's slaughter. He had great rivals, notably Joaqín Rodríguez "Costillares", and the Sevillian Pepe Hillo, but Pedro Romero unquestionably outshone them all.

Festivals in Ronda

Fiesta de la Virgen de la Paz
Patron Saint of Ronda - January 24th.

Semana Santa
Holy week.

Like all Andalucian towns, Ronda celebrates holy week with processions, most of which begin in the late afternoon and take hours to wend through the streets and alleys of the old city.

Feria de la Reconquista
20th to 23rd May.

Bullfights and Cattlemarket.

Goyesque Fair

Feria Goyesca de Pedro Romero. First Week in September.

This fair is renowned for the bullfight held on the first Saturday of September, in which the toreros don the traditional bullfighting garb of the 18th and 19th centuries, known as the Goyesque Period.

Before the men face the bulls, there is a parade of horse-drawn carriages procession through the town, with all participants in full Goyesque costume. The procession ends on the sands of the bullring.

Marbella and the coast

The beaches and tourist resorts of the Costa del Sol are only 1 hour away by car so why not take a virtual tour of Marbella, the regions Jet Set hot spot while your here?

Thanks to Andalucia.com,

Dobar