An eco-lodge on Morocco’s Atlantic coast

The Serai is an eco-lodge on a wild stretch of Atlantic coast in Morocco, just north of Essaouira. Set amidst and heavily involved with two small fishing & farming communities, this kasbah of rock, earth and lime offers a unique and ecologically engaging experience for families and groups.

 

The Serai actively supports The Fertile Roots Foundation, a UK based non-profit dedicated to the sustainable regeneration of agriculture.

Rent It For Your Holiday.

Everyone tells us the Serai has a magical atmosphere. Maybe that’s because so many volunteers came together to become friends while building it? Or maybe it’s because it stands as a testament to what’s possible if, sometimes, you dare follow your heart? On the other hand it might just be because of its phenomenal location.

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Hold Your Event Here

From the very start, the Serai was designed as an inspiring space for people to come together and grow. We imagined it full of dynamic people learning interesting things; a big old house vibrating with music, dance and laughter. So we built stages, designed for acoustics and created a space to inspire.

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Off The Beaten Track But Not Remote

The ancient walled city of Essaouira is only 25 minutes away yet only in the last two years has it become possible for normal cars to reach the Serai. Should you choose to approach by the forest route there’s a strong sense of leaving the world behind you as the hillside drops toward the ocean. Many still do choose to arrive on foot, Hafed’s donkey carrying their bags. It’s part of the magic. Then there’s the space, the caves, the endless beach….

Secluded yet Included

The Serai feels remote from the world also because the way of life in Azrou Issa is starkly remote from our modern hi-tech lives. The eco-lodge does not stand apart from the community; it’s right in it. A symbiosys grows and strengthens each year.

Interactive Environment

Not a gentle coastline for lying around on, rather one that begs to be explored and discovered afresh each day. At the ebbing tide the whole community is on the beach: fishing, harvesting seaweed and mussels, playing football or just messing around.

Trying to grow anything here, with almost no water and exhausted soils, led us down the path of permaculture and sustainable agriculture. From a windswept field of stone and dust, the garden is still being coaxed back into productivity, the emphasis being on finding water-efficient solutions that will be affordable for the local farmers to replicate. Slow food is all about eating what's produced locally and seasonally, to reduce the carbon footprint of a meal and protect livelihoods.

Food & Drink

Our catering is flexible and adaptable. Set menus for lunch and dinner are agreed over breakfast. The basic theme is simple and wholesome food served at large communal tables. Self catering is also an option.

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Supporting the community at every level

With much pride, local women combine our garden produce with their own in delicious and healthy traditional dishes. Forest-fed mutton and beef, free-range chicken, milk, eggs, and the catch of the day are all delivered to the door. Fruit comes from the local farmers’ market.

A percentage of profits generated by the Serai go to the Fertile Roots Foundation, a non-profit we are proud to have established. Fertile Roots assists rural communities make the transition from destructive farming practices over to sustainable, profitable agriculture, through a program of informing, researching, experimenting and, where necessary, awarding small grants. It’s a tremendously exciting project that links the people of Azrou Issa to a growing worldwide network of pioneering farmers and scientists. Our aim is nothing less than to change the future for this community, and have that change spread to others and self-replicate. It will be a long and hard road, but immensely interesting and satisfying.

A School of Permaculture

The eco-lodge also hosts the courses and workshops organised by Fertile Roots, and provides free workshop facilities to the community. The garden is one of our demonstration sites where we discover through trial and error which techniques and plants will cope with the conditions.

Can be pushed by a man or pulled by a donkey

Research, Experiment, Build

With only a tiny budget at our disposal we have always tried to find and build ourselves new solutions using the resources at hand, such as turning our well into a gravity generator to provide electricity at night when the solar panels no longer work. There’s always something going on in the workshop.

“Be part of the solution, not the problem.” This is our guiding philosophy for a happy and contented life. It’s all about ‘walking the talk’: recycling everything possible and buying only what’s really needed; using locally available resources and helping our neighbours to supply them. It means finding the cleanest and greenest solutions for energy and vigorously protecting valuable resources like water. It’s the reason we don't have a big swimming pool; less income but more contentment and more future.

Patience and Determination

We have spent the last twelve years developing this project, with whatever money we’ve managed to scrape together and save during the summers. We knew it would take this long and we knew it was less about the end result than the journey itself. Teaching ourselves to build with natural and modern materials, speaking Arabic, gardening with little water: so much to learn along the way. The only limits we set ourselves: never borrow money and never employ anyone from outside the community.

Love for Nature

Turning a barren ridge into a haven for birds, insects and other wildlife has been one of our greatest joys. And nor are they barred from inside the lodge. Within the walls we've built houses for geckos and birds, and in the courtyard, a perfect home for chameleons. House buntings fly freely through the house and clean the crumbs from the table.

Please add power to the people by 'liking' and 'following' our work towards healthy and resilient landscape here. You won't be bombarded - we are far to busy to send out more than one newsletter or whatever a year - and perhaps in the future we might have something going on that you'd like to be a part of.