When the Moroccan financier Aziz Nahas decided to buy and regenerate a farm outside Marrakesh about two decades ago, he underestimated how much would grow there. Now, the 10-acre plot produces organic vegetables and fruits as well as hosting an artist residency program and a ceramic studio, all under the name Sanctuary Slimane. In 2021, Nahas’s friend the French restaurateur Benjamin Pastor suggested they partner up to start a cafe and farm shop in the busy Marrakesh neighborhood of Gueliz. Last spring, they opened the coffee shop Blue Ribbon, with offerings including fresh salads served with halloumi or beets and almonds and a bánh mí sandwich on fresh sourdough. In the fall, they added a seating area next door and the Slimane Farm Shop, which sells vegetables and products like honey and dried herbs that are grown and produced on the farm. Up next: Farmers, a restaurant headed by Blue Ribbon’s chef and located in the same building. The 46-seat space, lined with colorful Popham tiles, is scheduled to open at the end of February.
I took on Europe’s toughest trek – Corsica’s spectacular GR20 – and came back changed for the better
02.01.2024 - 11:55 / theguardian.com
How best to rejuvenate? Many opt for doing less: loafing, lounging, luxuriating. The problem with this is that modern life is lived mostly in the mind. Even if you don’t have a job that requires control of an inbox, the exhausting PR project of modern social interaction is inescapable. If you simply stop working, the same processes still whir on, even if in the background. By contrast, actively doing something entirely different, something requiring energy and devotion, draws voltage away from tired wires, lets them cool. That’s why I chose to do the GR20, the path that travels the length of Corsica. People call it the hardest trek in Europe, and that’s what I wanted: to descend from brain into body and restore myself through physical effort.
On the map, the challenge didn’t seem too daunting. I simply needed to take a bag containing a tent and little else to Calenzana in the north of the island, walk 15km or so every day, and end up in Conca in the south roughly 12 days later.
But I quickly realised the GR20’s reputation was well-deserved. The centre of Corsica has little in the way of civilisation: the harsh, high rock forbids it. Between the start and finish I came through one village with one restaurant (closed on Sundays), saw two card readers, and no ATMs. For food and shelter, I relied entirely on the refuges, all basic in every sense, and ranging from charming to openly hostile. (One even proudly hung an IRA flag as part of an anti-colonialist display. I think it was mere coincidence that I got food poisoning there.) The September weather was similarly feral, with bitter mornings and nights bookending hot days, high winds and the odd hailstorm.
Then there were the climbs: the GR20 has 12,000 metres of ascent. The mountains in the north are savage igneous explosions that thrust into the sky. Greenery is scant, just spiky maquis, and the odd solemn tree. Each day I looked at the range in front of me, doubting whether it was passable. There seemed no way up the face, across the boulders, along the ravine. But the little painted flashes, the red and white balisages, showed the way. Someone had been here before and, with faith and fortitude, I could follow them.
In such terrain, on paths found rather than laid, every move demands focus. Zigzag scrambles up jagged pink and grey cliffs were a daily challenge of basic bodily physics, of balance, grip and leverage. Even the flatter bits, covered in loose rock that gets slippery in rain, needed care. Nearing the end of one day, when my mind travelled to dinner, I slipped and bloodied my knee. Many end with worse than the scar I took home.
The imperative of presence sharpens the senses, and enriches rewards. I stood at the top of passes and saw – really
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