Marrkech - Morocco (North Africa)

I left the warmth of Rio de Janeiro and took a really long flight into London Heathrow. My flight route was Rio to Santiago, Santiago to Madrid and finally from Madrid to London. I arrived in London and it was drizzling and 7c. It seems that everytime I fly into London, it rains.....

I stayed in London for 12 hrs and then we took an early morning flight out of Gatwick Airport to Marrakech. We got picked up from the airport by our hotel transfer and the first impression that I got while walking to our Riad (local houses) was "gee, this place is cool, with lots of laneways and mud walls everywhere".

Our riad is called Riad Kersaarda and it was lovely... not too far from the famous square of Marrakech and the Souqs. We had a taste of our first tangine in the afternoon and it was quite lovely. We wandered around the souqs for the rest of the afternoon and had dinner at the open night market that night. I tried Boiled Sheep Head and snails.

Day 2, we joined a tour that will bring us into the Sahara Desert. The drive was 6 hours over the very narrow and windy Atlas Mountain. We stopped for lunch (chicken tangine) and Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou and explored the Kasbah for 30mins. We had to take a donkey ride across the river and back again too. We arrived in Zagora at aroun 5pm and was greeted by our camel guide Abraham. He is a 26yo Nomad Beber man and spoke very good english. We were the only people in the Beber camp that night, he cooked for us (making bread in the sand) and he sang local songs while we sat and watched the millions of stars from the desert. He pointed out the Orion star and many others and we just sat by the fire and took the whole experience in. It was also very very cold, nearly freezing temperature and we didnt want to walk away from the fire.

Day 3, we got up at 6am to watch the sun rise of the desert sand. I have refused to be on the camel again, as it was really uncomfortable, so I walked with Abraham back to where we will get picked up by our driver from the tour company. The 1.5hrs walk was very interesting as he was telling me about his family and how they live as Nomads in the Sahara. He also told me that he used to be a guide for the Paris to Dhakar Rally Race - which I found to be really cool. We got back to Marrakech at 6pm and met up with Hong and Dave who has just arrived from London. Dinner was again at the open market in the main squire.

Day 4, we explored marrakech, first we went to Palace, then we went and looked at carpet weaving and then we went in search of the Quran School. This led us to our little mishap of being scammed by locals who brought us (detour way) to the Tanneries. We paid 200Dirham (10 euro) to get out of our little trouble and then went on in search of the Quran School. We got there 30mins before its due to shut and was glad to see it. Finally we went to the main Mosque to take some night photos and went back to our Riad to chill.

We left Marrakech in the early afternoon, its been a hectic 4 days. Marrakech is very different to all the other cities that I have visited. If only the people were a little nicer, it would make the whole experience a whole lot more enjoyable.

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