Marhaba!
Salam wa aleikum (peace be upon you)
After hesitantly leaving the precious vans (bike chain as a steering clamp and only an inch apart) in a beach car park (bike chain as a steering clamp and only an inch apart) in Tarifa (Spain) we caught the 9pm ferry to Tanger in Morocco. After the ’35 minute’ ferry ride, which turned out to take more like an hour we reached Tanger. We had expected to catch the 9:30pm overnight train to Marrakesh, but of course had our time differences wrong and we thought we had missed it. We walked around the city (all the while being hassled by taxi drivers lol) before settling into a hotel called Biarrtz, this was a quaint, traditional looking hotel with Moroccan tiles covering every wall and a beautiful old staircase. We later discovered we would have caught the train as they were 2 hours behind not 1 lol!! Rhe was a little anxious in this motel as it was really hot (about 36 degrees) and we had to keep the balcony doors open to let air in haha plus it had a metre long besser block pillow lol!! We got the morning train to Marrakech, 8 hours, 4 packets of pringles, 2 packets of lady fingers and 50 litres of sweat later (first class by the way, making no difference), we arrived to a bustling Marrakech. We found a lovely motel across from the train station and booked our camel safari for the next day. We ventured into Marrakech to check out the souks and the medina. After walking about 25 minutes, witnessing a fist fight in the middle of the road we reached the medina! We spent a few hours looking around the souks, and walking through the never-ending stream of pushy salesmen lol! We bought a couple of traditional shirts for our camel trek the next day (Kate and I later realised they were WAY too small and that they must have been monkey shirts instead of human shirts) and had some traditional kebabs and couscous salad for dinner at the markets. We really enjoyed seeing this vibrant part of Marrakech, with its relentless salesman, snake charmers and enticing smells of every spice imaginable.
The next morning we were picked up by Mou Mou, our camel trek tour guide, who took us to breakfast (coffee, juice, croissant and honey crepes for 1.80€ each) then palmed us off onto the next van to take us to Zagora. After a long 10 hours in the hot bus, travelling over the massive and very windy Altas Mountains, we arrived at Zagora. We were allocated a camel and saddled up J The camels took us on an hour and half trek into the dunes of the Sahara Desert and we were shown our camp. Our tour guide was really lovely and tricked us a couple of times! We had traditional chicken tajine, Moroccan salad and green tea for dinner in a traditional moroccan tent and then were entertained by traditional music and a lovely fire on the dunes. We dragged our mattresses out of the tent and slept under the stars, which was awesome! We woke up to the sunrise and had some breakfast then got back on the camels to head back to Zagora. We took the same road back to Marrakech but this time it only took us 8 hours 43 minutes and we discovered that our driver was a proper rally driver and had a bucket full of spare brake pads in the boot as he took every corner with speed and racing lines lol!
Salam wa aleikum (peace be upon you)
After hesitantly leaving the precious vans (bike chain as a steering clamp and only an inch apart) in a beach car park (bike chain as a steering clamp and only an inch apart) in Tarifa (Spain) we caught the 9pm ferry to Tanger in Morocco. After the ’35 minute’ ferry ride, which turned out to take more like an hour we reached Tanger. We had expected to catch the 9:30pm overnight train to Marrakesh, but of course had our time differences wrong and we thought we had missed it. We walked around the city (all the while being hassled by taxi drivers lol) before settling into a hotel called Biarrtz, this was a quaint, traditional looking hotel with Moroccan tiles covering every wall and a beautiful old staircase. We later discovered we would have caught the train as they were 2 hours behind not 1 lol!! Rhe was a little anxious in this motel as it was really hot (about 36 degrees) and we had to keep the balcony doors open to let air in haha plus it had a metre long besser block pillow lol!! We got the morning train to Marrakech, 8 hours, 4 packets of pringles, 2 packets of lady fingers and 50 litres of sweat later (first class by the way, making no difference), we arrived to a bustling Marrakech. We found a lovely motel across from the train station and booked our camel safari for the next day. We ventured into Marrakech to check out the souks and the medina. After walking about 25 minutes, witnessing a fist fight in the middle of the road we reached the medina! We spent a few hours looking around the souks, and walking through the never-ending stream of pushy salesmen lol! We bought a couple of traditional shirts for our camel trek the next day (Kate and I later realised they were WAY too small and that they must have been monkey shirts instead of human shirts) and had some traditional kebabs and couscous salad for dinner at the markets. We really enjoyed seeing this vibrant part of Marrakech, with its relentless salesman, snake charmers and enticing smells of every spice imaginable.
The next morning we were picked up by Mou Mou, our camel trek tour guide, who took us to breakfast (coffee, juice, croissant and honey crepes for 1.80€ each) then palmed us off onto the next van to take us to Zagora. After a long 10 hours in the hot bus, travelling over the massive and very windy Altas Mountains, we arrived at Zagora. We were allocated a camel and saddled up J The camels took us on an hour and half trek into the dunes of the Sahara Desert and we were shown our camp. Our tour guide was really lovely and tricked us a couple of times! We had traditional chicken tajine, Moroccan salad and green tea for dinner in a traditional moroccan tent and then were entertained by traditional music and a lovely fire on the dunes. We dragged our mattresses out of the tent and slept under the stars, which was awesome! We woke up to the sunrise and had some breakfast then got back on the camels to head back to Zagora. We took the same road back to Marrakech but this time it only took us 8 hours 43 minutes and we discovered that our driver was a proper rally driver and had a bucket full of spare brake pads in the boot as he took every corner with speed and racing lines lol!
We took the overnight train from Marrakech to Tanger and slept like babies! It was an 11 hour trip and we were in first class with air conditioning and bunk beds! We missed the first ferry back to Tarifa but managed to get one an hour later. We had a great time in Morocco, we loved the people and were lucky to see their culture, it was even their Rumadan so we were pleased to learn a little bit more of their religion as well.
Snake Charmers
Shukran!
EJnRHE xxx
EJnRHE xxx
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