Morocco

The ferry to Morocco was short, but it felt like we had travelled to another world. Such a culture shock. We had been travelling in Western Europe for a while, and Canada and the US prior to that, all of which are fairly closely aligned with Australia in terms of politics, religion as well as living standards. We felt somewhat out of our comfort zone – which was great.

It took an overnight train ride to arrive at Marrakech, and we arrived early in the morning. We caught a cab to the central square in the medina Djemma el-Fna, to try and find our nearby hostel. It was 7:30am and the place was a mad house. We made our way through tiny side streets, pathways and archways to a door at the end of a dark hidden pathway. The secret knock, and we were inside. The hostel was beautiful. Huge open outdoor central area covered with cushions. A great way to escape the rat race outside the door. We spent the day walking around the medina, being harassed and taking it all in. In the afternoon we decided to try out a Moroccan hammam, which was quite bizarre. We opted for the slightly more westernised variety. We were given paper underpants to put on, lead into a steam room and steamed to within an inch of our lives. When we were cooked, the Moroccan lady came into the room with soap and scrubbing glove in hand. One at a time we got scrubbed violently and watched our hard earned Portugese tans disappear down the drain. We were scrubbed and cleaned, before having an hour of massage – it was heaven.

The next day we were up early and disappeared through the Atlas Mountains on a mini bus enroute to the Sahara desert. We drove in and out of beautiful scenery, stopping at various places to shop and see the sights. We finally arrived in Zagora after a long day of driving. We popped on our fancy headscarfs, climbed atop camels and rode into the desert. We were incredibly uncomfortable for about 2 hours before finally arriving at our campsite as the sun began to set. It was incredible. An evening of traditional Moroccan food, and music. One thing we’ll never forget, was sitting on the warm sand watching the moon rise, before retiring to sleep under the stars.

In the morning it was up early back onto the camels and back onto the bus. It was a long day of driving, and loads of stops to buy useless touristy stuff before we arrived back in Marrakech. We had the best showers of our lives, before heading out to the central medina to see it transformed into a bustling night food market. We enjoyed incredible food, cooked in front of us and walked around to see some of the several street performances taking place. I finally convinced Alison to get a henna tattoo, so she did – pricey, but very cool looking, plus the lady gave me a little drawing on my arm as well, cute.

We planned to catch the overnight train the following day, so we had the day to wander the sites, visit the Jewish quarter and some of the parks. I decided it was time to visit the snake charmers to prove I’m really not scared of snakes at all. As we approached the 5 or so men sitting on a carpet surrounded by a dozen malnourished cobra’s, I was a little bit sceptical. A young man beckoned me to come and sit down and have a photo, so I did. 2 men placed snakes around my neck and instructed me to hold their heads – because they’ll bite otherwise; awesome. The snake charmer sitting adjacent to me, reached over to move a cobra closer (to optimize the photo op), as he did – it lunged at him, nearly missing his arm. He then reached for his stick and used his stick to push it next to me; double awesome. I sat there, unable to move my arms or legs, for fear of death. However, I’m sitting here writing now – so I obviously survived somehow.

In the evening we made our way to the station, hopped on the train and arrived 12 hours later in Tangier. We boarded the ferry and couldn’t wait to get back to mainland Europe. Morocco was incredible, and we can’t wait to get back to tour more of it, but it was certainly draining being there, and next time we’ll be more prepared. Back to Spain we went!