The most memorable trip… Traveling to Morocco!

Traveling to Morocco was a once in a lifetime experience that will definitely go down as one of my favorite trips. I was a little nervous to travel to Morocco, just because I have heard some stories about women and safety there, but I’m so glad it didn’t influence me to cancel my trip. 

We started the trip off on a Thursday night, where we flew from Barcelona to Madrid, and Madrid to Marrakech. The flight wasn’t bad at all – considering I was flying into a different continent, it was a relatively short journey. Our trip started off a little rocky. We landed in Marrakech at around 2 in the morning, and we had no idea how to get to our hostel because we were so used to calling Uber’s, Cabify, and other driving apps, and there were no taxi lines so we felt a little lost. As a group, we continued to walk out of the airport and follow the rest of the crowd that was on our flight. We stopped at a parking lot where there were dozens of men asking if we wanted taxis and rides. This was a little overwhelming because there were so many cars and people but none of their cars had taxi symbols on them or any proof that they were actually going to take us to our destination so we did not know who to trust. This was nerve racking because we had just arrived and knew nothing about the country and if this was safe or not. We ended up biting the bullet and just getting into a car with one of the men who said he would bring us to our hostel. We showed him the address of our hostel and he started driving. I put the destination in my phone maps to be sure we were going the right way. Around 12 minutes into the drive, the driver stops in a random alley and tells us to get out of the car. Since there was a language barrier, us not knowing French or Arabic, and him barely speaking English, we had no idea why he was telling us to get out of the car. At this point, although I was probably being dramatic, I started to freak out. We all tried to describe to him that we were not at our destination, and that he needed to continue driving. He continued to tell us to get out and that he could not drive us there. It was dark, and it was now around 3 in the morning at this point. We had no idea where we were, there were no street lights, and all the signs around us were in Arabic. After google translating to him, saying that we weren’t comfortable getting out of the car, he finally started to understand what we were trying to say. He drove a little further until he typed on google translate that he was unable to drive down to our hostel because of the road being closed. This made a lot more sense and we started to feel a little safer at this point. Luckily, the driver decided to park his car and walk us to our hostel to make us feel more comfortable. We arrived at the hostel, checked in, and went straight to bed. 

After 3 short hours of sleep, we woke up at the crack of dawn for our planned excursion. We packed up and got ready and went downstairs to check out of our hostel. As we were checking out, we asked the lobby how we could leave or call a taxi because the road is closed. The nice man at the front desk informed us that we were not allowed to leave the hostel yet because it was not fully light-out yet and so it was not safe for us as Americans. This scared me a bit, because I finally felt safe in the hostel and now felt like my safety was at risk. We called our excursion company and let them know that we weren’t able to leave yet, so they kindly waited 15 minutes for the sun to rise a little bit more before we started walking towards the pick-up spot. The walk to the pick-up spot was a little eerie. I think it was just because I was already feeling a little anxious. 

We finally made it to the pick-up spot and we loaded our luggage into the bus and met our bus driver. There were around 7 other people on our bus, all from different places around the world. There were 2 men from Greece, a mother and daughter from Belgium, an elderly couple from Japan, one man from Austria, and then us – 5 Americans. Our bus driver was very kind, and gave us the run-down on the plan for the next 36 hours. We would be driving 8 hours to get to Zagora, a village in the Sahara Desert, stopping at different places and cities along the way. 

Once we got on the bus and started driving, I felt so much better. I felt completely safe and began to get so excited to start our journey to Zagora. Around 1 hour into the drive, we stopped at a small place in a tiny village for breakfast. We got pieces of bread, mint tea, and other sweet breakfast pastries to eat. There were cats roaming around the cafe that jumped up on our laps and wanted to be pet. We spent around 20 minutes here, enjoying our food, trying mint tea, petting the cats, and walking around the area. It was still early in the morning so it was freezing cold and a little rainy.

We continued our journey, and we all took naps for an hour or two before reaching the High Atlas Mountains. The windows were so foggy that we could barely see out the windows because it was so cold outside and so warm inside the bus. As I wiped down the windows to get a better view, I noticed that it was starting to snow. Snowing in Morocco?! I was blown away at the fact that it was snowing and it turned into what seemed like a full blizzard. It was windy and the snow was rapidly falling from the sky, making a beautiful view of the snowy mountains. Unfortunately it was hard to photograph and the photos just don’t do it justice.

After more and more driving, we finally reached our second stop. We stopped in Ouarzazate, a beautiful city south of the High Atlas Mountains. We got off of the bus and were assigned a tour guide who would show us around the Kasbah Taourirt. We walked around this area for around an hour, where we learned about the history, how it was built, the people who lived there, and more. We took pictures and stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. Being a picky eater, I didn’t have much of an interest in trying Moroccan food, but luckily they had a pizza on their menu. I ordered a pizza and my friends convinced me to try the Moroccan soup and Tagine. 

We got back on the road and headed towards Zagora and we still had around 3-4 hours left of the drive. Although this sounds like a lot, the cool views of the mountains made the drive enjoyable and we took in the views. Our bus driver was kind enough to make a quick stop on the side of the road so that we could appreciate the beautiful scenery on our way there. It was windy and hailing but that didn’t stop us from taking photos.

We finally made it to Zagora right before the sunset and stopped to get head scarves for the camel ride. The men selling the scarves were so kind and taught us how to put the head scarves on correctly. We all picked out colors, tried a bunch on, and took pictures before we headed to the desert.

Finally, we made it! We arrived at the desert and loaded our bags onto the camels to start our trek to the camp. I was so nervous to hop on the camel because I was afraid I was going to fall off. The camel trek was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. The sunset was beautiful and we trekked through the sand dunes and took so many amazing pictures and met so many people along the way. 

As we made our way to the camp I was in awe. The camp was better than I expected and was set up beautifully with fires, tents, rugs, and more. The sun went down so it began to get freezing cold but that didn’t stop us from climbing the dunes and looking at the stars. We ate dinner with the Berber tribe, played the drums, listened to music, drank tea, and went to bed. 

The next morning we woke up for sunrise, ate breakfast, and camel trekked back to the village of Zagora. We started our journey back to Marrakech and stopped at the Ait Ben Haddou and got a wonderful tour. The tour was amazing, we learned about the history, the movies filmed there, the traditions their culture takes part in, and more. We then got back on the road to Marrakech and drove through the High Atlas Mountains where we saw the beautiful views of the snowy mountains. Finally, we made it to Marrakech after a long day of driving and our tour was over. The tour was such an amazing experience that I would recommend to anyone traveling to Morocco. It was a trip I will never forget!