At the end of 2015 I spent a few days in Morocco on the Intrepid South Morocco Discovery Tour. I was looking for somewhere warm, exotic and cheapish for a break at the end of the year so Morocco was ideal. I had a great time and really enjoyed the trip. Morocco is a fascinating country with stunning scenery, the itinerary was well planned, and our guide Abd was friendly, interesting, and funny. Here are some of my thoughts...
Highlights - The High Atlas
On the first full day of the trip we drove from Marrakech into the High Atlas mountains. We travelled past the golf courses and olive groves on the edge of the city and then turned from the main highway into a valley on the way to the mountain town of Imlil. The drive was fairly short and we had a few photo and coffee stops on the way (Pro Tip - the best views are on the left hand side). Imlil is a proper mountain town and it’s where most climbers start the ascent of Mount Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa. We left the van and started walking uphill. The mountains around us were dry and barren like I expected but the valley itself was surprisingly green, there was even grass! In fact in places it was like a warm autumn day at home. The path climbed quickly but the walking wasn’t hard. There were a few villagers about on the way but they didn’t want to be in photos, apparently not for any deep reason but because if they end up on a postcard their friends will laugh at them! At then end of the walk we arrived at our gite in the tiny village of Aroumd. We were welcomed on the roof terrace with a great lunch.
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| Above Imlil |
In the afternoon we met our mountain guide and carried on walking uphill for a couple of hours to visit a local shrine, and then returned to the gite via a different route which took us through the orchards on the edge of the village. I love being in the mountains so I really enjoyed the whole day, the mountains were stunning. As the sun started to go down it started to get cool but a log fire was burning back at the gite. We had a dinner of beef tagine and spent the evening chatting, it was the first night we had together as a group. The night was cold but gite was cosy and we had plenty of blankets to keep us warm. In the morning the mountains and village were silent and the sun was starting to shine on the high peaks. We had breakfast, then walked back down the mountain to the van, although we were retracing our steps it felt much different. A great start to the trip.
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| Morning in the High Atlas |
Highlights - Tizi n Tichka & Ait Benhaddou
We needed to cross the Atlas mountains for the next part of out trip, which meant a lot of driving. Fortunately there was plenty to do and see on the way. After leaving Imlil we drove back towards Marrakech, then skirted the foot of the mountain range. We stopped at a town on market day where you could buy pretty much anything, and even visit the dentist or chiropractor! This was an eye opener for me and I guess it’s how a market day in Britain would have been two hundred years ago - everyone from the vicinity was out doing their shopping and it was really busy.
After that stop we headed back into the mountains and the Tizi N’Tichka pass - this is the main route between the Marrakech plains and the edge of the sahara desert and it’s a busy road. The scenery was incredible throughout the drive - the landscapes throughout Morocco were vast, much bigger and more varied than I expected. The views changed constantly on the drive. Also as we drove through the towns and villages we got a fascinating, albeit brief, glimpse of the local lifestyle.
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| Tizi N'Tichka |
As we headed out of the mountains the landscape became much flatter, we were approaching the edge of the Sahara. We finished the drive at Ait Benhaddou, an ancient casbah - obviously we had the Clash playing as we approached. Ait Benhaddou is a UNESCO world heritage site and also appears in Gladiator, Game of Thrones, and lots of other films. We arrived late in the afternoon and walked up through the streets to watch the sunset from the top of the village. Although there was a lot of driving the day was really interesting and sunset at Ait Benhaddou was a great finale.
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| Rooftops at Ait Benhaddou |
Highlights - The Sahara
The Sahara Desert was the absolute highlight of the trip and a day and night that I’ll remember forever. We did so much in the day! First we stopped at a local town to pick up a picnic lunch, then visited an Islamic library with hundreds of books dating back to 1066 and some beautiful tiling. We also visited a pottery and had the chance to pick up some souvenirs. All this was early in the day, in the afternoon we were headed to the Sahara.
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| Tiles at Tamegroute library |
After a short drive we arrived at a little town and left the van behind. We stopped for lunch, then climbed onto camels for a quick trek. In reality we only went to the edge of the town to have our photos taken next to a sand dune but it was really good fun. I'd brought a headscarf the previous day so I was in full desert explorer mode and taking lots of selfies. I was a bit worried about riding camels - I don’t think I’ve ever ridden on the back of an animal before, but it was easy and surprisingly comfortable. After the camels we switched to the modern form of desert transport - 4x4s! I was expecting a short drive to our camp but I was totally wrong - we were driving for a couple of hours through incredible landscapes that changed a lot; it wasn’t just sand dunes, there were rocky plains, areas of scrub, and even rocket growing wild in the desert (who knew!). The drive was great fun, and you could tell that the drivers enjoyed their jobs.
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| Offroading! |
We finished our drive at a desert campsite. This was right on the edge of the dunes and after a quick stop for mint tea we headed to the top of the largest dune to watch the sunset. Their were dunes as far as the eye could see and it felt incredibly remote. I don’t really have words to describe the rest of the day. We watched the sunset, took hundreds of photos, and walked the dunes. Even now I have so many photos that I can’t delete. It was utterly unlike anywhere I have been before. As it got dark we headed back to the main tent for dinner. By now it was pitch dark and getting cold, but out hosts had built a campfire so we headed back out into the night. The stars were so clear! I’ve never seen so many, the milky way was obvious and occasionally a shooting star fell from the sky. No photograph could do justice to how beautiful they were, all I can say is that a sky full of stars is one of the most incredible things I've seen. We sat out by the campfire talking, I could hardly take my eyes of the sky. A couple of the group had come up with a plan to make mulled wine in the desert as it was christmas. I hate mulled wine so I’m glad to say the plan was a failure.
In the morning I got up early to watch the sunrise, there were tracks in the dunes so there must have been some animals around in the night, although we hadn’t seen any. After breakfast we got back into the 4x4s for some more driving. Again this was so good. Abd our guide had told us we would have a chance to look for fossils on the way out of the desert and we stopped in a place surrounded by rocks - there were fossils everywhere! This was a complete surprise and a great finish to our time in the desert.
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| Dunes at sunset |
Highlights - Essaouira
Essaouria is a fishing port on the Atlantic close. We a couple of nights there at the end of the trip and it made for a great ending. It was much more touristy than the places we had been before and it was a nice time to unwind after a lot of travelling. We stayed in a beautiful riad - my favourite accommodation of the trip. We had an interesting tour of the town, ate barbecued fish that we brought straight of the dock, had too much gelato and generally enjoyed ourselves. It was a good chance to do some shopping, there were loads of things to buy - leather goods, woodwork, we found a herbal shop down a backstreet which had herbs spilling from the walls, hundreds of jars of products, and a floor lined with the husks of argan nuts. On the first evening a few of us had beers on a rooftop terrace, then listened to a great local band with some Moroccan film stars. Basically it felt like being on holiday and was a nice way to finish. Essaouira is so photogenic, and I came home with some great pictures.
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| Essaouira streets |
Weather
Travelling to Morocco in December means that you need to be prepared for a variety of weather; it’s warm in the daytime but can be very cold at night. That said, it was never uncomfortable cold, and although I’d brought my own sleeping bag I didn’t need it. Unless you really feel the cold you won’t either. Our guide told us a saying about Morocco - “The cold country with the hot sun” - and this is very true, even in December the sun was very warm but when it got dark it got cold very quickly. It didn’t rain at all and it was never really cloudy either. One thing I would say is that it was often cold in the hotels at night - in warmer weather it would be nice to sit outside or go for a swim in the evenings. In December it wasn’t warm enough to do either which was a shame.
Accommodation
The accommodation throughout the trip was good. The hotel in Marrakech (El Caspien) had the best facilities but it was also the most expensive. The desert camp in the Sahara was obviously pretty basic but the beds were comfortable and their were plenty of sheets. The riad in Imlil was also basic and the showers weren’t exactly warm, but again it was perfectly comfortable. Apart from those two nights we stayed in hotels, my favourite of which was the riad in Essaouira which had a peaceful roof terrace. I also have to mention Riad Hida in Oulad Berhil which used to be a palace. It had beautiful grounds with peacocks in the gardens, and the restaurant was stunning. We had wifi every night except in the desert which was a nice surprise.
Food
For most of the trip the food was quite similar. For breakfast we had bread, preserves, and maybe some pancakes or pastries. Simple, but tasty and filling. For lunch and dinner most places had a choice of tagine, cous cous, or chicken skewers and fries. The tagines and cous cous were more delicately spiced than I was expecting they were nice but not massively exciting. Also I’m not a big fan of red meat, or chicken on the bone, which didn’t help. There was normally a vegetarian option of vegetable (legume in French) tagine but all the tagine dishes also had plenty of veggies. The other dish that would appear regularly was berber omelette (an omelette with tomatoes and spices). I mostly chose chicken skewers and fries - I don’t eat chips at home but I was on holiday so I had an excuse! There was always plenty of tasty bread and olives alongside the meals so I never went hungry.
Essaouira is a fishing port so obviously there’s some great seafood available. On the first night in town I had delicious dish of monkfish cooked in a ginger sauce and the next day we brought fish straight from the harbour and had it cooked on the dock. It was so cheap - I had sardines which cost pennies but even monkfish or tuna only cost a few dirhams. After buying the fish you had to pay someone to gut it, then take it to the barbecue and pay again to have it cooked (again both a really cheap). It’s cooked very simply but is absolutely delicious. We had our guide to help us with this - if I was travelling alone I would have gone to one of the stands in a square near the harbour which have the fish ready to cook for a set price. There’s also a great gelato shop in the same square which is a chance to work on your flavour combinations. The same shop also sells special hot chocolate.
In terms of drinks we got though a lot of coffee; mostly I had nos nos which is half espresso and half milk, the other choice being cafe noir. We also had a lot of mint tea - green tea with fresh mint leaves served in a teapot. There’s a technique to pouring it and you have to lift the pot as far above the cup as you can. I really enjoyed the mint tea - I much prefer it to straight green tea I’m going to start having it at home once I’ve grown some mint. Being a Muslim country alcohol isn’t widely available, a couple of the hotels served alcohol and there was the odd shop but you would need to be organised if you wanted to drink every day. Personally I found it was a nice change to not drink while on holiday. Until the last night that is, when I turned into a wine monster, but hey, it was our last night and I was in the mood.
Transport
For most of the trip we were in our own minibus and as there were only seven of us there was plenty of space. It was nice to have our own vehicle and meant we weren’t constantly worrying about out luggage. As I’ve said the 4x4s in the desert were great fun. I hadn’t realised that we would take a ‘chicken bus’ from Essaouira back to Marrakech - this actually turned out to be a nice coach with air conditioning. There were a couple of times where we left our main bags behind and took an overnight bag to our accommodation. This was a bit of an annoyance but I think that says more about my packing skills than anything else. There were a couple of long travel days which wasn’t ideal but the things we got to see and do made them worth it.
