Sahara They Come

The minibus arrived early in the morning to pick us up and we joined a nice group of people from different parts of the world. The journey first took us over the snowcapped peaks of the High Atlas Mountains which surround Marrakech, offering some beautiful vistas of the valley below. Our first real stop was at the stunning oasis and hidden village of Ait Benhaddou. The clay buildings melt in perfectly with their surroundings and if you didn’t know it was there you could easily miss it.

The tiny village has been in decline for a long time but got an unexpected boost from the movie industry with productions like Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator and lately Game Of Thrones choosing this location as their backdrop. After the pitstop we moved through the town of Ouarzazate, the valley of the roses (which weren’t in bloom) and stopped just outside Dadès Gorge where we slept in a hotel. The following morning we visited the valley, some more villages before arriving in the desert town of Merzouga.

Here we all hopped onto our camels and travelled for an hour and a half to our Berber tentcamp in the middle of the Sahara. It was pretty basic, but our young guides managed to cook up a great Moroccan tajine which we could feast on before gazing at the incredible amount of stars next to our warm campfire. The weather for the whole trip was beautiful with clear skies, sunshine and temperatures around 23 C, however as soon as the sun sets the temperature drops drastically and at night we were sleeping with several blankets as it dropped below freezing. When we awoke we saw the sunrise and got back on our trusty ships of the desert, taking us at a very tranquil pace across the giant dunes back to Merzouga for some breakfast where I left the group and got a shared minibus for 9 hours to the ancient city of Fez.

Rock The Kasbah

My first impression of Marrakech was actually quite surprising. I had expected a lot more chaos, but I left the airport without much hassle at all from taxi drivers, the traffic was calm, the streets were clean, I was almost disappointed. Once my shared taxi dropped me off in the city center, the weather was quite nice and the hostel I had booked should only be a 10-15 minute walk away, so I started walking. It quickly became obvious that the ancient walled Medina of Marrakech is quite literally a labyrinth, this combined with the fact that I am too stubborn to accept help (figuring that help here is never free) and not having access to the internet, meant that my leisurely stroll turned into a one hour ordeal carrying all my luggage, but in the end I found my hostel and I felt accomplished and that my trip had finally begun.

I spent a few days in the city admiring the ornate architecture of mosques, palaces and mansions with their delicately carved wooden doors and beautiful gardens and courtyards, but most of the time I was just wandering around aimlessly, eating street food and getting lost in the narrow alleyway systems of the enormous souk. The market may cater heavily to tourists with it’s carpets, trinkets and ornaments but it is still a very lively and functioning bazaar which seems to attract very many locals for their everyday shopping as well.

The enormous main square, Djemaa el Fna, is more like the chaos I was expecting on arrival, here snake charmers and acrobats fight over the same space as fortunetellers, storytellers and musicians, everyone is trying to get your attention, trying to drag you towards their act and before you know it a friendly handshake has turned into you having a monkey sat on your head. After three days, I felt I had had enough and together with Daniel, a Brazilian guy I met at the hostel, I decided to head towards the desert.

Return Of The Blog

So unfortunately this blog had an abrupt ending last time around, mainly because I became too lazy to write anymore. However since then I did make it out of Guatemala, travelled through Central and South America, returning to Fortaleza, the Brazilian city where I had my incident a few years prior and completed my trip down to the southern tip of Argentina. After that I spent a couple of months in the Caribbean before finally making my way back to Sweden about 18 months after leaving home. I then spent half a year working and saving money before deciding to leave again. This time it was first back to South East Asia, hopping between different countries for five months before moving to Australia where I lived and worked for a bit more than a year making a pit stop in New Zealand and then visiting South East Asia again on my way home, returning to Stockholm again in the summer.

This very summarised and brief recap of the past 4 years brings us up to date, as I have now decided it is once more time to leave the cold and head for warmer climates. Due to popular demand (coming mainly from my mother and one of my former English teachers) I have decided to give this blog another chance as I embark on this new adventure. This trip may prove to be my most difficult yet and I’m not quite sure what to expect as I try to tackle the western parts of the African continent. I really haven’t done much research but it is a journey I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Unlike other trips I’ve done, this trip is different as I don’t really have a final goal, it probably won’t be as long as my two previous ones, and I don’t know where it will end, all depending on how long I can make my money last and what happens along the way. What I do know is that my first destination will be Marrakech, as I write this I’m sitting at my gate waiting for the direct flight which will hopefully bring me out of the snow.