Nathan and I have just arrived back from Morocco. We did a 10 day tour of Morocco with traveltalk tours. Our group size was 14, three kiwi's, one toekn brit, and the remainder were aussies. The map to the right shows you where our tour went, you can see we got quite close to the Algerian border.
Our tour started and ended in Marrakesh. The 'first day' consisted of meeting at 7pm in the hotel lobby for a meeting and then a group dinner. Day one done. Bit of a joke. Just like day ten is breakfast in the morning and then heading to the airport. After an exhausting first day we then headed to the desert where we were amazed at the luxury of our camp site. We had proper beds and showers and flushing toilets. Totally not expected but brilliant. Our food for the three days in the desert was excellent, lots of tagines and fruit. I have never eaten so much fruit in my life! While in the desert we enjoyed a jeep safari, a camel trek, meeting a nomad family and climbing sand dunes to watch the sun set. It was so peaceful and quiet in the desert, a far cry from London.
After our desert oasis it was time to head to Fes, with an ovenight stop over along the way in Erfoud. There is nothing much in Erfoud, just a bunch of hotels, obviously just a tourist stop off along the way to elsewhere. On our drive from Erfoud to Fes we passed through the Atlas mountains, reaching Midelt, an impressive mountain city at 1488 metres above sea level. It is at this point the weather changed and started snowing/hailing. There is debate amongst the group if it was snow or hail. Here is where Nath and I got caught out wearing shorts and jandals and a singlet top for me in freezing cold weather.
We arrived in Fes in time to go to a dinner and show that evening. The show was pretty budget, with long gaps between performers with groups of guests leaving as they thought the show had finished.
We had a full day to explore Fes, the oldest imperial city of Morocco with more than 10,000 tiny streets offering the largest “medina” (old city) and souks in the world. It also has the oldest university in the world and is a protected UNESCO heritage site. We did a fair bit of shopping here, stopping off at pottery workshops, tanneries, and carpet shops.
From Fes we travelled to Rabat, the capital of Morocco.
Rabat is a coastal town with a large marina and big yachts moored. It had a tram system and was the most modern of all the Moroccan cities we visited. It was then onto Casablanca where we spent the night before arriving back in Marrakesh. In Casablanca we had a night on the town as it was one of our group members 30th birthday. Being a muslim country alcohol is not freely available, but luckily our tour guide sourced some for us that we had to sneak into the hotel and drink before dinner. Our guide Muzza also made arrangements with a restuarant that we could take spirits in as long as they were premixed into a fizzy bottle. In the morning we visited the United Nations Square and the impressive Mosque of Hassan II.
We arrived back in Marreksh in the afternoon where we were able to explore explore the famous Djemaa el Fna Square, where there were snake charmers!! Everytime I wanted to get close enough to see what was happening a man would come over shoving snakes at us as a way of enticing us over. That type of marketing certainly didn't work on me! There were also loads of monkeys chained up and being dragged around as tourist draw cards. Some even had nappies on, it was rather disturbing and most of our group asked about animal cruelty groups getting involved to stop the abuse of the monkeys and the cobras. In the evening we headed back to the square for dinner as it had been transformed into outdoor restuarants. The area was bustling with families out for a cheap meal. As we were paying for our meal a young mother with a toddler in tow came up to me and begged for our left over bread. I gave it to her and felt good. Nek minnit I turn around and two women are putting our left over chicken bones into a plastic bag and eating our left over couscous and vegetables with our cutlery. I found this quite disturbing and wasn't sure what to do other than get Nathan to watch them too.
All-in-all we had a fabulous time in Morocco. It was nice to go away for a long period of time and meet new people on our tour group.
We stayed in a wee beach side town called Carvoeiro. From here we took a morning trip to Silves where we looked through an old castle. Another day was spent doing a kayking trip around the beaches and caves of Lagos. Mostly though we spent the time relaxing at the bech or at the pool. A great way to unwind at the end of the school year (for me only) and catch some sun which we have been unable to do in England. We have fought off rickets for another few months. The beach we went to by our resort was very secluded and there were no hawkers interrupting our peace. It was lovely in that it was not touristy and unspoiled by rubbish. I had a fantastic time and would like to return to Portugal, next time visiting Porto and Lisbon. 
