So some of the big things to do in Marrakech aren’t actually in Marrakech at all. We decided to book two trips. Since I assume you’ve read the title of this post, I think you might have a hunch of where we went…

The Atlas Mountains are a couple of hours from Marrakech. They’re a series of mountain ranges spanning 2,500km separating the coastline from the Sahara Desert. We were travelling by minivan with another dozen or so passengers from many countries but who all spoke at least some English. The scenery was stunning, the kind where you just sit there the whole day thinking, “Oh wow, that’s so amazing,” which is exactly what I did. Unfortunately we didn’t stop for photos anywhere until 2 hours in, and our driver was just that, a driver. No fun facts along the way or quizzes to earn glasses of wine (I am referencing our tour of Mount Etna here). I’m not sure our driver said a word to us the entire day, save for, “We are leaving now, get back in the car.” This was the limit I think of his English and that explained his silence.

The main attraction we were heading to see was a waterfall, but along the way we made two stops. The first was to look at some camels, one of which was a baby and exceptionally cute. The next was at this place that did a mix of rose and argan oil products. They sold many beauty products, as well as this spread made from argan oil and nuts. These poor women were sitting in the corner using these big, circular grinder to crush the argan nuts to turn them into the oil. This looked a slow, arduous process, and I hope they were being paid well, although I doubt it. This was to illustrate how the oil was made traditionally, but now electric grinders would more likely be used.

• 

A while later we arrived at the base of a mountain and we met our English-speaking guide who would take us for a walk up the mountain. We stopped at this place selling small carvings (animals and soap dishes) out of a special type of rock (they showed us how it changed colour when it went into water) and gave us this little spiel how they use traditional tools. We suspected like the argan/ rose oil place there was some business arrangement that guides would lead tourists to places to buy certain souvenirs, as the guide was adamant we must all listen to the advertisement.

As the climb became much more of a physical fitness test, some people were beginning to struggle, specifically a Slovakian woman who was red in the face and panting so hard we thought she was going to have a heart attack there and then, and start rolling back down the mountain. A few times I tried to help her up the trickier rocky parts, and eventually we made it to the top, where she celebrated with a few cigarettes and a coke. This certainly explained some things.

• 

• 

Unfortunately we couldn’t go up to the snow capped parts of the mountain as our group had been so slow, in fact he admitted it was the slowest group he had ever had (how does this always happen to us?). Our lunch spot was some couches on the riverbank (lunch was not included in the tour price), and we were supplied with food from the main restaurant across the road. The rest of the day was a rush to get back in time, with a brief stop in at a traditional Berber house. We were told 20 people lived in this tiny straw and mud handmade house, and they were completely self sufficient. They had their own stone mill for grinding flour, grew vegetables, raised animals and cooked on a tiny fire. Of course they also made some money from the tourists, as there was a shop set up adjacent selling pots and jewellery. Dad joked that once all the tourists were gone they drove to their nice modern house with running water.

The Sahara Desert trip was the next item on the ‘to do’ list. I am definitely glad we did it, but I’m not sure I could be persuaded to do it again. Mostly this had to do with the company we booked, which were perhaps even more incompetent than the last tour. Again our driver was just a driver, and we had to get used to the silence that was the 20-30 hours of driving we did over the course of the 3 days. We spent most of our time in the van, looking out at the villages, the gorges, the dusty rocky expanses and the looming rocky mountains on the narrow winding roads. We did get to talk to the other passengers who were from Europe and Asia, and I even got to practice my German with a man from Russia.

• 

We made a few stops over the three days and our lunches weren’t included in the price, nor were tips which were universally expected. Our first stop was by far the best, which was the village of Aït Benhaddou. An ancient village, it was used in films such as Lawrence of Arabia, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Prince of Persia. We walked across a stream where some local boys grabbed my hands to help me across the river, then expected a tip. I was getting kind of tired of always being asked to pay for things I never asked for, but they were only kids so you can’t be angry. After we had walked through the town we were ushered into a restaurant for lunch then got back on the bus.

We made only one other stop that day at the village Ouarzazate where some fairly large film studios were. This was meant to be another highlight of the tour, but when we hopped out our driver simply said, “Twenty minutes,” and we were left to our own devices scratching our heads about what we were supposed to do, as there was clearly not enough time to see any of the attractions.

That night we stayed in a hotel in the Dades Valley. When we checked in some men tried to take our bags, but I held tightly onto mine and assured them I needed no assistance (it was one small backpack). Dad on the other hand was too slow, and they took his bag before he could react, so we had to pay them after all. That night I decided to relax in our room, while my parents went for a walk up the gorge.

There was only one stop on our way to the desert, which was in another village where we were ushered into a large house. There we sat in this circle on the ground and were given tea (after checking this wasn’t some contractual obligation and we would then have to buy something) and given a sales pitch about the carpets they sell.

This man told us all about how the carpets were made, while this woman sat silently in the corner demonstrating. We were told how they dyed and spun the wool themselves, and then used a loom and a special comb to make the carpets. The man emphasised how the women only work one or two hours a day on the carpets, and then pulled out about 20 carpets for us all to see, which according to what he told us should have taken years to make. They started from $100 (I’m converting from the local dirhams here, so it’s only a rough estimate) which would seem a little cheap given the dozens of hours it should have taken to make them the traditional way. What also made us suspicious was that he said some were made of cactus silk, which is not a real thing (and if you look it up on the internet it’s a scam). So we declined to buy any and headed off.

Another drawback of not stopping very often is not very many toilet stops. This proved to be an issue after lunch that day. You eat, drink some water, it’s only natural that after a few hours you need to go. I was getting pretty desperate after a while, and as the hours went by and it seemed less and less likely that the driver was going to stop (and we hadn’t seen a even a small village for half an hour) I swallowed my pride and asked if he could just stop in the middle of nowhere. I was so embarrassed, but I forgot all about that as I ran off full speed a couple hundred meters into the desert. Sure enough when I got back I found that other people had been having similar issues. Some of the guys were not so discrete and were just peeing next to the van, while another woman had forgotten that cars drive in two directions on the road and told us she had likely mooned some people. I felt much better about the whole situation after learning this, and much less embarrassed.

Many hours later we were finally at the edge of the Sahara Desert. We had to check into this hotel and pay another room tax, even though we weren’t staying there. We were told it was so we could briefly check into a room in the morning and shower (although this never happened). We were then led out into their back yard, aka the Sahara Desert, where about 20 camels were waiting for us.

We were put on 1-2 people per camel; I shared a camel with Mum. It was endless sand as far as the eye could see, exactly what one might expect the Sahara to look like. It was surreal, one of the most iconic experiences of my life thus far. I didn’t want it to end.

Well at least that’s what I thought for the first five minutes. The problems started as soon as we went down the first dune, our camel wobbled so aggressively from side to side our saddle started lurching to the left, and we thought we were surely going to be tossed. We hadn’t been given a camel, we had been given a wild bull. Trying to adjust the seat to get back up again was a nightmare, and Mum (who was in front) somehow kept elbowing me in the gut. She was convinced that I was taking up all the room since she had none, and kept asking me to move back. What she couldn’t understand was, there was no back. If I had moved back I would have landed in a camel’s behind. So no, I did not do that.

The complaining escalated until it became a source of entertainment; we had ourselves in fits of laughter (a lot of it was probably exhaustion). We felt very sorry for the people around us. It probably wasn’t the best thing to be doing since it reminded us of all the pain we were in, but it was something. My entire legs were going numb from sitting in the splits for an hour and a half, not to mention other areas were getting sore. I was sitting on the camels back bone and the harness separating us was nowhere near thick enough. I probably said some variation of, “Ow,” about 200 times.

The utter relief I felt getting off that camel was indescribable. I couldn’t walk properly by that stage and was doing my best impersonation of a cowboy strut. I decided I was never getting back on a camel ever again, which was a problem since I was now stuck in the middle of the Sahara. Thankfully there was an option to take a SUV back, and I leaped at the chance.

• 

We were very lucky and had our own tent at the campsite. I was so happy to have a moment to just lie down, and I flopped down onto the bed. This was a mistake, as I think it and the pillow were filled with sand or something. On reflection, that would make a lot of sense.

That night we sat in a candlelit tent with our group. A man came over and gave us a huge plate of food and a fork. Someone joked, “Well this one’s mine then,” but then more forks arrived thankfully. It was a nice bonding activity you could say sharing a plate of food with seven strangers. The live entertainment afterwards was interesting. Some local boys were banging some drums and singing in Spanish. The linguist at our table translated it as, “Hey, let’s go to the beach / There is no beach, let’s get some beer, let’s get drunk / No, let’s get’s some drugs and we’ll all get stoned.” Perhaps they were just recounting their day. I got out of there before they could make me join in.

There was no toilet in our tent (even though in the brochure it said there would be) so we had to do some problem solving. Now the desert as you can imagine is pretty sparse. Not a whole lot of privacy screening, and people kept climbing this huge dune next to our campsite that would have given them an all encompassing view. So we had to wait until nightfall and venture out of the campsite. We found a fairly descent sized bush, although the only trouble was there was a camel about 20m away that was staring at me. Better than the whole campsite I guess.

Mum had decided to go back by camel which left at first light, while Dad and I waited around forthe SUV. We’d woken up at the appointed time we thought (although as I have said before, communication was not their strong suit). We learned that an SUV had left earlier this morning, and we couldn’t find anyone else from our group. I had this horrible sinking feeling that we had been left stranded in the desert, and had visions of Mum freaking out, the search party, the news story and then a plaque commemorating our short lives.

We found our group and eventually another SUV came, although he was less than happy about letting us on as he was convinced three of our group hadn’t paid (this money was no doubt going straight into his pocket). There were about 10 of us clinging onto the roof racks of the car, with this maniac going full speed up and down these huge sand dunes. Dad suspected the guy was being extra reckless today, hoping to knock off those freeloaders who hadn’t paid him. I was having a great time, best roller coaster ever.

The drive back in the minibus to Marrakech was fairly uneventful, just another full day in the van. We got pulled over by the police once and the driver was questioned for about 20 minutes, but that’s normal for Morocco we’re told. We think he had to pay a bribe so we could continue. Things were starting to surprise me less and less these days.

Getting back to Marrakech was amazing. Before I had been hesitant and always alert, worried that something might happen. But after the crazy adventure I had just been on, Marrakech was like home. I bought a milkshake to celebrate getting back when some random guy commented that he, “Liked the way I sucked,” which snapped me out of my temporary bliss and I was back to feeling uncomfortable again.

We stayed one more night in the riad with Sam. We were so happy to see our friend again and return back to our old room. We chatted with Sam that night and he showed us how to cook a Moroccan dish called pastilla. I also added to the sharpie-decorated wall in the kitchen with my own drawing, which was inspired by our desert trip.

•