MOROCCO
- Julia Alvarez Garcia
- Jul 4, 2023
- 15 min read
Updated: Feb 13, 2025
Plan Not To Plan Anything
Why travelling without a return ticket has become my new hobby?
Dodging scams, visiting the Sahara, goats climbing trees, and surfing... Morocco offers endless adrenalin rushes but... What if I told you that is actually the ideal destination to let yourself go and not plan your next stop?
Not planning, sounds a bit contradictory according to the travel guides and hundreds of posts you may have found on the internet before landing on this one, right?
You are doing great by writing down a list of the places you are interested on visiting, but sometimes you have to let the country show them to you. Perhaps by discovering places you didn't even know existed, by meeting people who will become part of your best memories, or by simply being more aware of your surroundings.
That is how my trip to Morocco was like. Not convinced yet? Read my story to create your best trip through mine. An aimless route, full of experiences...
The only thing I had clear during those 7 days was that I had to be home for Christmas.
First Impressions
A destination that despite its proximity to the European continent offers a contrasting reality. Centuries of cultural enrichment have made Morocco the main tourist attraction on the African continent, whether it is the stunning desert sunsets, the exotic aromas of spices permeating the air, the adobe façades or the gastronomy always accompanied by mint tea, you have to see it for yourself.
I was travelling back from Tunisia, filled with the expectation of finding a less chaotic country without losing the North African essence.
On the way to catch the plane to Marrakech I encountered a series of drawbacks. From classic taxi price negotiation and failed translation between languages, I learned that the word MATAR (to kill in Spanish) in Arabic meant airport, not the end of my short life.
I arrived in Marrakech with a tingling sensation in my legs after pulling through two layovers, wanting to drop my backpack on the floor and feel the taste of some food in my mouth.
I stayed in the Kasbah. Recommended area for tourists if you don't want to end up in a neighborhood far from the medina and the souk.
Street food stalls, children playing football and mud walls with colorful mosaics were the hallmarks of the paths I followed to avoid getting lost in the narrow streets of the centre.
After finally getting something to eat, a Pizza, I decided to head back to the hostel and let my body recover from the journey. After 7 long hours I was active again and decided that it was going to be a day for discovering the hidden beauties of Marrakesh.
The centre of Marrakech. "Being a walking wallet"
A succession of scams that would happen throughout the trip.
Free, that word that ignites so many emotions in the heart of a Spanish person. That, combined with "Free Walking Tour of the centre of Marrakesh" was the perfect hook to caught my attention.
A walking tour of the main attractions with a brief historical background finishing with a shortcut passing specifically through tourist-priced shops.
Suddenly, you find yourself confronted by the guide asking for 15 euros from each person, and everyone but you has paid.
I run away, I only had 3 euros on me for the whole day.
I got lost in the souk, dodged the women's attempts to paint me with henna (if you get too close they grab your hand, paint you and force you to pay) and managed to sneak a picture of the famous cobras dancing with the flute (they will charge you 20 euros if they catch you taking pictures, sometimes, just by looking at them) and most importantly, I avoided asking for directions to people who offered to guide me because they will force you to pay them or take you to specific stalls where you'll find yourself overwhelmed by endless souvenirs shops.
It would be at my next destination (Merzouga, Sahara) where the greatest amount of scams happened. Click here to jump to the story.
How to live an authentic Moroccan pride experience
Before I could even realise it, it was already 3 PM, I had walked all over the centre of Marrakech and surely I had no strength or money left to continue walking aimlessly. And so, I decided to open Google Maps and check how far I was from the red dot that was my hostel. 20 minutes walk to your destination "For You Hostel".
Once I was in bed, I closed my eyes and an hour later I was awakened by chanting. Was I by any chance back in Madrid, on Christmas Eve and my grandpa was practicing his annual concert?
It was something totally different. People were chanting with excitement, Morocco was fighting for its place in the World Cup final against Portugal and everyone was heading towards Jemaa el Fna square where the match was being broadcasted on a giant screen.
Just for one day I decided to let my soccer spirit, which was once part of my personality, invade my body and immerse me in a unique event. There I was, holding and waving a red and green flag in the air booing every time Portugal approached the goal.
The scent of gunpowder in the air from the firecrackers, hundreds of faces painted with bright red and vibrant green; eyes that could only focus on a large rectangle that would dictate that night's destiny for millions of people. Passion, emotion and a lot of tension were the air components of that magical moment.
Minute 90+8. Game ends. Morocco wins. An explosion of fireworks, flags waving enthusiastically, screams, hugs, people throwing themselves in the air. All the cars and motorcycles honking. The world stopped for a few hours just to celebrate the victory. They deserved it.
Trying to slip out of the crowd, I walked through a park, a guy bumped into me and, with a confused look on his face and proceed to asked me if I knew English. Was it my blonde ish hair that made me stand out from the crowd or my eagerness to escape the masses that gave away that I was obviously a tourist? I replied that I did. He told me he wanted to practice his English. What followed was about 4 hours of chatting in a bar where a stranger convinced me to start my next adventure.
3 Days road trip to Sahara
-How it started
After an evening where my heart rate couldn’t drop below 160 beats per minute, I was ready to go to sleep, however, I got caught up in a conversation with the hotel staff after explaining that I had nothing planned for the next day.
How does it sound, going to the Sahara for 3 days with everything included? Once again that all-inclusive made my eyes sparkle.
I accepted the offer but once again I had to pay in cash… One of the receptionists offered to drive me and and within minutes I was riding a scooter through the alleys of the kasbah.
My heart rate once more reached its high peak as I clung with all my strength to the guy whose only concern was to outrun the rest of the motorcycles. After dodging several accidents we managed to reach the ATM which was located in a roundabout.
I inserted the card and seconds later I had 1000 dirhams in my hands, which would volatilize minutes later after I signed the paper for my trip booking.
I was anxious, nervous to know if someone would actually come to pick me up that morning. The reception was empty, all the lights were off and no car engine sound to alert me that my driver was outside.
It was time.
A flicker of lights lighted up the room and a guy dressed in a Yilaba ( traditional Moroccan garment) came down the stairs. Are you going to the desert too? Yes, I answered. I was quickly relieved, I wasn't going alone.
A knock on the door let us know it was time to leave. We opened and a man asked for our names. They put us in an armored van with five other tourists inside who looked like they hadn't slept a wink the night before. Maybe due to food poisoning that kept them awake during the night? Not that I know of...
Day 1: Ait-Ben-Haddou & Dades Gorges
The drive to the desert takes about 11 hours. The first day you stay in a hotel near the Dades Gorges and then you drive to Merzouga.
Within hours, the guy I met at the hostel and I became companions and, after sharing our experiences, friends.
We arrived in Ait ben Haddou, a small town that has taken on different personalities over the years. From its origins as a Kasbah (castle) as a stopping point on the trade routes between Marrakech and the desert, to being a movie set for Gladiator, Game of Thrones or James Bond.
A town without drinking water or electricity, where the few inhabitants who still call this magical place their home, use donkey as a mean of transport.
I describe it as a time machine.
A series of houses made of the popular building material, adobe, take up the space of the hillside, shining in reddish and orange tones. Majestic doors, guarded by camels are the first glance of the scenery that makes your senses overflow in this small but intense urban labyrinth.
Despite being considered one of the "must-see" places in Morocco, not everything was sweet stories. Let's move on to the other truth,
Scams part 2
To get to the center of this small town, you have to cross a river stepping on a bridge made of sacks, quite slippery, perhaps made that way on purpose. Benefiting from this situation you will encounter a a few kids who will offer to hold your hand and take you to the end of the bridge and if, thanks to their persistence, they can do so, the only word you will hear at the end will be "money"?
On the other hand, a detail they don't tell you till the end of the visit is that you have to pay for the entrance to the kasbah. Previously, you will face your next obstacle: climbing to the top. Apart from arriving with sweat dripping down your face, and a tremble in your knees, you will be cornered by some kids holding a lizard that just by looking at it will chase you all over the city until they get money.
You will also meet a bunch of guides during the tour, who, if they don't get money out of your pocket will get it by generating commission by taking you to specific stalls where the tourist rate is 3 times more expensive than normal or as happened to us, they take you to the only restaurant in 30 km around where you have no choice but to pay for the full menu they offer.
Leaving behind Ait ben haddou we entered the Dades Gorges, a deep ravine located in the High Atlas where the rock formations reminded me of the castles I used to build as a child on the beach.
Our first day was over. The sun had disappeared after performing a great job by offering us some beautiful pictures during the golden hour. The December coolness at an altitude of 2000 meters became the protagonist. We arrived at a hotel where a man wrapped in a large number of turbans began to name some people, among them, some of the people I got along with the most during the endless bus ride.
Not knowing if we would see each other again, we ran to ask each other for our Instagram.
Day 2: Sahara Desert
¡Today was the day. We were arriving at the Sahara! ...
Surprise, we didn't get there until 11 hours later.
Shortly after having breakfast and in my case taking bread wrapped in napkins for lunch, we were taken to a Berber village where for the first time the guide promised us we wouldn't get ripped off. 5 minutes later we were in a house where they tried to sell us 2000 Є carpets.
At lunchtime it was a bunch of us who refused to pay so we found a ball and what started as a few taps turned into a football match with a bunch of kids.
Sunset was at 6:30, time was running out and we were still dropping people off on their tours and of course, ours was the last one. It was half an hour before sunset when they sat us on the camels. I have to say it wasn't the most comfortable experience, especially for the guys.
We were given 5 minutes which turned into 20 to climb one of the dunes and watch the sun go down behind the sand. We made a "snow angel", we shouted, we took pictures and let the sand become part of our clothes.
Finally, we reached the camp and for 30 minutes we were alone. A mixed group of 20 tourists alone, in the darkness of the dunes, waiting for someone to tell us which tent we will sleep at.
After a while, a man appeared, lighting up the camp with the flashing lights of his jeep, and took us to the dining room. A small tent lined with carpets and 4 small tables where we were served dinner.
A salad to share between six people was the main course, the first and the last, not even the drink was included. No need to say that we all expected to ingest some more calories in that 5 degree weather.
The smell of burning wood and smoke caught our attention a while after we cleared our plates. We decided to go outside and have a look at what they were preparing. Maybe marshmallows?
We found some drums by the campfire and had the splendid idea of playing with them, which resulted in us being forced to play the instruments for the rest of the night, while a singing ceremony was taking place. Dancing in circles around the campfire and watching the stars until we fell asleep marked the end of our day in the Sahara.
Day 3: Sandboarding
Woken up by 3 different alarms, I stood up in confusion. Had I really just slept in the desert?
An open buffet awaited us in the same tent where the previous dinner had taken place. I did not dare to drink coffee because I knew that the longest 11-hour bus ride of my life awaited me and there was no reason to risk it.
After breakfast, it was time to say goodbye to this curious adventure.
Who wants to go back by camel, who wants to go back by jeep? the guides asked. Sandboarding, anyone? Throwing myself down the dunes at 5 o'clock in the morning with no light and no insurance? I looked at Shenieder and we said yes. For a reasonable price of 10 euros "Why not ? "was the phrase that resounded in my mind.
The sand was as cold as snow, the sun had not yet risen and there we were, throwing ourselves into the sand without knowing what was in front of us, having to climb dunes higher than 10 or 15 meters and struggling in the process.
Close to having hypothermia and having managed not to break any bones, we decided it was also time to leave the sand that even today I still can find hiding in the corners of my house.
Sitting on a Jeep we started crossing the dunes of what minutes ago was our professional snowboarding ramp and defying all gravity we were going up and down the dunes in a matter of seconds. That feeling you get in your stomach when going down a road with the car was multiplied by three.
The rest of the day consisted of getting back to Marrakech from which I only remember trying to sleep and wake up multiples by the honking to scare the goats on the roads.
Is the Sahara Tour worth it?
The Sahara is worth it, the tour maybe not so much. I have seen a lot of tours ranging from 400 euros luxury ones to tours that last one day. Neither one nor the other, it is not a tour for which you should pay more than 80 euros and it is not a tour that you can do in one day due to how far the desert is located.
A detail to consider is the amount of hours you will be spending inside the bus just looking through the window. There is actually not that much time at the actual desert and only 3 meals are included.
My POV
Driving for more than half a day on desert roads allowed me to experience a reality that the frenetic atmosphere of Marrakech had nothing to do with. On the contrary, it was silence. We were able to observe the peace in which small families of no more than two or three people and a donkey coexisted in their little adobe houses in the middle of the desert.
We are tourists coming from Europe, a highly developed continent. This is beyond our comprehension. How can anyone live in such conditions? Maybe they don't know, maybe they do and decided that it was a reality they didn't want to be part of.
Personally, after sleeping in a tent in the desert, eating tahini for a week, rationing water, not being able to wash clothes for days and showering with cold water, you end up realising that you have changed. And as simple as what I have just described is, you start noticing that you now don't need half the things you used to think were essential.
Express trip to Tangier
I didn't have a specific date to leave Morocco, I just had to be home for Christmas. While browsing flights I found one for the 16th for 15 euros. Great!!! I had 3 days left to explore more...
James, a guy I met on the Sahara tour three days before became my travelling companion on the train to Tangier the next morning.
We were on our way to Casablanca, it was pouring rain and he was already regretting saying yes to exploring Morocco without a plan....
Suddenly our train stopped for half an hour which made us miss our next one. Luckily we managed to sneak onto the next train to Tangier. But the story didn't end there. To our surprise when we arrived, a huge storm was waiting for us. The whole city was flooded
We had limited options, among them taking a taxi but my money-saving mind discarded that idea. We ended up walking for 40 minutes in the rain. Our shoes were soaked from walking through the puddles and mud was forming inside are sneakers due to the leftover sand from the desert.
The amount of water pouring on us was so huge that the inside of our backpacks also suffered the consequences of not getting a taxi. By the time we arrived at the hostel, James' passport was so wet that the guy at reception had to get out the hairdryer to fix it.
I had never lost so many clothes in one day. That night we decided to only bring anything dry with us for our next stop Chef Chauen. Having said that we stole a fan and left our clothes drying with cold air for the night and prayed that it worked.
The next morning awakened us with some sun which did not last for too long. Since we had our bus at 3 PM once more we decided to walk through the whole city until getting to the bus station.
10 minutes was the time left to reach the station when the rain started again. This time we didn't risk. We desperately tried to get a taxi and after a few minutes, we were inside one. 50 cents for a 5 minute ride. Europe should take example about this taxi fares...
Chef Chauen: The Blue Cannabis Paradise
After many curves and bumps, we reach our destination. Nobody tells you that the city centre is at the top of the mountain, so without relying on the GPS we continued our way to reach the hostel.
It was not long after saying Hi before the receptionist offered us weed and "anything else" we needed. Chef Chauen has become one of the main points of what is now known as "cannabis tourism", a new way of profiting from visitors. This illegal business maintains around 80,000 families in the Rif region.
Based on first impressions we didn't understand what all the hype about the city was about, like okay, there were a few things painted in blue, but nothing relevant.
Then we walked passed a few streets, dodged a few drug dealers and then we understood. A scenery protagonised with all the shades of blue ever imagined. The stairs, the floor, and the flower pots adding some extra colours. Everything was perfectly blended together, including the cats sitting in every corner.
When I talk about cats everywhere I mean that it is accepted that they stay with you in hostel rooms.
One sign of whether you're in a good place is to look at the health of the cats.
The wonderful adventure with low-cost airlines
Our time in Morocco ended. We arrived at the airport about 3 hours before our flight to Madrid, no reason at all apart from having to print our boarding pass, as in countries like Morocco or Tunisia by law they have to stamp it so always have the boarding pass printed out.
They wouldn't let us through security, even though we had already checked in. A man came up to us and told us that the flight had been delayed until 1 AM, the time when we were supposed to arrive in Spain.
We managed to get through the security control, they scanned our ticket and we got in the queue to enter the plane. Twenty minutes passed and we started to hear shouting. We decided to look out onto the runway and an avalanche of people came towards us shouting:
WE ARE NOT LEAVING UNTIL 8AM.
Minutes later, a dispute between passengers and workers started a revolution in which James and I looked at each other without understanding a single word among the many that were shouted in Arabic.
After waiting for an hour we were told that we were going to a hotel. Not really knowing where we were headed we were put on a bus at 3 am and dropped off at a 5-star hotel. As soon as we arrived, people grouped to get a room as quickly as possible, while James and I decided to explore the hotel. We wandered around the kitchen and the dining room and tried to get into the pool. It wasn't until 4.30 am that we were given a room and told we were leaving at 7 am.
We missed the breakfast that nobody told us about and went back to the airport where once again our flight was delayed and ended up arriving in Spain two hours later than planned.
In conclusion, if you pay 16€ for a flight, don't expect less than to end up wandering around a hotel at 3 am with really pissed-off people.
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