Morocco wonderful but need to come back

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What to do in a 6 day holiday? Most people would stick to one city, Fes or Marrakesh.....but I like the nature more than te cities!
An early morning flight brought us from Brussels to Fes....easy start, picked up from the airport and driven to our guesthouse in the Medina (old city) of Fes. Beautiful place...it looked like we travelled back in time and walked around in de middle ages. Narrow streets, merchants with leader, lamps, woodwork and cloathing Loaded donkeys, people in jalaba's (sort of a long dress) and drinking mint tea on the street!

We had to arrange a trip to the dessert and Marrakesh our first day so in between te sightseeing we asked some companies for a payable trip. It's a country were you have to bargain but we couldn't succeed to get a bargain price for a trip to the dessert.....
Next day we took a grand taxi and his driver (arranged by our hostel) and in one day we made it first to the snow in the middle atlas mountains and we almost ended in Rissani.
We were dropped in Rissani, 40km from the dessert, we were told we couldn't go furter with a normal car and needed an 4x4. Ofcourse the touragency was willing to take us to the dessert for an overnight camping trip and riding camels. Just the price of 600 euro's !!! was a bit steep.
After showing them the lonely planet textbox about the tourist trap of telling that the road would't be good for normal cars we were on our way to leave and find a taxi ourselves......
We ended up doing our trip for less than 1/4th the price and made it to the dessert around sunset.
In the dark we were riding the camels and we made it to our nomadic tent. There dinner was prepared for us and with our guide we had dinner and played some dice game!
After a short visit at a musical (drums) performance with campfire we had a good sleep in the nomadic tent.

Waking early and watching te sun rise from a small sanddune was a good experience, then getting back at the back of our camels and walking another 2 hours back to our dessert hotel. From there we continued our trip to watch flamingo's and visited a touareg village where the black moroccan people lived.

We took a cab to Erfoud were we would find a bus direction of Marrakesh......at one of the small restaurants we were lucky to meet some fellow dutch travelers. They offered us a ride so with the four of us (and luggage) packed in a small peugeot we had a nice drive to first a glimpse of the Todra Gorge and ended with a stay in a hotel in the Dades Gorge.

Good food, and a musical evening with our dutch friends and the local employees of the hotel was a good start of our stay in the Gorge de Dades. Next day a nice hike 3hours around some old villages and the gorge. After our hike back in the car and driving to Ait Ben Hadour.... An old kashbah which is well preserved. The next day on the back of a donkey crossing the river to the kashbah and a bit of sightseeing, enjoying the good weather and buying some souvenirs.

Marrakesh was waiting for us and after a beatuful drive over the Atlas mountains we came to the greener side of Morocco. Leaving the dessert behind it was beautiful to see the green vegetation.

On our last evening in Marrakesh we hang around the big square, had some dinner and went for a couple of drinks while soaking up the evening atmosthpere in Marrakesh.

Next morning, a last quick visit at the souqs and medersa (old koran school) we wanted to take the bus to Agadir where our plane left............
After some time the bus still didn't show up.....we had a tight time scedule which became too tight so we ended up in a grand taxi who would bring us 230 km further to the airport.

Like the driver said, no problem to catch our flight we even could make a stop for some food and a drink he thought....
After our stop....he said maybe we would arrive at 16:30, one and a half ours before our flight....... but while driving along we knew we would not make it even at five.
So our last our in the car we were not as relaxed anymore......45 minutes before the departure we made it finally to the airport, and guess what..... in the end our flight was delayed by 2 hours.

Next time morocco, more time to see some things, rent a car by ourselves and surf at one of the beaches around Agadir.....great country and we had a super trip we only need another holiday to relax now!

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