Blogs from Marrakech, Marrakech-Tensift-El Haouz, Morocco, Africa

To set the scene: its a calm evening, mid thirties with a gentle breeze hitting our skin. We are on the edge of the Black Desert and in the near distance, pyramid like orange sand dunes stand high and proud. We mount our ride. These animals are Dromedary's given the fact they have one hump and not two like true camels. Leanne is on the crazy lead camel called Bob Marley whilst Mick is given the quieter second camel Jimi Hendrix. Our trekking guide is a lovely older Moroccan named Hassan who's years of experience has perfected his tourist humour. Our multinational caravan is also made up of a lovely Italian couple with whom we share a few non verbal laughs, some French, Chinese, Spanish and a couple of Czech's to top it off! Language, as ... read more

We started the day out by walking 15 minutes to the airport bus in the wind, cold and rain...Bill wanted to take the subway (two changes) and Lynn wanted to walk to the bus. Lynn won, but we got soaked... Short flight to Casablanca, followed by a lonnnnggggg layover in a small transit area with a cafe and nothing else but the model of a mosque with a giant golden pointed needle hanging over it... Another very short flight, and here we are....pictures cannot really show the main square, Jemaa el Fna. You have to be able to hear the combination of voices, chants, drums, flutes, traffic and smell the roasting meat, exhaust, food, smoke....as well as see the snakes (and charmers), monkeys, crafts, tourists from everywhere, and just about anything you might imagine could be ... read more

On the bus tour it said that the length of the Medina walls was 9Km (5½ miles) so I thought that would be a good idea for a run. It actually turned out to be 10½ miles (including the distance from the hotel and back) as there were a few points where you could run along the wall directly. I was also following what I thought was the Media wall, but it was actually the wall alongside the Jardins de l’Agdal gardens. I realised after a while that it didn’t look right as there were no buildings on the other side of the wall, so I turned around and cut through the gardens themselves, so that added a bit of extra distance. The walls along the side that we had seen were renovated and featured nicely ... read more

I went for another early morning run in the Medina and the Souks were again the empty place that I remembered when I was here early a couple of days ago, however they were starting to come to life even though people were mainly sitting drinking tea before they opened-up their shops. There was a guy in the restaurant at breakfast in Moroccan dress, serving Moroccan tea, so we thought we would give that a try. It was a very sweet mint tea, which was quite refreshing, although too sweet for us. It would have been nice to get a photograph of him is in outfit, complete with a fez, and all his tea gear, but you could tell he was incredibly self-conscious about it, so we saved him the embarrassment. We decided that we would ... read more

2-3 avril "Eille boss... Marrakech, ça s'écrit avec un C ou un G à la fin?" " Eeeee... Marra... eee... avec un G ch'pense..." "Ok boss" - Vu sur une pancarte d'autoroute entre Agadir et Marrakech: Marrakegh 242 km ... Après un arrêt pour la nuit à l'hôtel "La Petite Suède" sans suédois d'Agadir, j'embarque dans le bus vers la fameuse Marrakech située plus au Nord, à l'intérieur des terres du Maroc. C'est que j'ai profité de cette escale dans la ville balnéaire pour d'abord marcher sur la plage ramollie par les vagues épuisées sous le soleil couchant... mais surtout, j'en ai profité pour dormir. Ouaip, dormir un bon douze heures de suite, sans même ouvrir les yeux. Facile ça, avec ce lit de loin le plus confortable que j'ai eu depuis le début de mon ... read more