Marrakesh, Morocco
Friday 24th – Monday 27th February 2023
With uncertainty around any plans for the year going last minute was the only way to go, so with just a few weeks to go we walked into a travel agent, with a date and budget in mind, asked them where we should go for a long weekend city break…and Marrakesh was the suggestion.
Beautiful, cultural, lovely weather in February, good value for money and less than 4 hours flight – sounded ideal, what could possibly go wrong…
Day 1
Our flight wasn’t until 4pm so no need for an early start or rushing. We headed to Gatwick in plenty of time, the traffic was good and despite somehow taking a rather odd alternative route we found the car parking and got on the bus no problem.
Effortless check in, through security (Vikki was searched as per usual!) and it was time for lunch. The airport was pretty busy but we didn’t have to wait long before settling down for lunch. We started the trip off with burgers, G&T and beer.
No delay, quick boarding, seats together, snacks bought and an easy, uneventful flight with an amazing sunset out the window.
A long, long, long queue at passport control, where it appeared to be staff changeover time at 9pm as officers switched in and out but then didn’t seem to do very much for a while. Not ideal and very frustrating but we got through eventually and found our private transfer car.
Arrived in central Marrakesh and the driver stopped the car on a main road, got us out, walked us down a few alleyways, pointed down to a door and left us to it! We were ushered into a foyer of what looked like a very authentic Moroccan building where another couple were also waiting. This was as much of the hotel we actually booked that we got to see…the manager proceeded to tell us that because we had booked through a priority agent that we were being moved to a different hotel with bigger and better rooms…immediately we called bull***t, they had clearly overbooked the hotel.
A random guy arrived and walked us 10minutes to the new hotel, his English wasn’t too great and we ended up having a very confused conversation about the excursion we had booked. He got really annoyed with Vikki, said he couldn’t understand her and would only speak to Steve! While doing some paperwork and having some traditional Moroccan tea we googled the new hotel to get an idea of what it was like, the pictures and reviews sounded good so we weren’t too worried…well we definitely should have been.
The room was utterly awful, NO WINDOW, smelt of tobacco, wallpaper peeling off all over, dirty floors with rugs that didn’t fit, wires and cables hanging out of the walls, TV didn’t work, air conditioning / heater didn’t work and a bathroom that looked worthy of being in a prison (and which had an internal window that was onto the main seating area in the communal atrium)!
With no other choice we had to just accept the room and as it was really late went to bed.
Day 2
Unfortunately the room hadn’t miraculously improved overnight and we woke up to a wet morning. Due to there being no window in the room we couldn’t tell what the weather was until we went for breakfast, where there was no doubt it had been raining because the roof was leaking and all the tables were covered in water!
Found a section of a table that wasn’t wet and breakfast arrived, no choice just get what you are given and we had no idea what it was. Coffee, strange sawdust pancakes and bread, lots and lots of bread!
We headed off for an explore, first mission was to find a money exchange or bank to get some local currency – not a hard task or so you’d think. Turned out to be quite the expedition but we got there in the end and saw quite a few streets in the process!
We headed for the main square and the weather had cleared leaving gorgeous blue skies and sun. Not particularly full from the strange breakfast we found a very nice looking traditional Moroccan restaurant for lunch. Not feeling adventurous we did decide to avoid the pigeon and lamb’s brain options.
After lunch we looked round the markets, saw very sad little monkeys 🙁 snakes and birds (including a peacock as well as around 40 fresh juice stalls right next to each other which seemingly all sold exactly the same thing! (The juice was absolutely delicious though!)
Headed back to the hotel for an hour or so before heading out for our desert adventure, picking up a (very!) strong coffee and a lemon crepe on the way. Back at the hotel we discovered there was a roof terrace so thought we’d go see the view…well it was a roof terrace without a view due to the high walls! We tried to get some photos of the hotel, which didn’t really reflect the reality of the crappy room!
Due to the change of hotel we weren’t sure whether we were actually going to be collected for the trip as we had to rely on the manager’s broken English to understand we needed him to call and change the collection point! After hanging around for about half an hour we were on our way
About 45mins drive and we arrived literally in the middle of the desert! First up was the camel ride which, much to our surprise, we had to wear traditional dress – Steve pulled it off really looking the part, Vikki not quite so much!
The camel ride was hot, bumpy and quite the experience. Steve’s camel decided to rest its head on Vikki’s, wiping its face on her in the process!
After the camel ride we had some time to enjoy the desert view with some traditional honey tea before heading off on the quads.
The hairnets weren’t particularly sexy and Vikki discovered she was not good at driving with one hand but quad biking in the desert is so much fun. So much flying sand while going made Vikki very grateful for her sunglasses and meant we all got dusted off at the end by a leaf blower!
The sun started to set as we finished up the quad biking and jumped on a bus to be taken even further into the middle of the desert for our evening meal, music and entertainment.
We headed to the bar and had a beer and red wine and some really horrible soup with a pretty spectacular view over a pool into the desert with the sun setting before making our way up to sit round a fire pit with traditional Moroccan music. It would have been a bit better if at least one of the songs had been English / one we knew and we declined the rather strange looking smoking that was on offer!
The evening was good but did go a little downhill when we were seated a a table for dinner with three German groups, who either didn’t have great English or were just antisocial! The food was interesting, starter of nibbles on the the table of beetroot, potato and carrots, starter was a chicken leg, main course was a bowl of smush (we think it may have been couscous and veg) and given how little everyone on the table ate it certainly wasn’t a German delicacy either!
The dinner lasted quite a while and all through it there was a lot of repetitive music, one artist who sounded like he was still warming up (or in Steve’s words sounded “like a horse falling down stairs with a guitar”). It ended with a delicious dessert of a bowl of oranges, the strangest dance off ever, some fire eating and a very stroppy belly dancer!
Day 3
Another uncomfortable sleep and another wet morning, however this morning we didn’t need to leave the room to know it was raining. Got up to torrential rain which didn’t really let up for most of the day. Same strange pancakes and bread breakfast before putting on our waterproofs and heading out in the rain to go souvenir shopping.
Turns out all shop and market persons are con men just ready to rip off tourists, after an uncomfortable barter over souvenirs which resulted in us walking away we went to a different shop to find the same decorative plate at about a sixth of the price!
We then walked back to the main square, actually more like paddled. The roads of Marrakesh are most certainly not designed for torrential rain, lack of drainage and dirty roads led to lots and lots of very manky water to walk through.
We had lunch at a restaurant with a view across the (very flooded) market square which unsurprisingly was quieter than the day before. The food was good but by the end of the meal the table by the open windows didn’t seem like such a great idea, although it was certainly better than a couple of tables behind which were right by the leak in the roof and flooded floor! We finished off lunch with ice cream sundaes that came with a straw.
After a fair amount of haggling we headed back to the hotel with some bits and were absolutely soaked. Vikki had waterproof boots on, Steve however didn’t so squelched his way back with very soggy feet.
For the first time in all our trips away we actually wished we were just heading home, we were stuck in the most rubbish hotel room ever, the weather was cold and wet, there was nothing to do and we had no idea how to spend the evening.
Google found us a 5* hotel 10mins walk away with a restaurant and bar open to everyone so we headed there. Steve’s shoes were still soaking wet so he made himself DIY waterproof soaks – they may have been a little crinkly!!!
Well…that was the kind of place we should have been booked at. We settled into the bar there and ended up stay all evening and for dinner.
A not so great day ended very nicely with beer, wine, bar nibbles, lovely dinner, a grumpy old waiter, a magician who ignored us and the rain had even stopped so we got a dry walk back.
Day 4
Early alarm to get up and ready, another breakfast of bread and mystery pancake before heading off to get the car to the airport. Slight detour as not only was the car late but somewhere in the miscommunication about the change of hotel pick up instead of taking us to the airport the taxi took us down some very very small roads and tried to drop us at the hotel we originally booked!
A boring airport, no delay and an uneventful flight later and we were back home and starving so stopped past McDonalds on the way home.
Certainly not our most loved adventure but probably one of the most memorable. It could have been a complete disaster if we’d let it but the company saved the trip.
