Wanderlust In Morocco- Marrakech

In the summer of 2012, I planned on going on holiday with a group of friends to Malta which is a country that I will love to visit in this life time. However, those plans fell through. Still bent on going somewhere on vacation, I and the only other friend who shared my enthusiasm decided to brave travelling to Morocco together. It wasn’t a difficult decision because she had been to the country the previous year to work for a charity and had said so many wonderful things about her experience that I also wanted to see it for myself.

See my first post about the start of my trip and my itinerary here. By the time we got to Marrakech from Fes, we were knackered! To call the journey to Marrakech on a 12 hour overnight train tiring is an understatement. All I wanted to do at that point was to soak myself in a hot bath and sleep for hours. We managed to find our way to our pre-booked hostel from the coach station. However, what would have been an unfortunate event turned out to be a blessing. The hostel we had booked was full so the owner took us to another accommodation and checked us in at the same price at which we had booked. Now this new location was actually a riad which is usually more expensive than we had paid. The riad was so beautiful and charming that by the end of our trip, and after having stayed in another raid which was equally as exquisite, I and my friend promised to build our future homes in a ‘riad’ design and I aint kidding! Whenever I daydream of my future home now, it has an extension which is a riad 🙂

As soon as we dropped off our bags in the riad, we went on a hunt to find a hammam (turkish bath house). We had a deep cleansing mud bath in a sauna hut where we were scrubbed down by a lovely woman and then had a very relaxing massage. I slept off for 20 minutes afterwards on the massage table!

Similar to Chefchaouen, the market square is pretty much empty during the day, and as soon as the sun begins to set, it comes alive. Watching it while seated on a rooftop and licking ice cream, the transformation was boggling.

We had a taste of what the market cuisine was like. #delicious!

We visited palais de la bahia

The next day, we visited Setti Fatma where lovely waterfalls and hills are situated just on the outskirts of Marrakech. Looking back at what happened that day, I realise I made a dangerous call. So I had worn flats on the trip, but we were standing before all this amazing hills and gorgeous nature right? What’s a girl to do than to hike and explore! Yeah, I did; but you see, the thing is climbing up wasn’t the issue, getting back down to solid ground was the issue. We had climbed past a really steep hill and even while climbing, I had known getting down was going to be a nightmare. And I was right.

If I say I didn’t think my life would end right there on that day, I’d be lying. Never again! If I’m going to hike in the future, I’ll have to make sure I’m with the right shoes and equipment or not do it at all.