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It is hard to decide whether I love morocco or hate morocco more after my second trip there. In fact that opinion changed daily, often every five minutes. Generally I ping ponged between the two after different interactions and experiences throughout the day. I stumbled across this blog "I hate it, I love it - how Morocco makes me Bipolar" which really sums up how I feel about Morocco after two trips there. It really hits on how you can be enthralled standing knee deep in the middle of immenseness in the Sahara Desert but then left with a bad taste in your mouth by the creepy way a guy says hello to you and the route his eyes take across your body. Or how you can be elated by finding what seems like the only women running a hotel in all of Morocco but then later that night begrudgingly pay four times the price of something because you just don't have the energy to spend 30 minutes bartering to avoid the inflated "tourist price".



We headed out the next day for our 3 day excursion out to the Sahara and back. The highlight of this trip was obviously the Sahara desert. It was what all of us paid our $120 or so dollars to see (incredible value for a tour by the way - transport/food/accomodation/activities for 3 days). But it was a really enjoyable (albeit exhausting) three days full of stops in small interesting Moroccan villages/shops as well as beautiful and vastly changing scenery.






For example we stopped in Ait Ben Haddou and Ourzazate (aka Moroccan Hollywood) two villages that have been used for filming many different movies and TV series. They have been featured in films such as Cleopatra, Indiana Jones, Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia and even Game of thrones. The list went on and on.







In actuality though we sped through some scarily high and windy mountains for what felt like an eternity and succeeded in causing multiple people to revisit their couscous. We also had a lead footed driver who seemed to feel the need to pass every other car on the road which didn't really help. Plus Moroccan roads also leave a little something to desire in terms of a general feeling of safety. There is a suspicious lack of guard rails on some very high roads (don't look down, don't look down).

And when construction was needed the "detour path" was just to go off road over some cacti and through small rivers.

However you cannot fault their signage as it was very proficient in alerting you to all the possible hazards that were looming ahead. You couldn't go more than 3 meters without passing a sign telling you to watch out for something.


However you cannot fault their signage as it was very proficient in alerting you to all the possible hazards that were looming ahead. You couldn't go more than 3 meters without passing a sign telling you to watch out for something.

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Sand bag bridge |




And the Sahara was absolutely unreal. Endless sand dunes.

Especially since my camel had an "interesting" quirk. Our leader was apparently in a hurry to get to dinner so he sped us past other tour groups. At which point my camel would try and drink the pee of other camels and then would twist his head back to look at me with a big toothy grin.... Don't you dare spit. Don't you dare.
We arrived in camp,a sight for sore legs, just as the sun was setting. Our guide pointed to a very large dune and suggested we climb it for the best view. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so much, it is really hard to climb a sand dune. For every step you take you slide back half the distance. Plus your feet end up weighing about 10 pounds more because they are full of sand.




Surfer chicks :) |




There were many stray cats too, who liked to scavenge around quite persistently at the restaurants. One restaurant in particular had a creative and thankfully humane approach to scaring them away, a supersoaker water gun.This server took his job very seriously and we spent our last night in Morocco laughing at his antics as he waged war against the sneaky cats with all the stealth and intensity of a marine sniper.

