Morocco - Sept. 9 - 14

Given there's a Swiss holiday on the 10th, I decided to grab a last minute flight to Morocco; the flight was at 6:30am, I got up at 4:15am to catch the first bus at 5am.

Day 1 in Marrakech Morocco - I spent most of the time wandering the streets of the Medina in search of a desert scarf, which I'm told is a necessity for the camel ride in the desert tour.  This place is a bit like Tijuana with people trying to barter only on a much larger scale.  I was excited to see tourists when I thought I was lost since not much is labelled on google maps.  At Djemaa el-Fna, I saw some snake charmers and had a snake draped on me at one point so that was a bit interesting.  I also visited the Koutoubia Mosque, Marrakech Museum, and areas near Ali Ben Youssef Medersa, Saadian Tombs, and the Palais el-Badi and Palais de la Bahia.  I had dinner with some Geneva friends randomly also in Marrakech at a rooftop restaurant (highlight was Moroccan Date cake with salted caramel sauce) and heard the broadcast of the Muslim call to worship before calling it a night.

Desert Tour - Mostly in a bus, but stopped at a few sites and gorges along the way to do small tours that were probably quite similar to that of Arizona (Ait Benhaddou, which is a set of ruins that had several movies filmed there (Gladiator, Game of Thrones); gorges in Vallee du Dades).  Highlight of tour was going to Merzouga to do a camel ride through a small portion of the Western Sahara and then camping that night in the dunes under the stars.  Riding a camel is a little painful so I was definitely glad this wasn't multiple hours.  Waking up after camping, we had a 10 hour drive back to Marrakech!

Marrakech after Desert Tour - Definitely much more manageable with the correct expectation.  After arriving in the city I grabbed dinner with friends and went to bed early after the big drive.  The last full day I had, I spent relaxing in a Hammam (Moroccan Spa) and doing some light bartering with some luck!  Definitely a much more enjoyable experience the 2nd time around.

Morocco was a fun time and generally really cheap when able to avoid the super touristy areas (small bag of chips was 1 penny).  It is a much larger country than I expected as it was a 10 hour drive to the desert near the Algeria border; cell phones generally worked everywhere except data service was no where.