My passion abot Morocco started in 2006 I think, when I was a ski instructor in Slovenia and one friend from the ski shool told me about a road trip from Ljubljana down to Marrakech in a car.
I was excited about the country right away.
Fantastic surfing spots, nice people, fresh and spicy food, sea and desert, and of coursethe Atlas mountain which separates the Western part of the country from the dry East where the Sahara starts and rarely rain.
So this time we did not miss the flight and we landed on Marrakech airport around 10PM.
We already set up for holiday and we lit up a cigarette in the building. Ohh yeah, you can smoke inside there. We are not used to do it here in Europe anymore. Some can remember the time when smoking on planes was ok.
Our plan was to drive down to Agadir with a rented car and see the sunrise on the coast.
It took us about one hour to sort the papers out, first they demanded a huge amount of deposit, like £1000, when we paid for the car around £250 for 10 days. We had to negotiate and then we could leave with only £300 deposit. Here you can make deals easier, they are a bit flexible about the price.
The biggest challenge was that we only had one page of printed map of Morocco, so the main routes were on it but that did not help in a big city like Marrakech.
We decided to buy some water. Man, it's the Sahara, we can die!!!
So after 11PM we drove into the city. Of course Almost everything was closed except the restaurants and some small shops which looks like a garage sale. You can find everything inside a small garage like room, opening to the street.
After buying 20 litres of water we headed into the center.
If you have ever been to Africa, yo know that the centre is the medina, or a market but usually within the wall which surrounds the ancient city. So the middle is the oldest with small streets and arcades.
We had a small Hyunday10 and there was a place where we nearly turned back because we hardly could fit through two buildings.
There were still people on the streets but it was ok I think. We went slowly and we had no idea where we had been. After like 20 minutes in the labirynth we managed to get out and there we were at an open place where we parked to see the market like streets.
We did not go much into the market because on one corner a group asked us if we need hash. Hmmm. It's Morocco, why not. We entered a small room, like 2x4m where you could find an old 34cm TV and an X-Box where the locals were playing Fifa. And it was dark inside.
My friend P is more suspicious than me. He stood at the door in case of trouble. But I am more open and started to bargain with the guys and I sat down to roll a joint to test it. Of course it was strong as hell. We made some purchase and headed back to the car.
We had 3 hours drive ahead of us, in the dark without a good map(we had our phones of course for emergencies with the gps and map), but we came here to explore. We had no planned route or place to stay.
And yes, around 4AM we were on the shore in Agadir.
Read the intro for the Morocco road trip here:https://steemit.com/travel/@urbansurfer/2000-km-road-trip-in-morocco
Follow me for more, the adventure just started@urbansurfer
