I went with exodus.co.uk on my first trip as a Solo Traveller, destination Morocco. I’d booked on the Marrakech & the Sahara trip as it gave me a large variety of sights and most importantly the dates matched my leave.
Day 1 was pretty much spent travelling, to join the group flight (which is optional) I first had to fly into Heathrow where I met some of my fellow travelers before flying onto casablanca and eventually arriving into Ouarzazate airport – landing at 00:30 – a long day. Our guide Hassan was waiting for us at the airport and quickly got us into the minibus and transfered 5 mins to our hotel… and sleep. What was most noticeable about landing was how cold it, luckily the hotel room had heating and this was definitely needed.
Day 2 after some driving through some beautiful scenery we met our camels and went on camel back to the bedouin camp for the night – the camel ride was a little sore but the camp was amazing – the view of the stars was simply stunning. The camp wasn’t as isolated as you’d have expected but still an amazing experience (something that apparently has been changed on the trip for next year). We had a great time around the fire with our hosts.
After riding the camel back, we then drove onto the edge of the sand sahara and went for a walk in the sand dunes, looking at the views over the Sahara was awesome. Next day the morning was a bit of a waste, I wasn’t interested in going to carpet shops I’d have much preferred to head off on a quad bike into the desert, but thats me.
Ait Benhaddou was a great place, the Kasbah was an amazing site and walking up to it in the morning was a good start to the day. The we headed into the Atlas mountains, after lunch in a mountain village on market day and a game of football with some locals, the minibus dropped us off with a one hour gentle walk to a gite in the mountains, which will be our bed for the night. The gite was in a stunning location and comfortable for a hostel – clean, good food, warm showers – what more could you want. Friday morning we went on a four hour walk from the gite which was one of my favourite parts of the trip, the walk into the mountains was such a contrast from the desert and I’d later appreciate once we got into Marrakech on a Friday night.
Marrakech was truly amazing, I loved the city, the contrast from the mountains, the people – just a great city. The main square on Saturday day and night has such a different contrast – all the sights and smells to take in and shopping in the souks was great fun. The food on the trip was of good quality and really enjoyable.
The whole trip was just an amazing experience, the people in the group were a great bunch and helped make the trip what it was 🙂
Here are the pictures I took on the trip.