Despite arriving in Marrakech quite late, and feeling super cranky after the longest train ride ever (10 hours!! OMG it was the worst and I’ll never, never, ever do it again), I was up at 4:30am the next day to get ready for a hot air balloon ride to watch the sunrise. I like to think I’m a morning person, but even that is pretty early for me. Or anyone, really. Especially if you’re on vacation.
The view was totally worth it though!
Our guide picked us up in a 4×4 and drove about an hour out of the city to a tiny village where we stopped for coffee and croissants before they sent us up in the air. While we ate we could hear them blowing up the balloon, which made some of the others in our group nervous, but I was excited! Also, it was freezing outside so early in the morning and I was looking forward to getting close to that toasty-looking flame.
Wish I’d brought some marshmallows.
Soon enough we were up in the air. When you looked down, it almost wasn’t real. It felt a bit like our balloon wasn’t even in the sky, and that we were watching a series of videos on the ground below that just made it look like we were way up in the sky. When you looked out on either side of you however, you could see Morroco’s Atlas Mountains in the distance. Save for our guide’s jokes (of which there were many), explanations of how the balloon works and other tidbits of info, it was a quiet, peaceful and altogether incredible experience watching the sun rise up from behind the mountains.
PS. I apologise in advance for the quality of these photos! They were all taken with my little point and shoot which, unsurprisingly, is of much lesser quality than my iPhone (which I was too afraid I’d drop over the side of the balloon.. as you can see I don’t feel the same way about my little camera. It is waterproof though, so that’s something).
After planting our feet firmly back on the ground, we were invited to have breakfast. Plenty of bread, bread, and more bread. Oh, and some hard-boiled eggs. So, note! If you’re planning on traveling to Morocco any time soon, I hope you don’t intend to stick to your gluten-free diet, because this is typically what you will be served at most places unless you go somewhere very touristy. I was never more excited to see eggs on the table.
After breakfast, we met some camels and went on a short camel ride through the “desert”. I say “desert” because our guide was very adamant that despite the fact that there were no sand dunes (or sand, really), we were in the middle of an uninhabitable desert, and that we should be very, very careful not to get lost. Since we were all tied together I can only assume he meant if the camels collectively went rogue and dragged us off into the wilderness.
The camel behind me and I became pals.
He also warned us that we were not allowed to take the baby camels home with us. Too bad because they were the cutest smelly little things!
They followed us back to what I like to call the camel camp where we disembarked, said our goodbyes and climbed back into the 4×4 so they could drive everyone back to their riads. By this time it wasn’t quite 10am but the road was so bumpy no one could get any sleep on the way back (also no thanks to the woman that kept going on about her horses back in Texas.. shush you!). By the time I arrived at my riad I was so sleepy all I could manage was to take a shower (to get rid of the camel smell) and go straight back to bed.
I still maintain it was worth the extra early morning.
-C
