Morocco Travels 2024

Today we are up early to be ready for our transport vehicle that is picking us up at. 5:30.  We are going hot air ballooning which I now know to be a popular thing to do in Marrakech. When our driver arrive about 5:30 there were already 2 people in the car and we went to pick up two more people before heading out on our 40 minute drive to the countryside, near Bourrous.   There were many cars trekking to the air ballooning site, which indicated there would be a few other balloons out there,  We were invited into a hospitality tent and serviced tea and water.  The tea is always mint tea and the standard presentation is always to pour from high above the glass to create a layer of bubbles.  The tea cups are always tall (about 3-4 inches), narrow (about 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter) glasses, to reduce the amount of splashing.   The hospitality tent Filling the balloon with hot air.  The pilot We watched the balloons set up.  It’s interesting how heate...

We had a leisurely breakfast and then finished packing to head for Merrekech.  It will be about a 5 hour trip including stops, so not quite as long as the drives to and from the desert of a few days ago. The topography starts off fairly flat.  We drive for about an hour and reach the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.  The clouds over the mountain range make a pretty vista. On of the interesting things we see on the roads are mobile coffee stations.  There are many coffee vendors that have outfitted their vehicles wth commercial espresso machines and park at pullouts by the side of the road, dispensing coffee.  They seem to fill the gap between coffee shops for a country that loves its strong coffee.   Here’s a coffee vendor at a pullout dispensing some coffee.  These vendors seem to set up in the middle of nowhere.   We pass through pockets of agriculture.  Despite the look of the dry land, water seems to be available to all sorts of agricult...

The breakfast buffet at this hotel was much better than its dinner buffet the night before.  You could get a freshly made omelet, although you could only select from onions, tomatoes and cheese as toppings.  Most hotels we’ve been to have offered at least 6 choices.   Mounaim came to get us for today’s tour and when he found out we hadn’t toured the hotel grounds, he led us on such tour.  I’m not sure we would have ventured into the areas he showed us as they were all behind a big closed door, so it was great to have him show it to us.   Back of the hotel, where they are storing wood door for future use.   The old grain storage room.  There were many rooms where grains were stored.  The steps in the foreground were used to access the upper storage rooms.   Former rooms that were used as living spaces.  Inside was a mosque that is no longer in service (but you still couldn’t enter) More living space. This area was used as the school. We t...