Fez / Merzouga / Sahara 🇲🇦

Currently we are on our way from Merzouga to Tinghir, where the Atlas Mountains are the attraction.

We spent one night in Meknes which was not particularly spectacular. And two nights in Fez, which is a mega interesting city with an incredibly huge Medina, I even think it's the largest in the world. With a slightly uneasy feeling, we venture into it, as there have been several warnings to be careful, especially in the evenings, as there are countless alleys, which actually include some shady characters. My absolute bonus: I look like a Moroccan, so we have extreme peace.

After falling into bed like dead, we took a tour of the old town the next day. Instead of 4 hours, it took almost 8, which was probably due to our 84-year-old guide. Missouri, 6 different languages, 10 sons, two daughters, scattered all over the world. In our country, we would say he is crazy by now, but in Morocco they call him a philosopher, which I find quite charming. You can't even imagine what it was like, but it was good. 😂

We visited one of the few mosques (365 in Fez) that non-Muslims are allowed to enter, learned Arabic, and learned about various corners and places in the Medina. However, details would absolutely exceed the scope here. One of the highlights is definitely the hammam, first sauna including body cleaning with mud, brushes, lavender, and whatever else, I felt a bit like a horse or something. Then a massage and that's it. Okay, for the moment, but not a must. But in general, I can highly recommend Fez and Morocco is becoming more and more interesting the further south we go. So let's continue.

Merzouga, the land of the Berbers, is already behind us. What's so special? The Sahara! We arrive in the middle of the night and due to massive problems with unstable network, we couldn't book anything in advance. Especially since it took us about 10 hours instead of the expected 6.

We drive to Hostel Hassan, but instead of being picked up by Hassan, we are picked up by Ahmed, his seemingly drunken older brother. He says he's a desert man, we guess he's Captain Jack Sparrow. Short dispute between the parties involved, we go to a hotel right by the desert and crash. I sleep, Lisa doesn't, so I don't sleep either. I estimate it's about 50 degrees in our room, no AC or fan. So we're already off to the sunrise, this time actually into the desert. The Sahara is simply unimaginably huge, it takes us about 30 minutes to walk about 500 meters. Unfortunately, besides sand, I also notice a lot of rubbish, but otherwise, most of it is worthy of National Geographic.

But for the second night, we actually spend it with Hassan, or rather in a camp he arranged for us in an oasis somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It takes 1 1/2 hours on a camel in some direction. We sleep behind a huge sand dune. Honestly, there's really nothing directly here, I mean really nothing. The impressive thing is this endless emptiness, 42 degrees in the shade. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has a pleasant temperature, everywhere you look there's only sand, the bed feels like hot stones have been placed in it beforehand, and the water is like tea. Why am I doing this? I ask myself that too.

This endless silence is madness, unfortunately, it's constantly interrupted by the Italian family sleeping or talking in the camp. This sky full of stars and shooting stars, these small tracks in the sand, which, once you realize they're made by insects, are no longer small at all. All of this is incredibly beautiful but also disturbing. Because without Max, who is at most 16 years old and constantly smokes hash, we would probably be completely screwed here after about 12 hours. I trust him anyway. The night is calm, only the moon is bright from about 2:30 am, because we slept under the open sky.

Since I'm physically not feeling well again, unfortunately I couldn't really enjoy dinner, the gentlemen in the kitchen worked for 3 hours, and the result was really impressive!

It's 7:14 am and Hassan kicks me out of bed, we have to go. Onto the camel and back to the hostel, there's breakfast.

And it's almost all over already, I think there will be another report about Marrakesh and the rest to follow. Maybe not, take care. 😊