Day 3 – Atlas Mountains, Morocco

​Our last day in Marrakech and what an amazing experience it has been! From the sheer generosity and loveliness of each and every person we met here, to the amazing food, and markets, we have thoroughly enjoyed being here. It has come as a surprise as after S.America we really expected a lot of street vendors following us, selling and general annoyance or not feeling safe, but I can honestly say, it has been quite the opposite.
The people here do not bother you at all, they are always willing to help (just don’t take help from teenage boys on corners, they will scam you and it’s a major problem in the area) . As for safety, we did not feel unsafe once, we had our phones out snapping away throughout the day, in the markets and walking back home in the evening. Like every city, do not walk alone at night but apart from that, add Marrakech to your bucket list as it truly a fantastic place!

Now, back to today and our Atlas mountain trip. I have added the link below to the trip we did as overall it was very good. 8am we departed the city and headed to our first stop along the way to see how Argan oil is produced, which was actually quite interesting, and we were able to sit enjoy some mint tea and beautiful fresh bread and oil.
​http://www.moroccoinspiringtours.com/day-trip-to-the-atlas-4-valleys.html
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Of course, it’s a tourist trap in the sense you can buy from them, but we didn’t and just enjoyed the food and learning about the products.  Our first valley stop was where we stopped to take some epic photos which you will see scattered through the blog and each valley was totally epic, and crazy to see the small towns camouflaged perfectly and perched up against these gigantic mountains! This is pretty much how the day went and it’s unbelievable to think that over winter this place is covered in snow as during the time outside I was back to being melting candle face all day. Between the 2nd and 3rd Valley we headed off into the National park on a 1.5 hour hike to a brilliant waterfall at the top of the Ourika Valley. 

​In the afternoon we ventured to a small village right bang middle at the top of a mountain to have a traditional lunch with a Moroccan family. My good god was it good! The highlight of the day I would day. We started with homemade vege soup and olive oil with fresh bread ( 3rd time today I have eaten bread – Marrakech = carb overload), from there we were offered a beautiful cumin spiced salad and then the mains came (sounds of applause) a REAL traditional tagine, not from a pressure cooker, but a real over the fire 6 hour job to make tagine of chicken, veg and beautiful cous cous on the side. This was by far my favourite meal in Marrakech so far as it just tasted SO GODDAM GOOD, I literally ate until my pants felt to tight and I was uncomfortable. 

Then of course we had dessert of fresh fruits and then homemade cookies and of course mint tea which is to die for. To be honest I would have paid the $100NZD each just for this lunch! It was incredible and what made it so much ore enjoyable was the family who welcomed us into their home with the biggest smiles, warm hearts and generosity, allowing us to explore their home, see how they lived and really allowing us to immerse ourselves into the real Morocco. Experience = priceless.

Like Abdul had promised we were dropped safely at the Airport by 4.30pm for our 7pm flight to Porto. Let the next part of the adventure to PORTUGAL commence! So excited for this!