This time for africa

So in case you haven't noticed by my 20 instagram posts a day, I have spent the majority of this week in pastures sunnier as I've been in Morocco! Our adventure started on Saturday night after I'd recovered from my hangover, when me and little Katie headed in to town to catch the coach to Stansted airport. Well, it turned in to a bit of a disaster because due to the clocks going forward that night, the coach was meant to arrive an hour earlier than it usually would've; a concept that didn't get as far as the driver so he arrived an hour late, meaning we only arrived at the airport an hour before our flight so we literally had to run through the terminal to avoid the gate closing on us! It was a dramatic start but after a 4 hour flight, we landed in Marrakech! We'd booked the holiday through loveholidays.com and it cost us £300 each; £240 for the flights (we could've got them cheaper but we booked it less than 2 months in advance and with Easter, the flights were more than normal) and then £60 for the hotel (bed and breakfast). We were staying at the Hotel Fashion and we couldn't have been happier with it. It wasn't a traditional riad (with a pool in the centre on the ground floor) but it was very authentic and charming, and the rooftop pool and bar was an added bonus, with beautiful views of the surrounding city. For my early hours travelling, I went with these trusty (and super comfy) printed trousers that I pretty much always wear to travel in, with mustard crop top, leather jacket and new espadrilles that I bought especially for the holiday (from ASOS).

Because we'd got a 6am flight, it meant we were checked in, unpacked and ready to go out by about noon (there's no time difference between here and there so we didn't lose any hours that way). It was really tricky when trying to decide what to take because Morocco is a Muslim country but it's very much westernised and not as strict as other Arab places. However, me and Katie were both keen to be respectful so we didn't wear anything too short or revealing; I changed in to pleated striped midi skirt, black strappy t-shirt and my black espadrilles. Our hotel was in a really central location in the Gueliz area, so not right in the centre of the Old Medina, but just a short walk away. We were also right around the corner from the Plaza which was unlike anything I expected to see in Marrakech. This holiday was a completely new experience for me because before this, I'd only ever been to Europe or the United States, so to travel to Africa for the first time was really exciting and it exceeded my expectations in every way possible. For starters, I didn't expect there to be a massive shopping centre with the likes of MAC, Reebok and Zara? It was really modern and pretty too, while we kind of expected everything to be a bit more crumbling-but-charming. So after we stopped there for some lunch (in the sun, yassss), we headed off in search of the Medina. Now, I'm actually pretty good at navigating places but it does take me a while to get my bearings, meanwhile, Katie isn't good at navigating at all so after wandering in the wrong direction for ages, we eventually ended up following the signs to Le Jardin Majorelle, which is in completely the opposite direction to the Medina but it was on our list to do so we figured we might aswell, at risk of not being able to find it again. Which brings me on to a second surprising thing we found about Morocco; everything is really green and luscious and there are so many orange trees and pretty flowers everywhere. We expected a lot more sand and desert wasteland but no; everything was so pretty. Especially the colours! The royal blue of the main building, the orange of the plant pots, the purple of the bougainvillea flowers. They also had a super cute little cafe area where we stopped for a drink and decided to try the local delicacy; mint tea. Well, I wasn't a fan and Katie was altogether more dramatic (she actually gagged) so we poured it back in to the teapot and made a swift getaway when noone was looking, but we were glad to say we'd tried it!

Then after quite impressively managing to find our way to our hotel (obviously our phones didn't work over there when not on our hotel wifi, so we had to rely on good old memory and logic), we headed up to our rooftop for some cocktails before getting ready for dinner. I am obsessed with mustard yellow at the minute and especially being on holiday, you will notice that I managed to inject as much of it as possible in to my holiday wardrobe. Including these trousers (from Forever 21) which I wore with this gorgeous floral off-the-shoulder top (from boohoo) and black lace up sandals. Although they do serve alcohol in restaurants and hotels, there's not a massive drinking culture there so we knew it wasn't going to be a party holiday like our previous ones. Instead, we got to enjoy alcohol like sophisticated adults by sharing a bottle of wine over dinner (which was enough pasta to feed the five thousand).

Because we weren't drinking much though, it made getting up super early the next day much easier, which we were doing because we had an excursion to Ouzoud falls booked. So after getting ready in white top and rust colour culottes (that applies to both me and Katie because we hilariously ended up totally twinning) and having breakfast (which was amazing), we got on the minibus for the 3 hour drive to the falls (most of which was spent napping). We were worried we'd made a totally bad outfit choice when we saw that everyone else was in jeans and coats, and it was pretty chilly when we stopped for a toilet break but thankfully, by the time we got there the sun was shining and it was 25 degrees for the rest of the day so we were fine. We'd booked the tour on TripAdvisor but they really undersold what we were getting; we thought we'd basically paid £20 to get dropped off and then picked back up later, and would be left to do our own thing in between. But it was so much better than that! We got a guided tour through the olive tree region (with stories about how they know which family owns which ones), we got a view of the king's brother's new house from the top of the waterfalls (the tallest in Africa at 110m tall), we got loads of facts and figures about the history and the region as we trekked down to the bottom, we got to visit a Berber house (the original tribes of Morocco before the Arabs invaded) and learn all about their history (I love stuff like that), we got to see how olive oil and argon oil is made (which involves 12 hours of grinding the beans into a paste), we got to ride on a barge at the bottom of the waterfalls, we got endless amazing photo opportunities and we got to feed wild monkeys who climbed on you to get the peanuts out of your hands! And then after climbing about a gazillion stairs to get back up to the top, we stopped for an amazing authentic lunch of Moroccan chicken skewers, couscous, salad, fries, this amazing smoked bread, water and oranges, all for 100 dirham each. The currency was kind of confusing because it's so different to ours but the exchange rate is 12 so it's basically the exchange of the euro multiplied by 10, meaning lunch was less than £8 for all that. It was honestly the most incredible day and the falls were so beautiful! It was definitely worth the 6 hours in a minibus and the 7 miles of walking.

Then after napping most of the way home, we got ready to go out for dinner. This time, I wore black wide leg trousers (the comfiest thing in the world), gold scarf print bandeau, white shirt tied at the waist, black lace up sandals and yellow curtain tassel earrings. I was also taking full advantage of being able to use all my sunniest, brightest eyeshadow colours in a look that we like to call 'moroccan sunset'. The minibus earlier in the day was actually very useful too because it had picked some other people up from the main square, so we finally got to see where it was! We tried to track where it was from our hotel and it seemed to just be straight down all the way but when we tried to retrace our steps that night, we got lost again (are you noticing a pattern here) so we ended up heading back to the plaza to eat at a lovely seafood restaurant there; I had salmon with saffron sauce and it was amazing. They also brought olives over (local delicacy as we'd learned earlier that day) and so I decided to finally try one but I wasn't a fan. In fact, we managed to try something new every single day that we were there; mint tea on the first day, olives and couscous on the second day, blue cheese and tagine on the third day and papaya and sweet tea on the fourth day. Well, when in Morocco and all that.

Then after another amazing breakfast at our hotel (which was costing us the equivalent of £1 per day), we headed out for the 3rd time in search of the Medina, me wearing navy culottes and navy printed top with gold beaded collar (which I've always thought looked very Moroccan). And finally it was third time lucky because we found it (we'd previously been taking the wrong road off a roundabout but it was just straight down after that)! The main part where we'd been going wrong is we were using the main mosque as our point of reference, but we then learned there are 2 main mosques (plus 60 others) which look identical; 1 next to the plaza and 1 next to the Medina. I mean, easy mistake to make right? Anyway, when we finally found it, I was delighted to find that it was exactly how I imagined. Before going, I was imagining it would be exactly like the market place in Aladdin and it was. The main square was filled with fruit trucks and spice carts (like the one where the guy goes 'sugared dates and pistachioooos') and snake charmers and women doing henna, while the souks (the fixed stalls as you go down the side streets) were filled with trinkets and woven fabrics and hand crafted wooden souvenirs and lampshades and jewellery and art in rich colours. Everything was vibrant and colourful and beautiful which I expected, but the part we didn't expect was to do with the people. On the run up to our holiday, 99% of people I told I was going to Morocco said things like the men are really letchy, you'll have to be really careful with your bag, people will try and touch you and grab you, it's not safe to go out at night, you should do guided tours and not risk walking around on your own. Trust me when I say this, that none of that is true whatsoever. The people couldn't do more for you and are the friendliest of anywhere I've ever been to. People say 'Bonjour' or 'Hola' as you walk past their stall, but noone was pushy and even at the stalls where we stopped to look properly, the people were asking where we from and saying 'welcome to Morocco' rather than trying to forcing us to buy anything. A guy on a fruit stall also posed with his arms up as I took a photo and one guy remembered us from day 3 to day 4, saying 'ah you've changed colour, today yellow, yesterday blue, you look very nice' so it was genuine friendliness without an agenda for the most part. At first, we were a little overwhelmed (obviously having heard a lot of negative things) so we kind of didn't take in what was on each stall and we were a little hesitant to linger too long, but after quickly realising that the people have got a bad rep for no reason, we enjoyed it a lot more and had a proper look at each place. As for not being able to go out at night, I've never heard anything more ridiculous in all my life. As two young, white girls, we felt perfectly safe roaming around at night (even going the wrong way, which we usually were). Of all the people we went past or spoke to, we encountered one weirdo on a clothes stand who tried to put a scarf on us "not to buy, just for a photo", but you can guarantee if we'd had the photo he would've charged us for it, then when we said no to that he said '"marry me", then when we kept on walking, he tried to run ahead of us and said "this way to the square", when there was a sign above his head saying the square was the opposite direction (we'd heard stories of people trying to send you the wrong way and then charging you for directions back when they got you totally lost). But I saw it as a 'don't hate the player, hate the game' sort of situation because if you're naive enough to fall for something like that then it's your own fault if you get money fleeced from you. As long as you're street smart and engage your common sense it's totally fine. Plus, there are strange people like that everywhere (especially here in Nottingham) so I don't think it's fair that all Moroccan people get tarred with the same brush for a few bad eggs. Also, everyone travels everywhere by motorbike (including women in full hijabs, really old, fragile-looking men and sometimes whole families with the baby casually sat at the front) and there seems to be no such thing as highway code; everyone drives wherever they want, including through the Medina. So at all times, you have to watch out for a motorbike (or a cart pulled by a donkey) coming past you as you admire some fridge magnets. At first, the roads were really intimidating and we basically ran whenever we wanted to cross but by day 3, we were casually strolling across like locals (you run us over, you pay). When I wrote in my New York blog post last year that I'd never seen roads like it, I hadn't seen nothing yet! While going round the souks, we also stumbled across Le Jardin Secret (another thing on our list) and I'm glad we did because god knows how we would've found it otherwise! It was crazy as well, despite it being smack bang in the middle of the bustling Medina, the second you stepped inside it was totally peaceful and tranquil. It was really pretty too, with loads of wrought iron furniture, mosaic tiled ceilings, exotic plants and a killer view from the top of the tower. We also got a mini tour around that, with more history of Morocco and the Berber people, by a tour guide who had only been speaking English for 6 months but could do a perfect Scouse, Geordie and London accent. That's another thing we picked up from him and from the guide at the falls; Brits are lazy. I was pretty proud of myself that I was managing to translate almost everything on all the French menus (their main language besides Arabic), but even then, I studied French for 6-7 years and got an A and yet I couldn't hold a conversation in French, and I studied Spanish for 2 years but they let us drop it when we started our GCSEs. Meanwhile, in Morocco, kids start school with the 3 main languages (Arabic, French and English) and by the time they finish, they'll be able to speak 9. For any official tour guides, they speak 14 and are starting to learn Chinese too! In our country, most people can barely speak proper English, never mind anything else.

Then after a hectic morning, we headed for some lunch at a lovely little restaurant set back from the main road among some pretty gardens. The rules on alcohol seemed a bit blurry because one place said it had to be served inside and you couldn't drink outside, but at this place you could. We generally just had a look around to see what other people were drinking and judged from that. Me and Katie are both obsessed with 'picky' food so we got a cheese and meat board to share with some fries and bread (both trying blue cheese for the first time, our new thing for the day) and then our drinks and the final bill came to 190 dirhams, so again about £7 each - everything was super cheap while we were there and I think we only spent about £200 in total, including our excursions, activities and trinkets from the market. Then seeing as Tuesday was the hottest day while we were there (29 degrees woohoo!), we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by the pool and drinking cocktails. My swimwear buying season started early this year and I love this snake print high waisted bikini (strapless so it's good for avoiding tan lines) which I got from missguided and wore under white shirt and scarf print shorts with gold sandals (because my espadrilles were rubbing my feet like crazy so I needed a break from them).

I finally took a break from the yellow outfits and went with a lady-in-red look instead for night nombre trois. I wore red bandage skirt with this scarf print shirt that ties at the waist, with my trusty black lace ups and red curtain tassel earrings which I'm obsessed with. After finally finding our way to the Medina earlier in the day, we'd passed loads of nice looking restaurants and so headed to one of those for Moroccan lamb and chicken tagine - both of which were incredible!

On to our final day and I was back to the mustard wardrobe in a mustard jumpsuit. I love this jumpsuit and you'll have seen me wear it a few times, but it's strappy and very low backed so I decided to wear a white shirt over it. We did see one or two people (not many at all) wearing shorts or playsuits but they did stick out like a sore thumb and we were glad we'd gone with a more modest wardrobe selection. So we spent the morning at the Medina to do the few bits that we hadn't gotten around to; we got a fresh fruit juice from one of the carts (he let us try it before buying, it only cost about £1.80 and he gave us papaya for free too when I said I hadn't tried it before), we bought some trinkets (a moroccan print plate, mini tagine pot and cute bracelet for Katie, and some fridge magnets and super pretty earrings for me), and we got henna done on our hands. Although, we didn't even think to ask how much it was before we sat down and then they tried saying it was 600 dirham (nearly £50) but bartering is definitely the way there because we ended up getting them down to 200 so about £15, and again they were super friendly about it and advised us to put our purses away before leaving their little set up to make sure we were being safe. Seriously the people couldn't have been nicer!

The one thing we had said ever since booking the holiday is that we wanted to do a camel ride (something on both our bucket lists). So after going for lunch at another of the restaurants we wanted to try, we got picked up by a mini bus to take us half an hour into the desert to do one. Katie has a tendency to have little wobbles about things that are maybe new or scary, which she did about the camel ride on the way (she was saying she'd walk alongside it instead or just sit and wait on the coach) but she'd had a wobble about feeding the monkeys and ended up not doing it and then seriously regretting it, so this time I forced her and she ended up having the best time! Me and Katie make good travel buddies; we're like yin and yang so we work around eachother really well. So even though I felt a bit bad when she seemed really nervous, we ended up having the most amazing time, and my camel (who looked younger than the rest) took a shining to katie and kept licking her leg so she made a little mate out of it too. We were kitted out in some seriously stylish turban headwear (which we were glad of because we'd already got our scalps sunburnt so it was great not to have to worry about it getting worse) and getting on and off the camels was interesting (they get up and down in like 3 stages so you lurch forward and backward a few times) but once you were on it was fine. We rode through the desert for about 45 minutes, admiring the scenery as we went, before stopping at a Berber house (we presume it belonged to one of the guides) for tea and some mini biscotti-style biscuits. We filled with dread when it looked like they were giving us mint tea but it turned out to be sweet tea so we were really relieved! Then back on the camels we got to ride the 45 minutes back to where we started. I was actually surprised how peaceful and docile the camels were too. I'd heard about them spitting and making chewbacca-type sounds but they were quiet the whole time, apart from maybe 5 minutes at the end where they'd obviously got bored and started making loads of noise. But they were really well trained (the guy didn't walk them along, they just walked themselves and knew to turn when he clapped), really peaceful and they didn't spook or anything when quad bikes and buggies came zooming past. Yet another example of not believing everything you hear from other people and always trying things for yourself!

Then in a bid to soak up the last bit of sun, when we got back we headed up to our pool to chill out and enjoy some cocktails. Obviously I couldn't go all the way to Morocco without buying a Moroccan print swimsuit, and I love this new look one complete with mini pom poms! Then when the sun had practically set, we went and got ready for dinner. For our final night, I wore black culottes with bird print (£6 boohoo sale bargain), black bandeau under white frill bralet (it was a bit low-cut without it) and black lace up sandals. Then we went and checked the final restaurant off our list that we really wanted to try, where we both got the most expensive thing on the menu which was fillet steak, vegetables, mash potato and peppercorn sauce and it cost 140 dirhams (so about a tenner). It was literally the most incredible steak too; perfectly cooked and no fat or anything whatsoever! For anyone tempted to go to Morocco but is worried about the food, we ate better there than we do at home! Plus I was eating fresh fruit everyday and was fine (we did avoid the tap water at all costs though so no ice in our drinks and we brushed our teeth with bottled water).

Then on Thursday morning, we enjoyed one last amazing breakfast before packing up our stuff, checking out of our hotel and beginning the long journey home. I wanted an outfit that would be comfy in both Morocco and England so I went with my red culotte jumpsuit, black espadrilles and black leather jacket. It's safe to say that getting our flight back wasn't nearly as stressful as getting our flight there so we had time to meander round the shops and try and use up all of our remaining dirhams on food for the plane (you can't convert them in this country so we had to use them there). Then after a 4 hour flight, a 2 hour gap between landing and getting the coach from Stansted to London, a 1 hour wait at Golders Green, a 4 hour coach journey and a 1/2 hour car journey from Nottingham to Beeston, we finally made it back home. We walked 30 miles in 4 days, we tried new foods, we saw amazing things, we met the loveliest people, we doubled over laughing, we got ourselves lost countless times, we got a stamp in our passport, we learned new things about history and culture and language, we experienced things that some people can only dream of and we just generally had the best time ever. It's been an incredible holiday and one that I wish I could do all over again!