After our month-long road trip through Croatia and Bosnia, I swore up and down after returning the keys in Zagreb that we would never rent a car again, either domestically OR internationally. It was too much hassle, the roads too crazy, the parking spaces too cramped, the gas too expensive…I could go on and on (oh wait, I DID!). Yet we somehow found ourselves at a Hertz counter in the Marrakech airport, raising our eyebrows as the attendant brazenly talked about “cleaning fees” and gave us nonsense directions to the rental car lot. How did we find ourselves here again? I had just typed the sentence “I can’t even fathom renting a car in Asia or Africa…” in this VERY BLOG a few weeks earlier, so what the hell were we doing renting another car?! In Morocco, no less?!
Well, it was simple, really. After fleeing Fez and it’s bed bugs and spending an awesome week in Lisbon with Rachel, we realized that if we didn’t resume our Morocco plans, we would be out quite a bit of money. We had already paid for a sort-of splurge in the form of two nights in the Saharan desert, and if we didn’t go to Morocco, we’d have to go SOMEWHERE. We’d have to pay to eat and sleep on top of the money we would lose by canceling our plans. And honestly, we wanted to try Morocco again. We didn’t want our only memory of this country to be getting lost in the Fez medina and getting eaten alive by bed bugs. So we flew back to Marrakech.
But why the rental car? It turns out, shockingly, that the Sahara desert is very remote. Duh. You CAN take a bus from Marrakech to Merzouga, the gateway town, the Moab of Morocco. That bus ride will be on a bus of dubious quality and will take 12+ hours. You can also pay for a private shuttle, which will cost a few hundred dollars plus the cost of a night in Marrakech. So flying into Marrakech, renting the car, and driving halfway to the desert actually made the most sense both financially and time-wise. Also, some of my favorite bloggers at Along Dusty Roads published a huge and immensely helpful guide to the whole process (seriously, if you are thinking about traveling in South America or Morocco, they have invaluable stuff on their blog). But just because something makes sense doesn’t mean it’s not kind of terrifying. We were both edgy and freaked out as we drove away from the Marrakech airport, especially once the swarms of motorbikes and cabs starting swerving around us.
Yet a remarkable thing happened. After about fifteen minutes of white-knuckling through the airport traffic (which was truly an…experience) and saying over and over again through clenched teeth “We’re fine. We’re fine. We’re fine”…we actually…became fine. We were on a quiet, well-lit, newly-paved road with Google Maps singing like a canary in the background. There were friendly cops everywhere directing traffic (foreshadowing: we got to know these guys pretty well! More on them later…) The air conditioning worked. It was like driving in America, except with more goats on the side of the road.
As the fear dissipated, we remembered that road trips and being in the car together is one of our absolute favorite things! Podcasts! Snacks! Long rambling conversations filled with segues and memories and laughter!
And breathtakingly beautiful scenery. Morocco, like Bosnia and Croatia and Poland, is GORGEOUS, and there is something about seeing it from your own car that makes discovering a new place even better. In fact, the scenery the entire time reminded me so much of driving in Utah. At certain points, if you had told me I was in Morocco instead of on my way to Moab, I wouldn’t have believed you. After we got out of the Marrakech muck, it was just palm trees, huge snowy mountains in the distance, and pretty little villages and small towns.
Goats! 
I was especially tickled by the incredibly colorful school buildings. In each town, the schools were painted vibrant rainbow colors, as if Willy Wonka was the principal. We climbed a huge mountain at sunset (peaks, valleys, and views for days) and arrived at our guesthouse for the night in Ait-Ben Haddou feeling triumphant.
If I were to do this again–which, hey, we might!–I would spend more time in Ait Ben-Haddou. This is a legitimately cool destination, with the mountains and ancient stone kasbahs used in Game of Thrones (it stands in for Yunkai).
However, we appreciated the kind owners and the immaculately clean room after a long day of flying and driving. Even Ben succumbing to some food poisoning that night didn’t dampen our spirits! We can now cross that particular traveler’s malady off both of our nomad bingo cards. Yay?
The next day, we had about five hours of driving before we reached Merzouga and our Sahara adventure. We were humming along, doing great, until at one of the frequent police checkpoints, we didn’t get to just sail through. This time, we actually got pulled over. YIKES. My mind went to the worst places at the thought of getting pulled over in Morocco as we nervously grabbed our passports and went to talk to the police officer.
Good news: he was so nice! Even better news: He was willing to charge us 400 dirham (about $40) for the speeding ticket, or 200 dirham without the ticket. The best news: it took several back and forths with the police officer before I figured out what was going on and gave him the 200dh: I swear he actually winked at us. When we got back in the car, we were so relieved. Ben: “That went so much better than it could have! I thought we were going to have to bribe him or something!” Me: “Ben…what do you think just happened?!” And with that, we drove away from our encounter with a Moroccan police officer laughing and only $20 poorer. Sure, the police are corrupt. But they were also unfailingly polite and non-threatening. It was the nicest getting-pulled-over experience I’ve ever had.
Why was I speeding? It wasn’t on purpose: speed limit signage is as rare in Morocco as police officers are frequent. After this, I tried to slow it down as much as possible, and we didn’t have any more issues…with speeding, anyway. We did get pulled over again on our way back to Marrakech a few days later for going around an impossibly slow truck, but at that point we knew the deal and gave the guy his 200dh for no ticket and we were on our way.
Then we got to the Sahara! WOW! After parking our car, a jeep drove us straight into the dunes, and seeing the mountains of red sand up close and in person is truly a soul-quieting experience. As soon as we got to the camp, after some mint tea, we hopped a camel (well, awkwardly clambered on a camel and held on for dear life when they lurched onto their feet) and headed off for a sunset in the dunes.
An absolutely bewitching place: the colors, the quiet, making footprints in the sand ripples. We are so lucky that we got to experience this magic.
We spent two nights at the desert camp, and enjoyed a gigantic glamping tent, a private bathroom with a flush toilet, three gourmet meals a day, and all the camel riding you could ever want. We also met some cool new people, and enjoyed swapping stories with them and listening to music around the campfire. It was definitely cold, but that’s what long underwear and hand warmers that I lugged all the way from Denver are for. We were cozy and in awe of our surroundings.
After two idyllic days, we had a hell of a drive facing us. While on the way there we broke the drive up into two days, on the way back we would be slogging all the way back to Marrakech in one day. However, the drive was gorgeous, and we even found some clean-ish bathrooms to use along the way (win!).
Driving through Marrakech to the airport was an abrupt and unpleasant jolt back to reality: traffic circle after traffic circle after traffic circle full of motorbikes and careening cabs, near misses, and a deep desire to drop the damn car off already. Once we got to the airport, there were shenanigans: I had read in blogs that car rental companies in Morocco are crooked to the extreme, and unfortunately we didn’t escape unscathed. They said the slight dust from driving to the desert would incur a cleaning fee (even though the contract only said such a fee would occur for “excessive dirt”, the guy and I seriously disagree on what “excessive” means). At that point, I was so annoyed that I just had to step back, and let Ben swoop in like a superhero. If you are ever traveling somewhere where people with the tiniest amount of power (cab drivers, car rental dudes, etc.) abuse it shamelessly and for profit, get yourself a Ben Slivnick. I walked away to fume, and he kindly and jovially negotiated the “fee”, paid it, got a receipt, and got us out of that mess.
We were exhausted, triumphant, and just wanted to fall into a bug-free bed, but first we had to deal with my least favorite part of Morocco: cabs. After haggling with a cabal of drivers who gleefully jacked up the price to our hotel with each passing minute, we were on our way into Marrakech in the most decrepit old cab I’ve ever seen and an overjoyed driver who, I’m sure, was calculating just how much he could fleece us. Ben and I made a plan via text in the cab: we knew the driver would try to squeeze us for more money as soon as he dropped us off, so we decided to get our packs on (they will often hold your bags hostage, so it’s important to grab your stuff as quickly as possible), I would give him the agreed upon amount and we would just walk away. Since Ben had championed the last obnoxious interaction, it was my turn. And that’s exactly what happened. We grabbed our bags, Ben took off like a bat out of hell, the guy started arguing with me, and I just Ms. Slivnick’ed him HARD and said in my scariest teacher voice “NO. We said 200. NO MORE” and walked away. And it worked! I like to think he was struck dumb by the same tone I have to use with rowdy 8-year olds. After a little medina-wandering and dodging through narrow alleyways and a tunnel (seriously), we found our riad. It was beautiful. It was clean. It was quiet. We did it! WE DROVE THROUGH MOROCCO!
Looking back, I feel so empowered from our little road trip to the Sahara. If we can drive a rental car through Morocco, we can do anything. It was stressful and confusing and scary, but we did it. I’m proud of us!
Sounds like a really fun time. I think checking out at least some part of the Sahara Desert would be extremely interesting. That may be the eastern part as opposed to the western part (Egypt) though due to its proximity to Israel.