Currently sitting cross legged waiting for my ride back into Merzouga Morocco, Morocco’s Sahara Desert. I flew in from Lagos on Monday morning and I really just need a massage so bad. Camels are fun to look at until you ride them for over an hour. Anyway, let’s roll back to the beginning of this adventure that I’m currently quarter way in; from Lagos, Nigeria to Casablanca, Morocco.

For this leg of the trip, I traveled along with a friend, Patrick and there really isn’t much to say about the pretty basic flight from Lagos to Casablanca, Morocco, it was similar to an average Lagos to Abuja flight but with a lot more cash to cough up for the journey. Royal Air Maroc, fed us snacks that could barely fill up a five-year-old kid. We were seriously starving by the time we landed. (Casablanca’s airport in Morocco also needs better restaurants than the few European options available, not a great introduction into the food culture). On the flip side, INWI and Orange mobile in Morocco were offering free sim cards with 1gb of data for social media use only, so yay!!! !

As soon as we got to Casablanca Morocco, I got hit with a lot of blockades thanks to none of my Nigerian cards working…normally, I’d have gotten some cash from the bank in Lagos, but there was a silly issue with my account information and so the bank refused to release some international funds for me to travel with (convenient that the issue didn’t come up in the past years of usage). Other attempts to get cash using the local Bureau de Change was met with more hassle because my useless bank, Fidelity, decided it was the right weekend to have network connectivity issues. With Morocco been a cash heavy country, my time in the country was setup to be a hot mess, but luckily, my friend, Patrick had my back until I could resolve my cash flow issues. (it was resolved on the 3rd day of travel)

Anywho! We got into Casablanca Morocco from Lagos, picked up a Fiat from Green Motion (do not use them if you can! Terrible service, let’s not get me started on how shitty they were) then drove over 6 hours up north to Chefchaouen, the beautiful blue city. I drove the entire distance right after a 4hrs 30mins flight, and mid-way through the drive I was nervous that it wouldn’t be worth all the hassle. Once we turned the corner from the mountain facing the city, my heart got caught up in my mouth and the immense feeling of relief was almost overwhelming. The long drive was absolutely worth it and I could not wait to explore the beautiful city. I was even more nervous because I did not want Patrick to be disappointed, he had only 7 days in Morocco, and I wanted to make sure that he also had a good time; I was his unofficial tour guide. Luckily, he fell in love with Chefchaouen too.

[singlepic id=203 w= h= float=right]

As soon as we got into the city and paid 20 Dirham tourist parking fee by our Riad in the Medina area, we checked in to Dar Gabriel (Riad), dumped our bags and went off in search for dinner. We ate at Lala Mesouda, and tried out bits of different tagine dishes, along with the Moroccan salad and tangiya. Currently my favorite food experience yet. That was a great way to start off my proper food experience in Morocco.

[singlepic id=204 w= h= float=none]

We were too tired from traveling from 3:30 in the morning, so we decided to take it easy by spending the night on the roof top of the Riad with a group of friendly women from Latvia. Some of them had visited the country five times! I planned to wake up at 6:30 am the next day to watch the sun rise, but my body chose not to cooperate, I woke up well rested at 9 in the morning and it was time to figure out what to fill my day with. Someone had suggested checking out Akchour, and we met a Canadian couple that really loved hiking around it’s mountains…so we figured why not? Spend 4 hours in Akchour, head back in to Chefchaouen by 6pm latest with enough time to watch the sunset at 7:30pm. First thing to note for those who ever want to visit Akchour, plan 6 – 7 hours hiking time to enjoy the experience and start the hike around 10 am latest. The hike was beautiful, but we got out of the mountains past 8pm. So no sunset view for me on my last night in the city.

Note, you haven’t live until you’ve had a donkey trying to eat your personal items while you attempt to capture epic selfies.

[singlepic id=202 w= h= float=none]

I really wish I had flown in a couple of days earlier. Ah well.

Day 3 = time to head back to Casablanca at a way too early time of the day, 6 am. We dragged our feet a bit, took some wrong driving turns, parked on a hill facing the city and took it in from afar, then drove off to Casablanca at an illegal driving pace. We made it just in time to meet up with Nigerian + Ghanaian traveling group (first African tour group experience too..) 

[singlepic id=207 w= h= float=center]

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”13″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_pro_masonry” size=”180″ padding=”10″ ngg_triggers_display=”always” captions_enabled=”0″ captions_display_sharing=”1″ captions_display_title=”1″ captions_display_description=”1″ captions_animation=”slideup” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]

For a backpacking guide through Morocco, my friend, Patrick (not the one that traveled with me! I met this Patrick while traveling through Ireland and his post on Morocco is a must read!)

[button color=”red” size=”normal” alignment=”center” rel=”follow” openin=”newwindow” url=”https://germanbackpacker.com/backpacking-morocco/”]Patrick’s Backpacking Guide[/button]

Please leave this field empty

Don’t miss these amazing tips!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Thank you for subscribing!