So it has been quite a while since I have written on the blog and although I did head away on a few weekend breaks to European cities the last year (Birmingham, London, Brussels and Koln) I have been very lazy with the blogging. But I’m back on track, well for the next fortnight anyways as I’m heading away on another summer adventure. This time I’m heading to,,,,drum-roll please……..Morocco with G Adventures for a 2 week fast paced tour.
Why Morocco you ask?
Well I’ve only been mad to go to Morocco since my trip to Seville/Cordoba last year when I happened upon this beautiful little Moroccan tea house called Salon de Te and I admired the breathtaking Moorish architecture of Mezquita in Cordoba. So it wasn’t long before I was looking at different tours and as usual I went to my usual site, http://www.tourradar.com and had a browse of the different Moroccan tours they had available. I chose the G Adventures ‘Highlights of Morocco’ tour because it has everything I want to see. With this tour you get a taste of the cities, the culture, the desert, the sea and the mountains, never mind all the colour of the souks and the Hammam spas too of course.
Research and packing
So my all time favourite part of travelling after booking a tour/flights is the research part. My parents gave me some very handy books as presents for my birthday and Christmas and they’re like a travel addicts dream. I was only delighted to have an excuse to browse through them. I had a look through Lonely Planet’s Travel Atlas and read a bit more about the places that were mentioned in the tour, making me even more excited. The Lonely Planet Eatlist had four or five different foodie suggestions and some lovely photos to inspire the foodie and nomad in me too.
Packing time
Packing wise I was pretty laid back this year, I seem to get more and more chilled every year. Mind you I was feeling a little panicky after I finally read through the trip notes yesterday morning but once I had a pretty good idea of what footwear I needed for the trip I felt grand. It really helped having the packing list from my blog post on India last year, it was almost like a cheatlist for me, so handy. I managed to find most of my travel things at home, minus my teva sandals which have clearly grown feet and my little travel file booklet which is so handy for storing tickets etc. They’ll probably turn up when I come back from the trip I’m sure. So after speaking to a few people that had been to Morocco, my sister-in-law and a few friends, I decided to pack similar to the India trip with short sleeved tops and harem pants etc.
A zippy challenge
I was happy out that I had found most of my trusted travel items until my dad told me that the zip in my handbag, which like my backpack has travelled with me around the world over the last 5 years, was in fact broken and not a simple DIY job. Dad brought it to a few tailors in town but no luck. With a new zip in hand Dad decided to take on the challenge himself and with quite a bit of work he sewed a new zip on using a mixture of a sewing machine and sewing by hand. He even used brown polish to dye the zip, whilst suggesting that I should probably give it a clean every now and then, to which I said that it would ruin the character of the bag, ha ha. And so my favourite travel handbag lives to travel for many more trips again thanks to my Dad’s DIY skills, woohoo.
So I fly into Casablanca tomorrow and I have about 24 hours in Casablanca myself to browse around and I will be meeting the G Adventures tour guide and group on Thursday night. I am feeling very excited, I cannot wait for all the colour, the smells, the food, the adventures and most of the heat, although I’m not sure how I feel about the 44 degree desert heat. Watch this space for my next post in a few days.
Fernweh with T 