The travelling starts!

As Salam alaykum! Greetings from Morocco.
Well finally the talking has stopped and I have started my travels, beginning in Morocco with a reunion trip. 6 years ago I went to Kenya and Tanzania for my 30th birthday and was lucky enough to travel with a great group of people. A number of us have kept in touch and last year we agreed to meet up in Morocco on an Explore trip. 8 of the original group were able to make the trip and we made the numbers up to 12 with friends. It has been great meeting up with everyone again and our adventures started in Casablanca on Friday 17th October.

I am having a lovely time here and even after only a couple of days in the country, we all felt like we had been here a while. We are constantly on the go and visiting so many different places, spending only a night or 2 in each place. We chose to stay in traditional accommodations and have really been enjoying staying in Riad's and Kasbah's. Riad's are old town houses that are located in medinas, the old towns, and are centred around a courtyard. Each room is different and every place is unique, often richly decorated with mosaic and carvings. Kasbah's are fortified dwellings, often housing several families. Many have been converted into hotels and at this moment I'm siting in front of a fire in Kasbah du Toubkal high in the Atlas mountains below the highest mountain in North Africa, Toubkal.

Today I've been on a 6 hour walk up into the mountains and have had a fantastic day. The weather is quite cool up here and there is snow on the tops of the mountains. Autumn is really setting in and the leaves are all turning so the colours are great.

The weather has been mainly sunny but we have also had thunderstorms whilst driving through the High Atlas mountains that then flooded the roads and washed away bridges. We were stuck in a village along with many other vehicles for a while waiting for the flood waters to subside enough for us to cross the river. Standing around with all the locals, watching the brave attempt to drive across the bridge was great fun.

Fez was a great place and I loved walking around the medina. There are around 12000 alleyways in the medina and the only transport accessible to the area is donkey, mule and horse. The sights and smells were great with markets dotted around the medina.
The camel ride into the sahara was good and we climbed up on top of the dunes to watch the sunset.

Next we are off to Essaouira and the beach for a couple of days before our final two days in Marrakech.

I'll post some pictures when I get a chance. Next stop Washington DC!