Continued from Marrakesh Day 2 Part 2.

The life giving power of water.

Time to head back down now. It’s sunny up here. We also can’t stay up here too long since it’s a little bit after 3:30pm, and we still have a 3 hour drive ahead of us back to Marrakesh. Last thing we would like to do is to drive in the dark here.

More earthquake damage?

Passed the guy we bought the burned ink drawing from, there are a lot of people selling these paintings around here.

We are looking for the gate of Ait Benhaddou that you see in all the photos. On the way down we passed by the shop where we bought our burned ink drawing, and the guy told us to go this way. That’s the cool thing about buying something already, I get to ask questions without feeling like I need to buy something.

Ait Benhaddou from another angle.

We didn’t want to shop in the super busy shops in Marrakesh, so we thought we’d step into one of the empty souvenir shops here and see if we can buy something for a more reasonable price. We sure did. We still overpaid, but I guess that’s just part of the game of being a tourist.

Olive grove up close. Everything here is irrigated.

Made it to the dry riverbed. This river is Asif Ounila, the same river we’ve been driving along for a while.

It’s quite a wide river, I wonder what it looks like when the rain comes and it’s full flowing.

At the middle of the river facing Ait Benhaddou yields the famous gate seen in so many movies. Why would they put the big gate facing the river? How do you get in when the river is full? Or is it full so seldomly that it’s rarely a problem?

Looks less impressive than in the movies with all the extra CGI added.

Our car is parked on the main street past all those buildings.

Glad we made the drive out here to check it out. It’s not so much Ait Benhaddou that I enjoyed, but the whole drive and the whole scenery to get here. Definitely a type of landscape I’ve never seen before.

I stepped past these stepping stones by myself. The moment RL walked on a stone, these boys came out from no where and helped madam across in hopes for some tips. We gave them some coins.

Now, walk across the shops and to our car.

Car is somewhere around here.

3 hours and 10 minutes to get back to Marrakesh. It hasn’t been getting dark until pretty late, so we should have plenty of light left by the time we roll in to Marrakesh. The rental office in town center of Marrakesh closes at 6:30pm so we won’t be able to return the car there. We’ll need to make the farther trip to return the car at the airport and then take a taxi back to our riad.

Let’s go!

Some sort of light sand/dust storm is happening. It got really dusty and hazy all of a sudden.

This came on the music playlist, never seem more appropriate.

He’s actually not in his lane. There are no shoulders, so he’s supposed to be to the right of the solid white line. But instead, passing in the corner. There were a few times where I had to slam on my brakes because some car on the opposite side decides to make pass that’s way too late or at a blind corner.

There’s a certain beauty out here.

Down down down we go.

Animals on the side, animals in the truck.

That bus ahead was flying through these roads. It was taking curves so fast I kept on thinking it was going to tip over.

We drove by these same shops on the way to Ait Benhaddou earlier today. Now that we are passing them again at the end of the day, they no longer have the sellers staffing them. They just leave all their stuff sitting out with no one guarding it. I guess this is how cheap this stuff is to them, no one even wants to steal them….or they just assume people are honest.

Finally made it low enough where there’s a lot more vegetation.

Finally back in Marrakesh. It’s around 7pm and the traffic is much busier than when we left late morning. It’s feels like full on rush hour traffic hecticness. I guess people start their day later and end their days later here.

Do not like how the GPS is taking me this way to squeeze through a tiny gate that’s 1.5 cars wide, but the whole time mopeds are squeezing past you as you are going through the gate.

OK, time to exit another gate.

Almost to the airport.

Gotta fill back up before return. It was tough crossing multiple lanes of traffic to make a left hand turn into this gas station. Diesel fuel in French is gasoil….talk about confusing. Need to make sure I pick the right nozzle. The car was very gas efficient though. We drove through mountains and for probably close to 7 hours and it only used about a third of tank of gas.

Time to return the car. They have the worst car return signage on where to actually return the car. As in, they had zero signs at all, like literally zero. I had to park and try to find someone to ask. After a while, someone finally came by the parked car with RL in it and told us where to go.

KIA CEED, you got the job done today. Thanks, it’s been a very memorable road trip. First time driving in Morocco and first time driving in Africa! I’ll wear that as a badge of honor.

Now, head to terminal for taxi.

There’s an official taxi stand here where you buy a ticket and then you go find the taxi that matches the number on the ticket.

All these people standing here are drivers picking up tourists to transport them back to their riads and hotels. I don’t remember the last airport where I saw so many transport drivers, maybe Cancun Mexico? I think this also speaks volumes to the type of tourists to come to Marrakesh and the number of tourists that come to Marrakesh.

Since we got those souvenir plates at Ait Benhaddou, now we’ve got to carry them back to our riad and figure out a way to get them back to Austin.

Random chicken foot on the ground.

So happy to be back in the sanctuary of our riad. Beers please. Snacks please. We didn’t really have lunch, we are past the point of hungry, but we know we need to eat some food. We are for sure hangry again and getting irritated. Making decisions while being tired and hungry is difficult.

It was too late to order regular food at our riad, but they said they could make us club sandwiches. And these are some of the best club sandwiches we’ve ever had. Hit the spot!!

The only other guest here at the riad right now. I think they are maybe Russian? Either way, wanna be influencer. She had her husband/boyfriend/employee (?) take all these posed photos of her. Then they sat in different tables while they scrolled through their phones.

Must get more social medial photos. Must….sign.

I’m just relaxed and having a good time after a long day of being in a car. It’s a full day, and it’s a good day.

To be continued at Marrakesh Day 3 Part 1.