Rain in the desert - My Morocco travel diary #1

My number one piece of advice for travelling on a shoestring is to visit in the off season.

This is much easier to do when you’re not tied to kids' school holidays so I try to take advantage of it as much as possible. It also makes for some unusual experiences - as I mentioned in a previous post.

Flights food and fun things to do are often much cheaper if you visit outside of peak times and my Irish inability to handle the heat means I prefer many places outside the summer months.

So when a £50 return Ryanair flight from London to Marrakech appeared on my Skyscanner I had to get on it and make my first trip to the continent of Africa.

When most people think of North Africa they probably think of bustling markets, Islamic architecture and blazing desert heat. This would not be the case for my November visit!

As the plane dipped out from under the the cloud and I took in my first glimpse of the continent I was greeted by what looked like miles of deep red mud and lashing rain.

(All pics my own. My Instagram is Benstvparty)

Never one to let a little rain dampen thing (figuratively) I got the bus through the flooded roads to the Jemaa El Fna. This large central marketplace on the edge of the city’s famous medina – a labyrinth of winding streets of stalls, shops and crafts men - is the beating heart of Marrakech but today it was all but deserted.

Laughing off the bizarre weather for somewhere so close to the Sahara desert I headed into the winding streets to find my hostel, which I’ll tell you all about in my next post.