Stepping off the ferry from Spain meant that Marie was setting foot in Africa for the first time, adding a fifth continent to her travel resume.  And I’d never been to Morocco or anywhere else in north Africa before, so everything was new to us both.  The sun shone brightly as we took a cab along the southern coastline of the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangier, Morocco’s third largest city.  We checked into our hotel and walked down to a beachside cafe, hoping to toast our arrival with a sunset cocktail before realizing that the cafe – like most stores and restaurants in Morocco – didn’t sell alcohol, one of many reminders that we were now in a Muslim country.

The next morning a driver picked us up for a tour of Chefchaouen, founded in 1471 and nicknamed “the Blue City,” about 70 miles southeast of Tangier.  “I will show you all of the most Instagrammable locations,” our guide assured us, making it clear that the Blue City was embracing its popularity on social media.  Apparently blue paint was originally used by the city’s Jewish inhabitants to represent the sky and the heavens.  Given that Jews no longer live in Chefchaouen, however, it seems that the color’s continuing popularity has more to do with attracting tourists.  (I decided that if I was the mayor of a small Moroccan city in need of a tourism bump, I’d just pick some other bright color and tell everyone to start painting.)

 

 

 

From Tangier we took a train to Casablanca, the starting point for the tour we’d booked for the rest of our time in Morocco.  Marie and I have mixed feelings about joining multi-day tour groups.  There are clear downsides – you’re confined to a pre-set itinerary, some of the scheduled activities may not interest you, and you’re stuck traveling with people whose company you may or may not enjoy.  In general I much prefer traveling independently.  But in certain countries – and we decided Morocco was one of them – tours are an easy, relatively inexpensive way to get from place to place.  The Morocco tour we chose, for example, included a dedicated minibus that handled all our transportation around the country, eliminating a logistical challenge that would have been more costly and time-consuming to tackle on our own.

The key to any tour is having enough luck to be paired with a good group of fellow travelers.  That luck, thankfully, was with us in Morocco.  The 12 other people in our group were all friendly, helpful, and easy-going, with an interesting mix of nationalities – another American couple, four solo female travelers (two from Germany, one from Wales, one from Canada), a family of four from Slovenia, and a German couple.  Our guide, Brahim, was a Moroccan from a Berber village who spoke excellent English and always kept our group running smoothly.

The first stop on our tour was the Roman ruins of Volubilis, about 165 miles east of Casablanca.  Despite the passage of two millennia and some relatively recent earthquake damage, several of the Roman-era walls are still standing and many of the intricate mosaic floors are remarkably intact.

 

 

 

From Volubilis we continued on to Fez (also spelled Fes), Morocco’s second largest city, where we spent the next day exploring the medina (old city).  At one point we stopped for a look at one of the large tanneries, where animal hides are processed into leather.  Several of us had unusually strong dreams that night, and I wondered if it had anything do with the intense, highly toxic fumes that poured out of the tannery vats…

 

 

 

We spent most of the next day driving.  Departing Fez before dawn, we crossed the Middle Atlas Mountains and eventually reached the edge of the Sahara Desert near the town of Merzouga.  Our hotel sat at the foot of a huge field of sand dunes that glowed orange in the late afternoon sun.  This, for me, was the highlight of the whole trip.  I love exploring sand dunes and had long wanted to see the Sahara.  Marie and I wasted no time getting out on the sand.

 

 

 

 

Later that evening our group rode camels onto the dunes to watch the sunset.  Mostly on this trip I’d hardly bothered to take out my big camera (just using my phone instead), but the incredible Sahara landscape motivated me to capture some real shots.

 

 

 

 

Unsurprisingly, I woke up early the next morning and hiked back out onto the dunes for sunrise photos.

 

 

Our next stop was Todra Gorge, a small oasis framed by steep limestone cliffs.  Our group went for a long walk along the river as the sun set and the moon rose behind the cliff walls.

 

 

 

From Todra we drove to the kasbah of Aït Benhaddou, a UNESCO World Heritage site that has been used as a set for dozens of movies, including the first arena fight scene in Gladiator.  The arena they built for that movie was taken down after filming, which didn’t stop Marie from paying tribute to Maximus in the field where the arena once stood.

 

 

We ended our tour in Marrakesh and spent an afternoon exploring the city before having a final dinner with our group.  It felt really nice to be in charge of our own time again, but Marie and I were also sad to say goodbye to a group of people we’d really enjoyed getting to know.

 

 

From Marrakesh Marie and I began the multi-day marathon required to return home.  First up was a train to Casablanca, followed by a red-eye flight to Frankfurt, Germany and then a long flight to Denver, where my mom (who had very kindly been dogwatching our little Maltese) picked us up from the airport.  After a great visit in Denver we made the 12-hour drive to our home in Silver Gate, where our driveway needed to be cleared of a month’s worth of snow before we could pull into our garage.  Exhausted and jetlagged, it still felt amazing to be home.

I drove into Yellowstone first thing the next morning, thrilled to be back in the park.  The otters, disappointingly, didn’t show up to greet me, but I did see a fox at upper Barronette and three moose at Round Prairie, which made me happy.

 

 

I feel immensely grateful to be at a point in my life where I’m excited to leave on a trip and then just as (if not more) excited to return home again.