Day 10: Departure day 

This morning my roomate was up at 3am for her 3.30 departure back to Germany. 

I woke back up at 7.30am to get ready for our 9am bus to the airport. Upon arrival, thanks to Ryanair, I am currently sitting waiting for the check-in to open as I can’t board without a boarding pass which I can’t get without having my visa checked (the bane of Australians flying on Ryanair!). So now I’m going to wait for an hour before they will open to print my pass, at which time I can go through to the gates and find somewhere to settle in while I wait. Flight Marrakesh to Lisbon, 1075MAD, $156AUD.

Overall:

Morocco is a beautiful country full of culture and colour. The TravelTalk itinerary was fantastic, covering many sights and packing as much as possible into each day. From a financial perspective, I don’t think you can possibly ask for better value for money.

 Morocco is very much like eastern Europe or the islands, everyone works on their own time. No one is in a hurry when it comes to ordering drinks and food, so patience is a must.

As I’ve mentioned previously, perhaps I’m a food snob, but after conversations with other people who’d visited Morocco, I was so excited for the local fare. Like in Egypt, I’d by lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. I’m not sure why exactly, and perhaps it was partly the places we were taken to or partly because of the lingering drought but the food for me wasn’t a highlight, which I was really expecting it to be. Many people have told me they enjoyed the food on their trip to Morocco when they’d been, but sadly for me this was not the case. Everything felt very much like it was ‘on the right track’ to be really delicious flavours, full of spice, but it always seemed to stop rather short of the mark. Even when we asked for ‘full of spice like you cook at home’ the dishes we were served didn’t hit the same as the same homemade Moroccan dishes back in Oz.  

TravelTalk accommodation was, to me, exactly as I expected. Keep in mind; three or four star in western or European culture is different from three or four star in African culture. The hotels and accommodation we stayed in would most likely be rated closer to 2-3.5 stars back home. Generally, the rooms were clean and tidy, no fuss, no frills. Some had good bathrooms, some were merely functional. Some had great breakfast options, others were pretty basic. The old adage stands with TT tours, you get what you pay for. TravelTalk offer the cheapest group tours around, and so naturally, it lends itself to the understanding that hotels are not going to be western five star standard. I had a guide once who explained this extremely well. She said, ‘like anything, some hotels will be more expensive than others for a multitude of reasons, and so to balance it out, some nights we’ll stay in nice hotels and others they’ll be just ‘okay’ because that is the only way to keep costs reasonable.’ When I join a group, I now live by the expectation that if one hotel is great, the next will be ‘just okay’ because – balance. This helps keep my expectations in check and reduces disappointment. Quite frankly, at this point in my travelling career when I’m travelling ‘budget’; if I have a clean bed, fresh water and a shower that gets lukewarm, I’m happy. That’s not to say that I won’t mention that my pillow is rock hard to travelling companions, or jest that I wish they had mint tea at breakfast, but I would not consider these things ‘bad’ enough to write an official complaint about them. For me, official complaints are limited to health and safety hazards, security issues and extreme cases of customer service failures.  

‘Included’ items are also limited. This is both a blessing and a curse depending on what kind of traveller you are. If you prefer to pay for everything up front and do everything, then this can be a problem. But if you are like me and enjoy the opportunity to decline certain meals, activities or events, it works well as you can just opt to do your own thing and not lose the money you’ve already prepaid.

When travelling with such a varied group of people, there will always be a broad range of opinions and experiences, because, just like the hammam, everyone experiences things differently. I know there will be some people who were on my tour who might have an entirely different view of how our trip unfolded! That is only natural. From my perspective, I believe TravelTalk is value for money and as I said, you get what you pay for. If you are looking for luxury accommodation, a guide who can take you wherever you like, offer you an extremely personalised experience and Michelin quality food, TravelTalk is not for you. If however, you are happy to roll with it and jump on these kinds of budget tours for what they are at the core; transport and somewhere to sleep, then you’ll be open to a fantastic experience.

Yes, there were things that could have been done differently, and yes, there were definitely times we’d gripe about things on the day, but what it all boils down to is this; have appropriate expectations for what you’re signing up for and you won’t be disappointed.