Last January, we visited Morocco on a two week trip. The shoulder season seemed like the perfect time for us to visit the country as there are not too many too many tourists yet and the weather is still quite nice. The first part of our trip was spent visiting some of Morocco’s beautiful cities, such as Chefchaouen, Casa Blanca, and Tangier. However, we had saved the best for last: a two day adventure to the Merzouga desert. Walking the sand dunes, riding camels, and an overnight stay in a traditional Berber camp to watch the stars at night and the sunrise the following morning.
Sounds lovely and all, but things did not at all go as planned. In this blog post we’ll tell you all about our Morocco misfortune.
We had booked a 2 day trip to the Merzouga desert including transport. On the day of, we were picked up by our driver at our hotel, together with 3 other people: Emily, an older American woman on holiday by herself, and Kaylynn and Mark two American cousins in their 40s. We chatted a bit about the 7 hour drive ahead of us, and the weather forecast that had indicated it would be cold in the desert with even a chance of snow falling.
Our driver, a young man in his twenties who barely spoke English, greeted us and helped put our bags in the van, and off we went. To get to the Merzouga desert, you have to drive through the Atlas mountains. It’s a beautiful scenic drive, with canyons and cliffs to admire. As soon as we were out of the city, we noticed a change in the landscape. The terrain quickly became more rough, and hills turned into mountains.
After about 1.5 hours, we made a stop at a small shop at the side of the road to drink tea and buy some snacks for later. We warmed ourselves by the fireplace, which had a humonguous piece of wood in it. We doubt this was fire-safe, but were happy with the cozy spot.
Right as we were about to step into the car again, it started snowing. Mind you, this was apparently the first time in five years since it had snowed in the mountains. We snapped some pictures of this special occurance and took off again.
Suddenly, after we were driving for no more than 30 minutes, it was as if time stood still.
The strange sliding feeling of how the tires of our car were losing their grip on the road. The driver reaching out for the emergency break. Kaylynn screaming “NO!”. The driver pulling the break. We slid further and the car started swerving to the right. Chris and I frozen, holding tight and bracing for impact. And then, with a loud bang, we hit the mountain side and the car flipped over.
It was quiet for a minute, we were all in shock of what had just happened. Mark was the first to get into action. After checking if everyone was okay, he stood up and tried to open the heavy sliding door of the van (now above us, since the car had flipped on its side). Luckily for us, the cars around us had stopped and a group of Moroccan men rushed towards our car and started helping. They pried open the heavy door and lifted all of us out.
We all stood in the snow, next to our wrecked car, trying to process everything that had happened. We could have died. If the car had swerved to the other side we would have fallen into an abyss. Luckily no one was hurt too badly, but Chris had a large scrape on his arm. With shaky hands, I managed to disinfected it and put a band-aid on the scrape.
The men pushed the car straight up, and out of the way for traffic. Our driver called his agency to arrange a new car, as ours was in no shape to drive. But, since we were in the mountains there was no replacement car nearby. We had to wait for 2 hours until we could be picked up in a new car. It was still snowing and with no shops or houses in sight, we got back into our seats to have some shelter from the cold. We put up cardboard against the broken windows and covered ourselves in blankets to keep warm while waiting.
When the new car was brought, our driver hopped in and said that he would drive us back to the hotel. “No way!” we thought, “You just got us all in an accident because you didn’t know how to deal with snow and now you expect us to drive back with you through the snow again?”. But there was no other option. He drove very carefully, and on the way back we passed at least 5 other cars who just like us had not made it safely through the snowy mountains.
Back at the hotel, we cleaned ourselves up and assessed our bruises. We heard from the tour agency that we would not be able to go to the Merzouga desert the next day, as the road was blocked and it was too dangerous with the snow. While we were dissappointed that this ment that we really would not see the desert, we were also slightly relieved, because we did not look forward to retrying so soon after our car crash.
On the brightside, my laptop that had stopped working during the vacation, was working again after the car accident. Something about the crash throwing some mechanical bits and pieces back in place we think. So, at least we could watch a movie at our hotel while we recovered from our shocking day.
