You and I both leave home for the same reason – to stir up parts of ourselves that have fallen asleep. My most exciting trips have all given me the same thing, an opportunity to feel a sense of fresh-wonder – like the moment I throw back the tent flap and see an ocean of orange dunes rolling outside.

Morocco always starts in the desert for me – the doorway to my riches memories, the things that were nearly magic. However, the more I think about the country, the more experiences bubble up because it’s not one thing, Morocco is so many things on top of one another.

Here are my top five most amazing memories of Morocco:

Climbing A Monster Three Times

‘The Dune’ had stood out like the North Star, as our camels lead us to the overnight camp. When we stopped, the sand towered above the tents like a Manhattan skyscraper over a hot dog cart, and we laughed at the thought of the days it would take to summit.

Of course we had to at least try to climb it, but the first time out we didn’t expect to reach the top. We were hoping to just get high enough to see the sunset over the endless hills. However, we made it to the top, and it didn’t take days – only about forty-five minutes, but, like, forty-five hard minutes because dune climbing has more in common with crossing a swamp than hiking a mountain.

Tackling something that I didn’t think I’d be able to do always leaves me on a high, and the reward of an infinite sunset was enough to get our group enticed to make two more journeys up the dune throughout the night – one of star sighting and one for sunrise.

Cooking a Chicken

In Marrakesh, Jade and I took a two-part dining workshop, part market tour and part traditional Moroccan cooking. Past the spice stalls, through the farmer’s fresh spread, and carefully along the butcher shops – we gathered our ingredients for our meal – including one recently alive chicken.

As much as I like learning how to cook, I usually end up with just the memory of the meal. However, this time I will always remember the cooking – or rather prepping the chicken. It wasn’t just that our chicken was killed fresh – it was that as we rubbed the breasts and thighs down with cumin and turmeric the meat was still warm.

I can say without a doubt, that was one meal where I didn’t let any of the meat go to waste.

The Great Wedding Blanket Quest

No foreigner visits Marrakesh without going to the market. Even the most blaze shopper will get entranced by the mythical array of sub-saharan goods, and Jade is far from blaze.

I’d never even heard of a Moroccan Wedding Blanket before we were sitting down to tea/haggle with a shopkeeper over the one that had captured Jade’s heart. I knew I was in trouble.

While I grew up ‘garage-sale-ing’ with my Grandmama, I was clearly outmatched when it came to bargaining in a Marrakesh market, but I did my best, using the one trick I had – walking away. We ended up sitting down for tea with the same man three times, each time picking up where we’d left off, and we did end up shaving a few dollars off the cost. However, the biggest takeaway was how the shopping was an experience more than just a purchase.

Berber Family Meal

Unlike the other desert stories, as we traveled to our berber lunch, we were actually in the hamada – imagine if the Sahara’s sand were replaced by garden stones that stretch clear into the next country. There were no roads, just an open stretch of barren land. We had long ago left every sign of life behind when we finally saw a cluster of tents appear in the distance.

We brought enough food for our group and the family, and sat down to eat together. However, with the husband away, the wife was less inclined to engage with us – so instead we found a common bridge in making her toddlers laugh.

Like I said, we didn’t know what to expect, and this turned out to be nothing like a tourist experience – it was an intimate family lunch. We left not with the story of an event, but the feeling of what life is truly like living in the desert.

Animal Encounters

Camels on the Beach – I think sometimes I travel most for the moments when something I’m very familiar with becomes something totally new – like when I’m at a beach riding a camel. Those are the times when the world becomes magical.

We were visiting the beach town of Essaouira, and timed our camel ride to match perfectly with sunset so we rode out in the golden hour passed Hendrix’s “Castles Made of Sand” and along the water as the height of sunset.

Monkeys at the Waterfall – Look, we knew there were monkey as Ouzoud Falls, but we just didn’t know if they would be out for us. So after a walk around the upper cliffs to no avail, we took the path leading down to the falls pool, and that’s when we found an entire monkey family running around. We were the only people around – as if they had come out just for us. To be honest, we didn’t try and get too close to them, but we did sit down and hope they would come play in our laps.

Fenix Fox on a String – Imagine the cross between a dog and a ferret, and you have one of the most adorable small-desert-animals. While there are plenty tucked away in the Sahara, local kids in the desert towns have started catching and domesticating the foxes to let visitors have their picture taken with them. The one I got to hold had an affinity for my arm pits.

We travel to wake-up the parts of us that our daily lives rock to sleep, to embrace the moments that remind us how expansive the world is. My Moroccan memories remind me that there are places in this world that can surprise everyone.