Day 163 - A 5am Start, a No Show Balloon Ride and One More Easy Day in Marrakech

Day 163 started painfully early with a 5am wake up for what was supposed to be one of our big Morocco highlights, hot air ballooning over Marrakech.

Kia and I dragged ourselves out of bed feeling every bit of the late nights and early starts catching up with us. We’d all actually slept well, but that kind of exhaustion still sits there when your alarm goes off in the dark. The plan was simple. Be downstairs by 6am, get picked up, spend the morning floating over Morocco, enjoy a traditional Berber breakfast, and be back by lunch.

Except… our driver never came.

I hadn’t received any confirmation the night before, which already felt a little off, but we assumed maybe they’d just show up out the front. So we got the kids up, dressed, downstairs and ready. Then we waited.

And waited.

I messaged the tour operator on WhatsApp. They saw the message. No reply.

I called. No answer.

More messages. More calls. Nothing.

After an hour of standing around outside our accommodation in the early morning dark with two tired kids, I contacted Get Your Guide customer support. To their credit, they were quick. They tried contacting the operator themselves, couldn’t get through, and confirmed we’d receive a full refund.

So while we didn’t lose money, it still felt like we lost the day we’d planned around.

By then it was still so early that absolutely nothing was open in the streets around us. Marrakech, usually buzzing, felt strangely empty. We wandered briefly hoping for coffee or breakfast somewhere, but no luck. So back upstairs we went, with two hours to burn.

I crashed on the couch for a bit more sleep.

The kids happily disappeared into Lego.

Kia sorted Instagram and trip bits.

Not exactly sunrise ballooning over Morocco.

By around 10am everyone was starving, so we headed back to the same breakfast place we’d loved the day before. Unfortunately, our perfect English speaking waiter from yesterday was gone, and this breakfast experience was… significantly less smooth.

We attempted to order four tomato omelettes.

We got three plain omelettes and one tomato omelette.

We ordered chocolate msemen.

We got cheese.

We had to ask multiple times for coffees, then juice, then somehow tea appeared again anyway, along with traditional Moroccan flatbreads.

To be fair, it was still incredibly cheap. About $15 AUD for the four of us. But the oily eggs were rough, the order was chaos, and after yesterday’s win, this one was definitely a miss. We ended up grabbing croissants afterwards just to fill the gaps.

While we were eating, an elderly woman tapped me on the shoulder so quietly she genuinely scared me. She spoke no English, only Arabic or French, and we couldn’t understand what she wanted. After she left, the women beside us explained she’d likely just been asking for food. By then she was gone, and we felt awful because we absolutely would have shared our leftover bread.

It stuck with us.

The rest of the day was intentionally slow. The kids dove headfirst back into Lego mode, pretty much playing all day, while Kia and I sorted practical life stuff. Transport to Essaouira for tomorrow, budgeting, future flights, emails, general life admin. Not exciting, but necessary.

By late afternoon I finally convinced the kids to leave Lego behind and head to the pool. It was packed. Families everywhere, kids screaming down slides, heaps of laughter. Honestly, it was nice. I stayed with them for a while, then attempted the gym… but two blokes were basically camping in the tiny weights section without really using it, so after awkwardly trying to work around them, I gave up.

Back to poolside parenting.

Still, not the worst place to spend an afternoon.

Dinner redeemed the day a bit. We returned to the same local spot from last night, and this time all four of us ordered the chicken chawarma wraps with fries. The kids had food envy from our dinner the night before, so they were all in. Bigger wraps, delicious, super filling, and once again ridiculously affordable. The waitress recognised us too, which was oddly nice. Familiarity in a city that can otherwise feel pretty overwhelming.

Later, while grabbing snacks for tomorrow’s three hour drive to Essaouira, another elderly woman tapped me on the arm. This time, we were quicker to understand. She pointed toward the fridge, and I figured she wanted milk. So we bought her a carton.

A tiny gesture, but after the breakfast regret from earlier, it felt good to help.

Back at the accommodation, more Lego, earlier bedtime, and another relatively easy Marrakech day wrapped up.

Not every travel day becomes the one you imagined. No balloon ride. No magical sunrise over Marrakech. Just disappointment, oily eggs, Lego marathons, pool slides, good chawarma, and a couple of small reminders that sometimes the most meaningful parts of travel aren’t the big ticket experiences at all.