Why Morocco Changed the Way I See the World.

First Look: The Marrakech Desolation.

I arrived in Marrakech jet-lagged, skeptical, and clutching my guidebook like a lifeline. The chaos hit me immediately—motorcycles lined up between donkey carts, the call to prayer echoing through the streets, spices filling the air like invisible fires.

I was unprepared. And that was the point.

I had expected Morocco to be beautiful, but I hadn’t expected it to challenge my idea of how life should be lived. I was used to order. Predictability Timelines Morocco laughed at it all.

Souks and Silence.

In the maze-like souks of the medina, I learned to get lost—really get lost. My phone was useless, the GPS barely worked, and every turn led to more dynamic confusion. I gave up trying to find my way and instead followed my senses: the smell of mint tea, the glint of silver jewelry, the sound of a flute played by a man with a falcon on his shoulder.

One afternoon, I was wandering down a quiet street and stumbled into a small leather workshop. The man inside spoke no English. I spoke no Arabic or French. And yet, we struck up a conversation—he showed me how he hand-sewn a bag, pointing proudly at the seams. I nodded, smiled, and we sat in silence for about twenty minutes.

That silence taught me more about presence than any self-help book could.

The Sahara and Silence

The Sahara changed everything.

I joined a group trip to the Sahara—riding camels at sunset, sand in my teeth, my head wrapped in a scarf to block the wind. Our guide, Youssef, was a Berber nomad who spoke six languages and walked through the dunes as if he were born from them.

That night, under a sky so vast it dazzled me, we sat around the fire. Youssef told stories—legends about stars and spirits, old tribal jokes, and a terrifying tale of a caravan that disappeared in a sandstorm.

There were no signs. No clocks. Just firelight, laughter, and the infinite silence of the desert. I had never felt smaller—and never more at peace.

A lesson in laziness

In Chefchaouen, the blue city nestled in the Rif Mountains, time practically stood still. I watched a woman hang clothes in the sun for nearly an hour. Children played soccer in the streets. Shopkeepers waved from behind rugs and jars of argan oil.

No one was in a hurry. No one apologized for not being in a hurry.

That fast pace—foreign to my highly efficient mindset—began to seep into my bones. I stopped checking my phone every five minutes. I stopped obsessing over my itinerary. I started to be there completely.

What Morocco taught me

Morocco taught me to surrender.

To trust that getting lost is not always a mistake.

To understand that hospitality doesn’t require a common language.

To see beauty not just in harmony or elegance, but in texture, noise, and age.

I came home differently. I saw it in small ways: in the way I made tea instead of coffee, the way I looked at people longer, the way I learned to pause.

The West taught me to improvise.

Morocco reminded me to feel.