During the Easter holidays, 23 Lower Sixth Geography and History students spent an adventurous four nights in Morocco. A collaborative trip such as this encourages interdisciplinary thinking, enhancing the learning for everyone. Plus, it’s a lot of fun going with a broad mix of students and teachers.
Two students give us the low-down on the unforgettable trip:
History student Bella says, “The trip gave us all the opportunity to learn about this vibrant country in terms of its history, geographic features, issues with lack of rain and water (for example one place we visited where it hadn’t rained for 7 years) as well as its amazing cultural and social background. My highlights of the trip were riding camels, hiking up the sand dune to see the sunrise, haggling in the Souks and seeing the YSL garden. We also were very lucky to have opportunity to experience first hand the communities of talented people making pottery in the middle of the desert to sell in Marrakech. The people everywhere we met were so friendly and welcoming, the food was also amazing. I had such a great trip and would definitely recommend!!”
Geography student Jacob says, “The first challenge of our Morocco trip wasn’t navigating the bustling souks of Marrakech or the pain of a camel ride – it was dragging ourselves out of bed at 2:30am to Gatwick Airport for a meet time of 4am! We boarded just in time and after around three and a half hours, we landed in Marrakech. The next challenge came at passport control, where we greeted by a formidable barrier of grumpy men, each with a kind of stare that could freeze lava. Every stamp felt like a small victory. After finally finding our lovely tour guide, Larbi, we shuffled our luggage to our ‘trusty’ coach. The final airport-related challenge, however, was getting out of the airport car park. This involved a lot of sitting in standstill traffic, which made the M25 look like the Autobahn. At last, we made our way to our first hotel of the trip – and just like that, things were looking up. With 23 Geography and History students, plus the esteemed trio of Mr Ruck, Mrs Prestney, and Mr Hutchings, we were ready to conquer Marrakech. In the lobby of the hotel, we were introduced to the Geography Department’s mascot – a plush koala, who as it turned out, wasn’t just for cuddles. Lucky students would be chosen to ‘look after’ the koala, but only if they displayed ‘bad koalities’…!
“After a quick coach journey, we arrived at the Majorelle Garden – a vibrant oasis full of cacti, trees, and all sorts of fascinating plants, plus huge koi fish. Naturally, plenty of photos were taken, capturing everything from the lush greenery to the elusive koi. Unquestionably, the best photo taken was the iconic selfie taken by none other than Mrs Prestney. Then, having exchanged our money for Moroccan dirham, we ventured into the heart of Marrakech’s Old Town – the medina and souks. It was a sensory overload! We quickly learned that ‘no thanks’ in the souks was just the beginning of a much longer negotiation process, and that you had to keep your eyes glued to the ground as to avoid the multitude of snakes that were slithering around. Still, we emerged victorious – or at least, with a few trinkets and a lot of bargaining memories. In the souks, we had the infamous 10-dirham challenge, where each group had to buy something for exactly 10 dirhams, and the trio of teachers would judge the best involved. As for my group, we pulled off a genius move by purchasing two camel earrings – perfect for the koala, of course. After a very long day, we were all ready to collapse (in some very comfortable hotel beds).
“Waking up, we were all remarkably refreshed, and ready for a great breakfast. After fuelling up, we made our way to the Water Museum (the educational link that justified our trip). It was a fascinating stop that taught us about welling systems, droughts, and the water scarcity issues that Morocco faces. We learned how essential water is in such an arid region, and it really tied into our Geography A Level studies on the water cycle. Then we sat back and climbed higher and higher through the winding Atlas Mountains. We made stops at several passes along the way, each offering breathtaking views. Following our mountaintop photoshoots, we made our way to Aït Zineb (otherwise known as the location of the filming of Gladiators, which, as you can imagine, excited many). At the top, we were almost blown off by the wind, which Mr Hutchings thought was absolutely hilarious, so naturally, he filmed and photographed the entire ordeal for posterity – these photos inevitably made their way to geo.trinity on Instagram. No doubt, some of our windswept, slightly panicked expressions will now live on forever in the digital archives. Windswept and dishevelled, we then travelled to Ouarzazate. Now that the sun had disappeared and the temperature had dropped, everyone suddenly thought it would be a brilliant idea to jump into the unheated pool.
“In the morning, we continued our journey, edging ever closer to the Sahara Desert. Our first stop was at a local farmer’s family farm, where he proudly showed us his well in action and his manual irrigation system – and, in a true display of hospitality, he let some of us have a go. During the Q&A, things got even more interesting when he demonstrated how he manually pollinates his palm trees by scaling one that was about 10 metres tall. Having been asked about his thoughts on the Premier League, he explained the Moroccan government’s rules on wells and water. He told us, that despite the challenges associated with drought, you cannot dig deeper if your well runs dry. Then, we were making our ways to the camels (having proudly selected our Tuareg scarves to match with the colours of our outfits), and spirits had reached a maximum. With our scarves wrapped tightly, we all held on for dear life as our camels stood up. And just when we thought we had it under control, some camels decided to add a little extra drama by spitting on some less fortunate members of our group. After a camel regurgitated its stomach (a peculiar cooling mechanism, or perhaps just a dramatic flair), the best moment of the trip happened, in the students’ eyes. In a twist of fate and perhaps a little poetic justice, our esteemed Mr Hutchings fell off his camel. It was the highlight of the trip and is cemented in our memories forever – thank you Mr Hutchings for your graceful dismount!
“Having endured some pain due to the camel ride, we arrived at the spectacular Sahara Desert camp. We quickly scaled a nearby sand dune and watched the sun dip below the horizon. Of course, we had to recreate the iconic photo of students jumping over the dune that you see in the Geography Department. After some expert photography from Mr Ruck, we got the shot. After this, we returned our attention back to the dune, where we were treated to the spectacle of Mr Hutchings, once again, demonstrating his ‘graceful’ nature. Just as elegantly as he had fallen off his camel, he proceeded to roly-poly down the sand dune. Another highlight of the trip provided to us by Mr Hutchings. Once the sun had set, we were also treated to another spectacle of one unfortunate student having their ankle buckle as they ran down the dune back to the camp – thankfully, Mr Ruck caught this on video (another example of his expert photography/videography skills). Dinner gobbled down, we danced around the fire and then headed to bed, setting our alarms for what we thought was 5am – the time we’d be waking up for the sunrise. Even though we knew the clocks were going forward and had put our phones on aeroplane mode so our alarm would go off at the original time, we all ended up waking up an hour early. Expecting to leave my tent and see the sun peeking over the dunes… we were met with pitch black. One student, so exhausted, went back to bed fully dressed, wearing their shoes.
“We finally did get to watch the sunrise – a breathtaking view that made the early wake up worth it (sort of). After soaking the desert’s beauty, we endured yet another glorious – yet even more painful – camel ride back to the coach. With sore legs and aching backs, we made our long journey back to Marrakech, or so we thought. The bus broke down… But fear not! Our spirits were quickly saved by Mrs Prestney and Mr Hutchings, who pulled off the greatest act of survival: an impromptu quiz. This quiz tested all the knowledge we had absorbed (or mostly forgotten) over the course of the trip. Armed with a new bus (and a somewhat renewed sense of hope), we finally made it back to our original Marrakech hotel. Dinner was devoured faster than possible and we all reached to be the first to reach those glorious beds I mentioned earlier.
“Final day arrived, and we woke up, back on our original (and thankfully fixed) coach. We set off for Asni to tackle a waterfall walk, taking in the stunning views of the snowy mountaintops along the way. The hike was a welcome change from the camel rides and bus breakdown. Once we finished the walk, we settled on a rooftop for a grand prizegiving ceremony. It was a hilarious moment for us to reflect on the chaos, the laughs, and the unforgettable memories. It was then time for the journey back to the airport. After a bittersweet goodbye to our amazing tour guide, Larbi, and our trusty coach driver, we went through security and passport control (this time, much less scary for some reason).
“A massive thank you to Mr Ruck for organising such a fantastic trip, to Mrs Prestney for accompanying us with endless patience, and to Mr Hutchings for your gracefulness! It was an amazing trip that will never be forgotten.
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