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During the Easter holidays 20 students from Year 10 went on a trip to Morocco. We departed from Gatwick on the 9th of April and arrived in Marrakesh a few hours later. When we got off the plane in Morocco, the heat immediately hit us. We were all dressed in jumpers and blankets and when we got out of the plane onto the runway, it was like we were in a sauna.
We then met our tour guide, Mohammed, who took us to the mini bus which drove us to a local restaurant where we were served with a lovely dinner. The starter consisted of a vegetable soup and homemade bread, followed by chicken and beef kebab and chips. We then set off to the hotel Majorelle, where we got straight into bed ready for the next day.

On the first day, we went to the Berber village in the high Atlas Mountains. We stopped at a villagers house where were shown how to make the traditional drink which was mint tea (which had a LOT of sugar in!), one of the traditional dishes, tagine and some bread. With a stomach full of lovely food, we headed off for Ouarzazate. Mohammed told us about all of the 104 films which had been filmed in Ouarzazate, which we were intrigued by. When we got to our hotel in Ouarzazate, we all changed into our swimming costume and jumped straight into the pool! We then all spoke to our parents back home, as the hotel had Wi-Fi and then we went to bed.

The next day we woke up at 7am, and left for the Sahara Desert about an hour later. We piled into mini bus and we drove to a ceramic factory. It was not a factory as we know it, it was just a furnace for each family and one hole where there was a potters wheel. Some of us then bought ceramics for our families and got back into the mini bus. There were two children that asked us for our empty pringle cans so they could make a toy out of them.

We eventually got to the desert, where we were served with pasta in a courgette sauce which was made by the native Moroccans. We then got onto the camels and started the two hour trek to our camp in the middle of the Sahara Desert. When we got to the most remote campsite in the world, we climbed up the massive sand dune, which was a lot harder than some of us originally thought. All of us then ran down it and some slid down, (while Alex slept in the tent!).  We then had dinner, of tagine and couscous, unpacked our mattress from the camels and placed them on the desert floor to sleep. We woke at 5am, and star gazed for a while, which was magical!  All of us have to say that this day truly made us realise how much we take for granted in our society.

At about 7am we were woken by the sunrise.  Some of us decided it would be a good idea to climb the dunes one last time for the amazing view. This was truly a once of a lifetime opportunity.  We ate breakfast and mounted our camels once again. We all wanted the same camels  we had the day before because we had named them, luckily we all found our peronal camels. This was a really good way to travel, because we could just sit back and relax while the camels did all the work. Once we got back to the mini buses, we got comfortable and fell asleep after playing games and singing songs. We had a long day ahead of us of travelling and stopping for toilet breaks and what not. All in all we travelled about 12 hours that day. This was a good experience to see  the varied landscape.  Once we had travelled all that time, we finally arrived back in our hotel that we stayed in on the first night. We all had a laugh and a joke before heading up to bed for night in Morocco.

We were awakened by the phone call which most of us slept through to then go down and have breakfast which was bread. We packed up all our belongings and placed them all in one of the rooms so that we could head off deep into the souks of Marrakesh. The guide was called Mustafa. He was a lovely man who helped us around for our last day. Once sadly this day was over we headed to the airport where we saw Mohammed for the last time. This was an emotional time for many of us realising that he kept us under his wing for the week we were with him and treated us like his family.

The plane was delayed by about hour which was a good thing because we got to spend more time in Morocco. This is where we saw Mrs Jackson and her family who were coming back from their own holiday. After saying our goodbyes and departing the lounge of the airport we were home bound.

After a 4 hour plane journey we were at Gatwick we had phone signal. Once getting the coach we headed back to school were all our friends and family were waiting for us with massive smiles on their faces.

I would just like to say a massive thank you to the three staff members that took time out of their own holidays to take us there, we are all very grateful.

Overall we had a fantastic trip and would recommend it to everyone who gets the opportunity.

Alex Vassiliou 10SS, Jennifer May 10TP, Morgan Mulholland Toy 10CK.