Beyond excited – I packed my ‘ridiculously oversized’ hand luggage and geared myself up for the action packed hen weekend of my friend, and one of the WAGS, Lucy. Lucy and her bridesmaids, Claire and Nikki, all work in TV so are super organised and always in the middle of the party! I knew this would be one finely tuned, bad ass holiday. You should’ve seen the call sheets!! MAYZING!
The party started at Chez Valerie’s (Lucy’s Mum’s) with nibbles and a showing of Sex And The City 2 (obvs) The perfect antidote to a less than lovely week at work. Two hours of sleep and we’re on our way. I’ve travelled a fair amount but arriving in Africa after only 3 hours on a plane blew my tiny little mind. I had no idea Morocco was that close.
First up on the itinerary was checking into the super cool Riad Dar Alfarah, our home for the next 3 days. Bit of a hop, skip and a jump over a couple of stray cats, but ya know, we all knew it wasn’t Monaco. Our hotel was the perfect choice – a great private little retreat for eight WAGS on tour. Our penthouse was more like a Sultans palace! Okay, slight exaggeration but we did have our very own mahoosive private terrace and a hallway so big it later became our ‘catwalk’ for drunkenly showing off our colour-popping outfits to one another.
After settling in and dressing up to the nines we headed over to Nikki Beach. If you haven’t experienced a proper beach/pool party then you really must. Booze, banging beats and the most beautiful bodies adorned the glam-tastic setting. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon. 😉
Comptoir Darnaserved up some exceptional delights for dinner on Friday night and the entertainment of belly-and candelabra-dancers was show-stopping. We decided it was a great idea to neck an expresso martini each giving us the much needed energy to get our-shisha-pipe-table-dancing-salsa-skanking-harassing-the-DJ-French-speaking swerve well and truly ON in the super cool late night bar upstairs. BOOM!
After waking the poor night porter up at silly o’clock to let us in (awks), a few hours later the same happy chappie served up a yummy traditional Moroccan brekkie for us all. I think it was cake? It tasted like cake and cake for breakfast is definitely a big fat win in my book. Copious amounts of coffee and a quick outfit change into something a bit more respectful, we moseyed on down to check out the cultural delights of Marrakech. The labyrinth of souks were mesmerising – blinging handbags, colourful shoes, oversized jewellery and other lovely spangly things. If I had room in my luggage I would’ve had a right spend up. *sob* Note to self: pack less sh*t next time.
Le Jardin was the recommended pit-stop for lunch. It was an absolute beaut of a hidden gem tucked away in the middle of the Souks. It’s one of the few places that sell alcohol in the town centre. (What? It was a hen do!) Some yummy food, a Casablanca and Mojito later, we were all geed up and headed back to the glitter palace to get ready for our ‘BIG’ night out. And big it was.
After dinner at the super stylish, albeit very tricky to find,Kechmara – we decided that our little party feet needed to let loose and find a dance-floor. Theatro was just what the doctor ordered – a ginormous rave with, quite frankly, DJ sets that could rival Ibiza and blighty. We danced until we could dance no more and fell into bed at around 6.30am, fully dressed, make-up still on and into the land of nod within seconds. We definitely showed Marrakech how us Londoners roll.
Our planned trip to the nearby Hamman was quite the experience – mainly for me as I was a very pickled-hung-over-mess. I opted out of the full on Ritual Spa but the girls reported back and said it was lush! They were washed and scrubbed up by a couple of local ladies followed by full body massages and all emerged two hours later looking like absolute goddesses! How jealous was I.
Later that day we arrived back at the airport, shadows of our former glamorous selves with hair full of oil from the earlier massages (chic), reflecting on what was literally a weekend of absolute epic proportions.
Marrakech gave us style, some serious tunes, bags of culture and plenty of laughs. We all picked up a little French (Juj!) and got to know each other a whole lot more after divulging all sorts about ourselves during a game of ‘I have never..’. I for one can’t wait to get that bag packed and out to the next destination with these lovely ladies – they were all bloody brilliant.
Roll on the 2nd August for Lucy and Neil’s wedding………!