A sunrise flight, from the alarm to the breakfast
Four to five hours from the pickup to the drop-off, with three quarters of an hour to an hour of it in the air. Here is how the morning actually runs.
The pickup is somewhere between five and six in the morning, because the balloons have to be up before the air warms and the time moves with the sunrise. You are driven out of the city to the launch field, where there is tea, coffee and Moroccan pastries while the envelopes are laid out on the ground and filled — it is worth watching, and most people do not expect it to be the part they remember. Then the briefing from the pilot, and you climb in. The flight is three quarters of an hour to an hour: the plain below, the Atlas along one side, villages and olive groves going past underneath, and the sun coming up. When you land there is a Berber breakfast waiting in a tent, and then the drive back. Four to five hours door to door, and you are back in Marrakech in time for the rest of the day.
Mornings on the plain are cold even in summer, so bring a jacket for the hour before sunrise — the best time to visit Marrakech guide has the weather month by month. If the weather turns, the flight is rescheduled rather than flown. With the rest of the day free afterwards, people often pair this with the Ourika valley or an afternoon in the medina. Or tell us what you want on the custom tour page.
