Tickets and Tours for Morocco Experiences

Balloons fly over the plain north of Marrakesh, and the whole thing is over before the city wakes. Pick-up is between four and six. Take-off is at first light, when the air is still.

The launch fields sit out past the Palmeraie. From the basket you get palm groves, the flat red plain, the Jbilet hills north and the Atlas wall south. On a winter morning those peaks are white.

How the morning runs

Most of the morning is not flying.

• Pick-up. A minibus works round the riads in the dark.
• Inflation. Burners, fans and noise while the envelope fills. This is the part people photograph.
• The flight. About an hour, standing, a few hundred metres up.
• Landing. Wherever the wind puts you, with a chase vehicle behind.
• Breakfast. Under a tent afterwards: bread, honey, argan paste and mint tea.

Shared basket or private

Baskets vary more than the marketing suggests. A shared one carries between a dozen and two dozen people, in compartments. A private basket takes two to four and costs several times as much per head.

Some operators bolt on a quad-bike hour or a Berber breakfast in a tent. Either way you are back at the riad by ten or eleven. The flying part does not change.

Practical

• Wind. This is what cancels flights. The call comes the night before or at the field, and operators normally rebook or refund.
• Cold. Near freezing on the ground before dawn in winter, and the burners warm only your head.
• Time budget. An hour in the air costs about five hours of the morning, door to door.
• Standing. You are on your feet the whole flight, and the basket wall is chest high.
• Who is turned away. Late pregnancy, recent surgery and very small children are usually refused.
• Spelling. Listings appear under both Marrakech and Marrakesh, and it is the same few operators either way.