We booked the wrong month on purpose

August, on purpose

August in Morocco is the month most people are talked out of. We booked it anyway, and our specialist did not try to move us. He moved the days instead: cities in the morning, nothing outdoors between noon and four, and the long drive saved for the hour when the heat finally gives up.

The blue streets were empty in the way they never are in spring. That was the trade. We got the place without the crowd, and we paid for it by treating the middle of the day as a closed door.

"Do not let anyone talk you out of August," he said, "if you are willing to waste the hottest hours on purpose." The medina at two o'clock was a shut door. At six it belonged to us.

Planning around the heat

The mistake would have been a full day in the medina at two in the afternoon. The correction was smaller than a new itinerary. Breakfast early, a courtyard through the worst of it, and the walk everyone comes for once the walls stop radiating.

We still tell people we booked the wrong month. What we mean is that the month was only wrong if you insist on using the middle of the day. With that hour given back, Morocco in August was the quiet version of the trip.