Before Sunrise Over Morocco

We left while the sky was still heavy with night.

Not the theatrical kind of dark — no stars putting on a show — just a quiet, pre‑morning darkness where the world feels paused rather than asleep. The drive out was silent in that way travel days sometimes are, when no one wants to speak too early and interrupt whatever anticipation is still settling in.

The balloon waited in a wide, open stretch of land, its shape barely visible until the burners came alive. Suddenly there was movement, sound, heat — a brief reminder that this was going to happen whether we were fully awake or not.

As the balloon filled, the horizon began to loosen.

There’s a moment before sunrise that’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it — when the sky shifts color not all at once, but in layers. Dust in the air softened the light, muting everything into pale oranges and quiet blues. Morocco unfolded slowly below us, low and wide and calm in a way that felt entirely detached from the day that would follow.

Once airborne, the world shrank quickly.

Villages, tracks, fields — all reduced to patterns rather than places. From above, nothing demanded attention. There were no landmarks asking to be named, no directions to follow. Just movement, air, and the steady patience of the balloon drifting wherever the morning allowed.

The silence up there was different. Not the absence of noise, but a kind of agreement — between the people in the basket, the land below, and the sun climbing reluctantly into view.

As the light grew stronger, details sharpened. Texture returned. The geometry of the land became clearer. What had felt abstract slowly reassumed meaning, and with it came the understanding that the day was about to begin in earnest — with traffic, voices, heat, and plans.

But for a while longer, none of that applied.

That morning stayed with us not because it was spectacular, but because it was quiet and unforced. There was no sense of performance, no rush to document every second. Just the feeling of being briefly suspended between arrival and departure, watching a country wake itself without our involvement.

By the time we touched down, the sun was fully up. The spell had already dissolved.

But the memory didn’t.