Two weeks ago, my mom, grandparents, and I boarded a plane in New York and set off for Morocco, not sure what to expect of the country, the people, or the culture. What started as a vague and sort of mysterious vacation turned out to be one of the greatest adventures of my life, full of excessive eating, laughs, and infamous camel rides.

I visited three cities during my time in Morocco, a trip my mom and I took as we tagged along with my grandfather (not really my grandfather, sort of, it’s complicated) while he visited family: Casablanca, Marrakech, and Essaouira, with a few smaller cities along the long coastal and desert drives. Our first day in Casablanca was totally exhausting, and we bounced from house to house visiting a whole array of very distant family members. The most incredible thing about the people I encountered was how welcoming and warm they were; everyone genuinely wanted to make my time in their country enjoyable, and I was treated like family the minute I walked in the door. With every house we visited, there was more and more to eat: couscous, vegetable and lamb tagine (a kind of stew), a whole half lamb, and enough cookies and pastries to double my weight. Moroccans have a serious appetite, and I just couldn’t keep up, but I will say that I’ve never eaten better in any week of my life.

Casablanca is nothing you’d expect after seeing the movie; it’s white, coastal, sprawling, bustling, and always growing. We visited the largest mosque in Africa and the largest mall in Africa (which had an enormous aquarium inside that you could go through in an elevator), pretended to be wealthy socialites in the “rich” section of the Morocco Mall, and raced up and down the coastal boulevards and urban alleyways. Surrounded by miles of gray shells of apartment buildings under construction and villas of all different architectural styles, Casablanca is as modern a city as New York, but with even worse traffic.

Marrakech, our second city, looks like something out of a pithy adventure novel, a big beautiful city comprised almost entirely of red clay buildings that match the color of the earth and the roads. We visited the medina district and its busy square Jamaa el Fna, haggled with salesmen in tiny stalls covered with wooden lattice and cloth awnings, and fulfilled my mom’s dream of riding a camel. I also ate a lamb kidney and sardine meatballs, two of the weirder Moroccan delicacies.

On our way to our third city, Essaouira, we encountered goats that live in argan trees and got pulled over and issued a $30 fine for not wearing our seatbelts. Essaouira is a white-and-blue city that looks like it belongs on the Greek Mediterranean coast, and it’s a major port for fishermen. The docks act as a fish market, and the fish that are sold by eager salesmen are pulled out of the water the same day they’re eaten. Our big bucket of fresh fish was grilled on a charcoal barbecue in a little alley of the old city, and we ate surrounded by begging cats, swatting away the occasional fly and stuffing our faces with bread and the freshest fish imaginable.

We left after only five full days, which, as I was told over and over, isn’t enough to experience the whole country. Our time spent in Morocco, though short, was full of amazing adventures, and the tearful goodbyes we exchanged with our newfound family made me definitely want to return some day. Hopefully those five days in Morocco were not my last; there are always more cities to explore, more distant family members to meet, more foods to try, and most importantly, more camels to ride.