Dar Ahlam Ouarzazate

... interiorior of Morocco - in a nice new Toyota 4x4. We sped though Todra Gorge, the Dades, Valley of the Roses et al, and landed for the night at a lovely little riad overlooking the city. Had a beer (along w/ my Muslim guide!) on the rooftop terrace, dinner, and then set off for Marrakech the next morning.

Will fill in the blanks/post pics later...

... passes & ledges; I also lose count of the times we criss-cross the stream on the way up.
Ahmed continues to star with casseroles & soup (& pancakes/omelettes in the morning) but on Day 3 a goat finds its way to the pot & we are 'honoured' with barbequed offal in stomach/intestine lining. Day 4 inevitably brings goat casserole.
So we finally make the villages at Zawyat Oulmzi where there is a hostel we share with a Belgian school group.

The drive from Taroudannt gets more and more barren and the road deterioates to a single lane of bitumen and becomes more mountainous. Taxis and trucks play chicken with Terry so we spend a fair it of time in the dust. Fortunately there is not much traffic. We are staying out of the town again in a kasbah, which is a large house with four towers built around a courtyard ...

... sat with the bags. Not sure what had happened but it was quickly sorted and headed through. I had hoped to get food just in case but we were late so we headed on through. The guy checking our boarding cards said that someone else was doing the race but we couldn't see a likely perosn. As we boarded Neil made hinmeslf known he'd packed all his stuff onto the plane. We were concerned in case he got seperated from his running shoes. We ...

... wanted to do similar things so we could split costs. The next day we started cruising all the car rental agencies looking for like minded travellers. As judgemental and picky as Elise and I are, this was not an easy task. We were lucky enough though to find two French guys who were trying to rent a car that was over their budget. After a few formalities, and discovering we all wanted to go into the desert, we were off. At ...

... handicapped association - this one does artificial limbs and works with people affected with polio. I loved the pottery and bought 3 pieces for only 105 dhs. Back on the bus again for another drive to our overnight stop - Ait Benhaddou. We stayed in a small hostel run by Hussein (nicknamed Action because he has been an extra in 10 movies filmed locally - including Jewel of the Nile, Babel, Gladiator) and his family (baby Action, sister ...

... vous souhaitez partir sur les pistes. Par ailleurs, il est bien plus simple de faire appel à un chauffeur pour ce type d'excursion, car la conduite et le repérage n'est pas aisé du tout. * En retirant de l'argent en banque, vous vous retrouverez avec des billets de 100 ou 200 dihram (1€ = 10 drh environ)... ce qui est loin d'être pratique pour ...

We left our hotel at 5am for a 50 min 4-wheel drive ride to Merzouga, the desert area close to the Algerian border. Once there, it was onto a camel, sharing with Cynthia, for a 20 or so min ride through the sand dunes. I was glad to get off that camel, it was very uncomfortable and when it knelt down to let me off I was thrown forward onto a bolt on the front of the harness and got a very sore thigh and a painful deep ...