Ibis Moussafir 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...

... are based around some (vaguely) nearby mountain streams and areas for the animals so that the length of treks do vary. We are of course in the 'middle of nowhere' so you have to relax in camp with the bed rolls & some rocks to lounge around on.
One day the stream is full enough for the cold water hair wash and clean up, otherwise it's mainly wet wipes & the bush for the toilet stop. Impromtu English/Berber lessons continue as do the stone ...

... been built by the owners but been done in an authentic way. The walls are mud and the ceiling lined with palm canes in lovely patterns. The area is a very desolate stony landscape but there are sudden patches of green wherever water is available. We get taken on a wild goose chase through extremely narrow bumpy lanes of a palmerie (lot of palm trees) and have an ...

... system is ground to a halt. That means no taxis, no buses, etc. As you can imagine that is going to cause a bit of a problem with me getting around and out of here. But as the Morrocans say, Imshallah, there is nothing you can do but hope for the best. Hopefully I will be moving on from here soon, but if not there are worse places in this world to be stuck. I hope everyone had a nice Easter, pleast stay in touch.

Wednesday the 25th. I got the train to Helen's in Woking. She had to work. I was lucky to have started annual leave already although had had to do 4 extra shifts over the weekend due to us being so short staffed and sickness. She took me straight out to her cobblers to sew my gaiters on. I hoped the glue would be enough but the added stitches wouldn't hurt. We had pizza for tea at my request and then watched old episodes of the MDS as ...

... to those of us from countries where there are such things as sand bags and alternative routes. But in Morocco, the dammage done by a day or so of rain is fixable only by Allah and we were at his whim. While brainstorming about our next course of action we were approached by a man who got our attention by with a "Hey! You are the two French and two Americans who are going to the dessert with Hassan. Abdo is waiting for ...

... of Ramadan. All good. At the Er-Rachidia bus station Nadine gathered a crowd of ten men around her like bees to honey when she got the Europe Lonely Planet with its tiny chapter and useless map of Morocco out as we tried to find out how to pronounce the name of our destination town that is Ait Ben Haddou. We are skipping Todra Gorge and acting on intuition. It was written wrong on our map and this explains why nobody had heard of it. It is kind of nice to be doing a country ...

Excursion to Ouarzazate with Lunch booked through expedia.co.uk for about £30 a head. "South of the Atlas mountain range lies the city of Ouarzazate, better known as the 'door to the desert'. Cross the mountains to reach one of the biggest movie sets of the world, where films including Gladiator, Cleopatra, Alexander and Babel were shot." "To get to Ouarzazate, you will cross the High ...

... were not allowed on the same road as him. the road had been blocked already for about 4 hours. While all the locals do speak very highly of their king, who does seem to be doing a lot of good with Modernising the country, I did find the experience typically African. However Rashid was unfazed, and just picked up a newspaper - coincidently with the king on the front page - and began doing Soduko. Luckily our wait was only 45 minutes, and we ...

I hooked up with Sahara Expeditions to do a 3 day trip to the Sahara. Morroco's landscape is such that you are in mountains one minute, plains the next, and then desert which stretches for what seems forever. We embarked at 7:30am on Friday morning. I was in a mini-bus with 7 other people. 1 Japanese girl Yoko and 3 couples. The couples were a mix. 3 Londoners, 1 Australian and a girl from California. We headed for the High Atlas. I was hoping that there ...