Morocco - Tuesday 8th May

We had an awful night's sleep, about 30 mins after we retired to our tents, a 4 wheel drive full of really loud French people rocked up and proceeded to stay awake drinking, playing the bongo drums and yelling their obnoxious French language! Their guide also tried to tell Hamish he was King here so yeah grumble grumble.

So when our alarm went off at 5.50am we were not happy Berber's. We quickly got dressed and headed out in the other direction to watch the sun rise. It was pretty cool, amazing how light it gets as soon as the sun showed up. We hopped on our camels again, and we are not going to lie the pain was quite intense. A Berber massage on a camel is not a pleasant experience. The trek back seemed to go on for ages, but we did notice that the sand does change colour depending on the time of day (morning as opposed to evening). We arrived back to the hotel where we showered and packed up and had another 'brilliant' Moroccan breakfast. A selection of bread, jam, and olives but with the welcome addition of yoghurt. Yahoo.

Today was the driving day; we drove back through Rissani where it was market day. We cracked up when we saw the parking lot, and it was just a whole lot of donkeys with carts attached. Man donkeys make the most horrendous noises, and they all look miserable all the time.

We headed back east by the Sarhro mountains, which were formed through volcanoes, some great landscapes and views. It actually looked like we were on Mars (cos we know what that would look like - thanks Total Recall).

We stopped for lunch in the Draa valley which is renowned for its valley of palm groves. Finally we got a change from the tagines and cous cous. Hamish had lamb shish kebabs and Lou had grilled chicken….with bread.
 

Back in the car we retraced our route up the Atlas Mountains into Marrakech. It wasn't until about 7pm when we found our new Riad. Our guide helpfully paid a little old man to lead us through the winding streets as we never would have found it. Our new riad was gorgeous, there were only about 6 rooms, and there were beautiful Moroccan art pieces everywhere and the rooftop terrace was great. We were pretty knackered but as the hotel was charging three times what you would pay in the markets for dinner, we headed out again to the hustle and bustle of the central market.

Dinner number 2 was ok, we weren't hungry after snacking all day in the car but we had chicken shish kebabs and veges. Lou started feeling a little bit dodgy on the way home, so we had an early night.

Let's just say Moroccan food hit back at Lou that night. Enough said.

Highlight: Finally getting back to our Riad after a very long day but the seeing the sunrise on the dunes was pretty magic.
Lowlight: All the km and weird bites Hamish had on him from the Sahara...
Interesting Fact: Rissani is an Arab settlement which meant that the women wore all black as opposed to the Berber communities where women can wear brighter more patterned robes.