Back to Marrakech: We said our farewells to Paul and Liz and to Hamid who was getting a ride to a town which was on his way back to his home in Meski. And so we were on our own in Morocco, and it felt a bit like being cut adrift. We took the road out of Ouzoud through more steep gorges on, yes you guessed it, narrow winding roads. The high areas were still part of the Middle Atlas range but the drop to the plain is sudden and the land is flat to the hori...

Marrakech: We had had arranged for us, a tour of some of Marrakech by mini-bus. Six of us visited the Jardin Majorelle with its exotic plants and memorial to Yves Saint Laurent who once owned them. And then to the palace of the Grand Vizier, the Palais de la Bahia, with its rooms, painted ceilings, mosaics and decoration reminiscent of the Alhambra in Granada. The Saadian tombs, started in the 1500s, next to the Kasbah Mosque and adjacent to the old city wal...