Day 78, 20 September 2012, Immouzer, Bhalil, Ifrane and Azrou (Le Moyen Atlas / Middle Atlas day trip) - To paraphrase, "When you are tired of medinas, you are tired of life" - However, we nevertheless required some fresh air and mountain breezes so hired a driver and his groovy old Mercedes for the day... (hideously expensive, about $90) and we headed off to have a look around the Middle Atlas region, ending up about 200 odd kms from Fez. Ifrane is where Moroccans ski for 2 short months every winter (not a lot of places to ski in Africa!) and is quaintly European in appearance. The stone chalets were gorgeous and made the ski-itch we are both experiencing more pronounced I'm afraid. We enjoyed the scenery and stopped for a photo on the shores of a gorgeous lake - just managing a quick snap before James was accosted to purchase a horse ride... or a pedalo boat to hire... very cheap Monsieur... We also visited a colony of monkeys known as Barbary Apes - roaming through one area of the stunning Cedar forests of the Middle Atlas. Now despite tourists tripping over themselves to feed them peanuts, they were still aggressive little critters and one jumped up and tried to cling on to me leaving massive dirty marks on my white trousers - fortunately the material wasn't ripped (nor I, for that matter) - but it's times like that that the wisdom of getting all those pesky rabies inoculations hits home. We had a peaceful lunch in Ifrane and imposed upon our driver to take us back to Fez via a supermarket as the sale of alcohol is verboten within the Medina. We went to a Marjane which is an enormous hyper-marche and stocked up on 45 dirham Casablancan Rose and some Tourareg white. We then fought our way through mildly alarming traffic (nothing has scared us since Cairo) to get to the wildly picturesque Gare de Fez (Railway Station). Everyone insists that we could just turn up 30 minutes before the train on 22 Sept and buy the tickets then... but we feel so much safer having them ready to go. Getting awfully good at trotting about making travel arrangements on the fly. Finally back to the Riad and a quiet night at home with newly acquired drinkies, peanuts, fruit and cheese for dinner in front of a movie on the ipad. The Grey - with Liam Neeson. Even us world travellers fancy a night in front of the box sometimes. Bonsoir & Bonne Nuit!