Hi,

Third blog in three days! must be boring here eh. Either that or Natalia has left me and I've got nothing else to do cos I'm too sad to go out on my own. Fortunately, and perhaps surprisingly, the former is the case and I've finally come to the decision that Morocco is the best place in the world to come if you're trying to go on the wagon. I haven't had an alcoholic drink for a week now and I've stopped even telling Natalia how good I've been at refraining from the non-existent alcohol.

Right, Ait Benhaddou. Our coach journey from Tarroudant was pathetic. It took up virtually all the useful daylight hours, and this despite me vowing never to use Moroccan buses again. It was only about 200 miles, but it just took forever. Parts of the road towards the end of the day were just rough mud track. Awful. the ones I really felt sorry for were the poor b*****s who were made to stand up for the entire journey because they had cleverly over-allocated the seats. And there were about twenty of them, so it wasn't some administrative oversight. The belligerant ticket inspector didn't help things much either, bellowing randomly at blameless passengers to everyone's bemusement. I had to keep a sharp eye on my map and the road because I needed to stop the coach at a turning for Ait Benhaddou, on the road to Ourzazate. This can be accomplished by clapping your hands frantically until the driver hears you and screeches to a halt.

A gaggle of grand taxis were waiting for us at this junction fortunately, and we were soon whisked along the dusty road to Ait Benhaddou. Now you may not have heard of this town but you will almost certainly have seen it at some point; reason being that it has been used on numerous occasions as a film set over the last four decades. 'Lawrence of Arabia' set the trend in the 60's, and countless other films have followed in its footsteps, including 'Jesus of Nazareth', 'Kingdom of Heaven', 'Kundun' and, most recently, 'Gladiator'. Actually, the only one of these films I've seen is the latter; I didn't like it much, thought it was overrated. For some reason, films set in hot, dry, arid places always put me off a bit. Except 'Star Wars', that bit in Tatouine was good. Think they made that in Tunisia though. Anyway, Ait Benhaddou was stunning. It basically comprises an entire, working 'kasbah' (a sort of fortified, turreted, medieval town made from traditional materials like, erm, mud), which, as we approached it with the setting sun, just looked sumptuous. It stands on a promontory, raised from the surrounding open plain, which gives it even more of a visual impact. The outlying village was sleepy, to the point of catatonic, and by the time the sun had hit the horizon, it seemed that everyone had packed up for the night, and the whole place had become a ghost town. Michael Palin wrote in 'Sahara' that it felt like a town which was waiting, a sleeping beauty waiting to be woken up by the next handsome film executive bearing filthy lucre. The town exists in these interim periods on tourists alone, and because it is so out of the way, these usually arrive in large buses, together. It seemed we hadn't been expected. Oh well, we had a whole film set to ourselves; we relaxed on the terrace in the evening to the sound of crickets and drank berber whiskey (mint tea). Another exciting night in Morocco. I was beginning to realise why I hadn't seen many lone travellers here, and why the ones I had seen had a slightly nervous, twitchy, close to the edge aura about them. You would go crazy from isolation here after a while, even if you stayed in the cities, where bars are male-only and dreadfully depressing.

We arose quite early next day to stroll around, take pictures and generally take in the ambience of this extraordinary place. The street vendors here had an unusual tactic: they would lull you into a false sense of security by appearing nonchalent and friendly, then once in their shop, they would hold onto you like a rottweiller until you agreed to buy something. If you want my advice, never go into any souvenir shops in Morocco. If you do, never ask the price of anything or give the slightest hint that you are interested in buying anything. If you do, you won't get out without an extremely protracted and embarrassing bargaining exchange which will normally involve you buying some trinket you didn't want for the price of your night's acommodation. Fortunately, on this occasion my tormentor was momentarily distracted by a large Polish tour group, which gave me just enough time to make good my escape; though this didn't stop the vendor chasing me up the hill, protesting that I had agreed in principle to buy something. I finally got rid of him by promising faithfully to stop by on the way back. (I was already planning an escape route which would involve not passing his shop on the way back). I glanced back and allowed myself a wry smile at the unwary Poles being lured into his trap. They probably wouldn't have given him much change either, they're not exactly known for their spendthrift nature.

We allowed ourselves a couple of hours wondering around the magnificent kasbah, clambering to the top of the hill to be rewarded with great views of the surrounding area. It seems the town can survive on tourism alone. UNESCO has recently placed it on the world heritage list, and it's being carefully renovated to keep it looking as good as old. I think this is a good thing on the whole. Our next stop was Ourzarzate (Pronounced 'War-za-zat'), another town which has a reputation in the film industry here in Morocco. This wasn't immediately obvious as we entered the city, it seemed like another unattractive big Moroccan town. We didn't stick around long enough there to find out what it was like, because we met a guy at the bus station who took us to a hotel we had already been recommended, and then effectively sold us an excursion which left at 8am the next morning: the Sahara. This was still a couple of long day's travel distant but inbetween were two valleys which had been highly recommended to us, and which would otherwise have been highly difficult to visit. We would see them in style, from a Landrover 4x4.