Morocco isn't quite a dry country in terms of obtaining alcohol, but it might as well be, so far anyway. The few bars which are open are exclusively male preserves and the beer is sold in 240ml bottles for about 16 Dirhams - around a pound - hardly the stuff of hedonistic nights out. At least it gives me ample time to gather my thoughts in the evening and bash out a few emails. I actually came to the internet cafe tonight to quickly check the Newcastle score, and having found we lost I was going to head home but Natalia just came in to say she doesn't feel well and is going to bed so here goes.

We eventually negotiated the price with Ali and Abdul, over several glasses of sweet mint tea, of 1200 Dirhams - about 75 pounds each - for the trip to the mountains, leaving first thing Tuesday morning. This represented reasonable value. We had checked out the competetion in Marrakech and they offered similar trips at similar prices, but we were just more won over by Ali's selling technique. He didn't exactly say much, but what he said sounded good. We would see traditional Berber villages, eat authentic Moroccan Tagine and Couscous and sleep on the terraces of Berber houses under the stars, where no backpackers had gone before..or something like that. It sounded just what we were looking for. The thing that probably swung it was that we would be accompanied by mules for the whole journey - the poor sods would be lugging our baggage there and back as well as us if we so desired. That meant a lot when confronted by the idea of sweating up mountains that peak at 4000 metres in a region a stone's throw from the Sahara.

I woke on Tuesday morning registering a severe sweat, moderate abdominal pains and an urge to go to the toilet very quickly. Which I did. Fantastic - diaghorrea. I doubt it's spelt like that. It's a crap word. Excuse the pun. Having taken a couple of pills Natalia had fished from her bag, I queazily took a shower and dressed. I noticed my watch was telling me the time was twenty to seven, but by now it must have been half eight. I shook it a bit then realised the battery must have gone. Great. Why do these things always happen at the worst times? I checked my mobile phone for the actual time and discovered there were 14 messages on it - all from the same person, Fergus. Now Fergus is not the kind of guy to send 14 messages to someone when they are abroad. In fact he isn't the sort of person to send one message when you are abroad. I vaguely remembered being told by my phone company in Poland that I have to pay 3 zloties for every message received outside of Europe, and every time I deleted a message I was receiving another one the same. I angrily took the battery and SIM card out of the phone and buried it at the bottom of my bag where it remains to this day. I hope Fergus is happy. Why do phones do that? What a crap invention.

Piqued somewhat by my inability to tell the time other than looking at the sun - Natalia never wears a watch - we left the oasis that our hotel was for the dusty streets of Marrakech to meet Ali. When we arrived at the appointed spot we met our fellow travellers - a Dutch couple called Kitty and Jorge, and an English guy called Noah who was travelling with a Polish girl called Aneta. A couple of 'Grands Taxis', big Mercedes which are routinely used in Morocco to cram in as many as 6 passengers, took us up to our starting point, Setti Fatma, 2 hours distant and about 500 metres higher than Marrakech (which itself stands at an altitudinous 590 metres). We stopped half way for a few glasses of mint tea and a spot of breakfast, some Moroccan bread with honey and cheese. The bread is really nice - a bit like wholemeal stottie bread. We got a great view of the mountains as we were eating. They rose out of the mist and plains quite abruptly, and we could just about make out the peak of Jerbal, snow-capped for 9 months of the year but not now. We arrived at base around 11am and disembarked, with a few bottles of Flag and Stork beer we had procured on the way for evening entertainment.

The mules looked miserable from the start, and they had every right to be. Lugging several kilos of crap up and down a mountain every day isn't my idea of fun. I just had a small rucsack containing camera, money, guidebook, water and sweater, so I was more than alright, Jack. The day started out hot, and it was gradually getting hotter. However, the first leg of the walk wasn't too taxing, and we made it to the lunch spot a few km down the valley having hardly broken sweat. A gorgeous valley had narrowed into some rapid falls with a welcoming looking pool at the bottom, which we all gladly took advantage of. We splashed around happily for a while, took pictures then relaxed over a delicious Tagine which had been prepared for us, contemplating the ferocious looking ascent ahead of us. 'Are the mules supposed to climb THAT?' I asked incredulously. I had serious doubts I could make it up myself in this heat. However, after another hour or so we had ascended several hundred feet and were all sweating profusely and marvelling at some jaw-dropping views. We continued our ascent for an hour or so, after which it levelled out a bit. I was suffering though. Clearly the stomach problem had not gone away. I had gone to the back of the group, after a promising early burst after lunch which saw me at the front for ten minutes. Flagging badly, I realised I needed to relieve myself and had to deal with the ignominy of dropping my pants outdoors. I let the group put some space between itself and me then let nature take its course. I'll spare you the grizzly details but let's just say it was unpleasant. I had to make up time to catch up, and the ground had started ascending again dramatically. I spent an hour on my own; I couldn't believe the group hadn't waited. When I finally caught the back-markers, we were still only half way to our destination, and I was absolutely knackered.

I guzzled down some warm water and took a couple more pills. The landscape turned from spartan, dry and rocky to a more soft clay with a reddy hue which was picked out nicely by the late afternoon sunshine. I started to appreciate things a bit more as the path levelled out once more and we came to a village. As we made our way through the closely packed houses and narrow pathways inbetween them, kids ran up to us with outstretched hands, begging for sweets, money and gifts in French and Berber Arabic; the local dialect. I gave them the few sweets I had, took some pictures of the little blighters and marvelled at how anyone could live in such extreme isolation and poverty. Their houses had no electricity or gas. and weren't connected to a water supply. This really was rural Africa and how millions of people obviously live, but they seemed happy, they weren't starving and they had clothes; it certainly isn't the Africa of Bob Geldof - Morocco is a relatively wealthy country, and the poor don't have it as bad as they do elsewhere. Also, our guide told us, Moroccans are very selfless people, and think of themselves as a big community, generally looking out for each other and helping the needy. a world away from our individualistic society. They would view our tendency to send our elderly to old peoples' homes with disbelief, for example.

We finally made it to our destination at dusk, just as sun was setting we made our final, painful steps up to our village - very similar to the one we had already visited, just a collection of red clay huts - and collectively flopped down onto the rooftop terrace. I was more exhausted than I could remember being for a long time. the heat and illness had really taken it out of me and I was almost faint. We were welcomed warmly by the householders and brought endless cups of steaming mint tea, orange juice and bread with honey. I was unfortunately unable to eat until later though. As the sun went down and the stars appeared, bright in the clear sky, I just lay; unable to move but quite happy to be indolent for a while. Natalia and I finally got up and went down to the tiny 'hammam' (turkish bath) for a wash. We had to walk down some stone steps into the yard and then through a tiny door fit for a dwarf into a darkened room the size of a cupboard lit by a couple of candles. Inside were two buckets: one for hot water and one for cold water. There was also a brush to scrub yourself with. And that's pretty much it. The water was heated by wood from outside, and it was boiling; certainly hot enough to create a head of steam. Well it was one of the nicest washes I have ever had, I can tell you. We must have spent over an hour in there, and I may even have drifted into a pleasant sleep for a while. When we finally left my skin was wrinkling. We shivered back upstairs with the aid of a candle and joined the group for more tea and a few sucks on a shisha water pipe - something becoming more and more common in trendy Turkish and Moroccan bars in Britain. We polished off the day with a delicious vegetarian Couscous dish. It was deliciously seasoned with herbs ands spices, and contained aubergine, pumpkin, courgettes, carrots, lentils, carrots, beans and potatoes. I drifted off to sleep an hour later.

The next day I woke with the cockerel at 5am after a fitful night's sleep; the hard floor and brick-like pillow were highly disagreeable to sleep on, and it wasn't only me who thought so. It wasn't a happy bunch of campers who set out bleary-eyed after breakfast that day, so I thought the best plan was just to press on and get a few k's under the belt - which it turned out was a good plan, as it wasn't too hot at that stage of the day and the going was quite easy. The scenery was again stunning and it was a crystal clear day with pleasant cooling breeze. I won't waste time saying how beautiful it was, but it really was stunning, and the path followed the contours of the mountain for about three hours before we started descending into a wide green gorge. We paused at the bottom of this for lunch, where we were again allowed to splash around in the river to cool off.

The afternoon was a breeze; a stroll down the valley to our night's accommodation, which we reached soon after 4pm. Not nearly so tired as the previous day on arrival, the whole group were much more chipper, especially on spying some nice comfortable mattresses on which to sleep. The afternoon and eveing were spent exploring the little village, which was slightly better equipped than the previous one - this house had electricity and running water, though by no means all the houses did. The kids of the village were again amusing and irritating by turns, constantly begging for sweets etc in return for a few photographs of them. Some of them ran away as I was trying to take pictures - 'photographs are for Allah', Mohammed our guide explained to us. Others were fascinated by the technology of my digital camera, collapsing in fits of giggles as they looked at images of themselves I had taken seconds before. charmingly removed from modern society, or left behind in another world? Our evening meal, a chicken tagine, was again delicious, and was followed by the remaining beers and a few smokes. I produced my radio, and the first two songs on the barely tuned station were by Sting and Mark Knoppfler - a canny reminder of home even out in the Moroccan wilderness.

We set off back for base the next day at 9am after a slightly better sleep - though swarms of flies appeared with the sunrise and pestered me till I left, which was annoying, not to mention sleep-depriving. We back-tracked to Seti Fatma, pausing for lunch at the pool we stopped at on the first day, and the group all agreed it had been a great trip, money well-spent. We had bonded pretty well, there had been no arguments or disagreements, and the guides had been great. The real stars of the show though were thge mules - who had done a great job. One of the poor b******s even carried me for a while, though it was visibly wheezing and looking sorry for itself. A strong wind blew up as we were having lunch, and a storm was on its way, so we hurried back and got to Seti Fatma around three. Two taxis were waiting; Noah and Aneta went back to Marrakech and the rest of us were bound for Agadir, by the coast, ostensibly a 4 hour drive away. Anyway, we had negotiated a 680 Dirham fee for it - just over a tenner each - which was a great price.

We eventually arrived in Agadir sometime after 10pm, after a fraught and nerve-wracking trip through the hills; narrowly missing several head-on crashes and blameless cyclists, our driver was clearly a total weapon. he also avoided one of the most beautiful routes in Morocco though it was more direct, probably to save on petrol - it would have involved a lot of climbing.

We had to find a place to stay quickly, which we fortunately did, but the area we were in was a bit of a hole. We retired to bed and slept till midday the next day. Agadir was rather disappointing. We just used it to rest and relax for a day, and sunbathe on the pleasant sandy beach, possibly the only attraction in an otherwise drab and dreary concrete town.

We departed yesterday afternoon and took the bus up the coast to Essaouria, the town where we are now. Natalia has just come in telling me I have to come home so I'll write to you soon about this place.