We were up and dressed ready to meet Anthony for half nine. We found a decent café to have juice and a pastry for breakfast and we also bought bread for dinner later. I quickly nipped next door to an internet café to ring dad about interviews. It looks like its mixed news; I have two interviews, but the dates are before our flight home. The main aim of today was to get away from the city and see a nice pretty town with a few sights and add a few more names to our places we have visited list. We got a collective taxi for 10dh each to a place called Sefrou where we transferred into another grand taxi (3dh) for a place called Bhalil. Lonely Planet said that Bhalil has "a number of troglodyte ... read more

Our plans to rise early to escape Meknes were thwarted by sheer laziness on our behalf. However due to our recent bouts of illness we are blaming it entirely on a lack of energy. When we did leave the hotel, it took some doing to get us both with our backpacks to the top of the hill. The train station was comfortingly European and the French language announcements were almost completely understood. The train was delayed but we didn't mind one iota as the sun was shining and we got to watch a nosy rabble of football fans arrive on the opposite platform. The train made a pleasant change from buses and we thoroughly enjoyed having both leg room and comfortable seats. We didn't get one person trying to sell things and there wasn't a beggar ... read more

Last night we were too exhausted to set alarm and this Morning when we woke at twenty to one we realised that was a slight oversight. We packed ever so hurriedly and went to find out if we could leave our bags anywhere. The cleaner put them in a room for us and demanded 20dh. We couldn't be bothered with the aggravation so we paid and left to explore. Azrou is a beautiful little place and just outside of the centre there are some quite big, expensive houses. We were both immediately concerned with eating, so we found a place that made up Sandwiches for us. We had a sandwich each with cheese, salad, rice, potato, etc and then a cone of chips for 14p each. We couldn't believe how cheap it was. We sat and ... read more

We woke this morning and waited with another English guy for the hotel owner to take us to a minibus which would take us to the desert. The minibus was massively overloaded with things on top and inside the bus. There were also twelve of us getting a lift but being the only westerners we were stuck on a bench at the back of the minibus. We were dropped off at what we were told was Hasi Labied but what actually looked more like a collection of clay mud houses. I had been told that there was nothing in Hasi Labied other than hotels, so I had assumed that they would be more modern and western buildings. Anthony's hotel was right next to ours so we went inside with him and sat down for a tea. ... read more

We slept past our half nine alarm and reluctantly got up at ten instead. The room was dark and freezing but outside the sun was beginning to shine. We had breakfast which was just two flat breads with a bowl of jam and a bowl of butter. We were told by a guy at the hotel that there was a great walk that took four and a half hours and went through the gorge and then up and over. We thought it sounded great, so we got his directions. He told us to walk through the gorge until you came to the first village with shops etc. From there you took a left turn and climb up etc. We left at approximately quarter to eleven and from our hotel the walk through the gorge is amazing. ... read more