Marrakech - Casablanca - Marakech

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Story so far - offers of marriage - Lauren 2; Julie a big fat zero! She got one from a guard at the Royal Palace. I thought she could do worse personally, a tall, dark handsome man in uniform - but she turned him down.

We're having a great time - think we've walked round the whole of Marrakech, mostly because we keep getting lost coming out of the Medina which is the focal point of Marrakech - it houses the souks (markets) and the Djema el Efna (not sure that's spelt right!) which is the main square within the medina and where performers hang out during the day and evening. Think Covent Garden but with snake charmers and, sadly, monkey handlers. They're all out to make a few dirhams and just a glance in their direction encourages them to hang a snake round your neck and a monkey on your back whether you like it or not! It's good fun sitting up in one of the cafe terraces looking down on unsuspecting tourists getting caught by them (as we did!)

The medina is spread across about 25km and apart from the square is a maize of alleyways - once you're in it's really easy to lose your sense of direction (that's my excuse anyway). I don't think we'll have it cracked before we leave.

Went up to Casablanca over the weekend. Stayed along the coast at Anfa which is just outside of the centre. What a strange place. Apparently it's where the rich have their villas - it is an affluent area - lots of Mercedes and sophisticated men and women - but at the weekend it's a bit like Southend - cold, grey and full of day trippers on the beach - the only difference is they don't sunbathe - older visitors walk and the kids play on the beach and from a distance (our hotel terrace) they looked like a load of penguins milling about!

We've met 2 lots of TV production teams in Marrakech - one making a TV programme about housing development in Morocco - the King of Morocco is trying to develop better social facilities for the poor and this is one area he is keen to improve on. We watched them filming in the medina. The second lot were a bit more exciting - they were the Living TV team from Britain's Next Top Model - they invited us to the final programme filming on Saturday - the cat walk show - unfortunately we had already planned to go to Casablanca and couldn't go.

Anyway back in Marrakech now. It's much hotter and sunnier here than Casablanca so we're back to working on our tans this week until Lauren goes home on Saturday - I'm not looking forward to that. It's going to feel very strange being on my own.......

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