No Military Films Here

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We got up nice and early and had our slightly tedious breakfast of bread and spreads. We wanted to leave immediately after finishing breakfast but we had to wait for the second load of laundry to be returned. We left our tips for the nicer members of staff and left.

We arrived at the station early for our 10am bus. A guy there sold us tickets and tried to charge us 10dh each for baggage. Slightly tired of the whole ordeal now we refused and paid only 5dh which left him peeved. We were glad not to have over paid because it was the worst bus yet. The leg room was a joke as the only way to fit your legs in was to sit upright. Six and a half hours is a bloody long time on the worlds most beaten up bus.

We arrived at the bus station in Ouarzazate which is located away from the main town centre. We got off the bus and we were pounced on by local hustlers. We needed to consult our map, and whilst we were doing so one man really got in our faces. We told him we already had accommodation booked and he started on something else. When I asked him to go away he got aggressive and started shouting insulting things in English and blocking my way. We just got away from the station ASAP and headed towards town and figured out where to go there.

Hotel Royal was harder to find than it should have been but when we did find it, we met two Danish people who had been on the same bus for ten hours from Marrakech. The room was average but very cheap and had smelly drainage. We did our usual and dumped our stuff so that we could look around in daylight. The town itself is modern with fancy flats to accommodate the stars/employees of the adjacent film studios but there isn’t much else here.

We walked around the back of the main street to look for a recommended restaurant however we found ourselves being watched intently by someone from a watchtower of a military fort. We began to walk away as an American guy climbed up on the bank of the fort to take a picture. The guards shouted at him repeatedly to get down but he ignored them and waved them away. After everything that I have read and know about the military in Africa, I wouldn’t be quite so rude towards them.

We went to the supermarket to buy some goodies and saw straight away that it was only there for the westerners. Everything was entirely overpriced except surprisingly enough the beer. There was a bit of a rowdy rabble of Moroccans around the beer counter and one guy even tried to sell us kif. What is worse is that when we said no, he offered it to the man behind us who was with his young son.

We ate at the restaurant attached to our hotel because we wanted something other than tagine for once. I ordered penne avec fromage and ended up with a plate of spaghetti with cheese sprinkled on top and Rob's was little better. We sat outside which was a mistake because we got so cold waiting for the food to arrive.

The hotel room was freezing as usual so it was a case of get into bed to keep warm. We are now listening to music and drinking Malibu and Coke and Rob is setting up a game of Monopoly. Night night. Stob.

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Photos

Finally Opened
They've been around all of Europe with us