Got up this morning and immediately encountered the traditional Moroccan mix of horror and fascination when I didn’t want breakfast. It’s inconceivable that someone might start the day without food. I did get a large coffee though. With three sugar lumps on the saucer. Moroccan sugar lumps are just over twice the size of British ones, and you always get two (except today). Bear in mind they drink espresso only, that’s an impressive coffee/sugar ratio going on there.

Setting my satnav for the drive back to Marrakech it told me the 228 mile journey would take 7 hours. It lied. Took nearly 8. I was going to blame the 14000 foot mountain in the way but most of the delays were the interminable villages (90 minutes of driving through built up areas, chained back-to-back – it was like trying to get out of London) and the idiots on the road. Although I dealt with them by catching up to them, then stopping for a photo. Repeat.

I did start the drive under a simple deep blue panorama, covering the desert from which mountains soared on every side. At one point I told myself off for being blase about it, and remembered to enjoy it all. But that was just the prelude… The drive may have been nearly 8 hours but 5 of those I could do every weekend. The road was raw fun to drive along, lots of tight bends, blind curves, sheer drops on the sides and steep slopes forcing you to change gear. Even if it had been flat, straight and full of traffic though it would’ve been an amazing drive. Called Tizi n’Tichka (tizi == pass, tichka == difficult) it took me seven and a half thousand feet up through a mountain pass and the views were easily as good as I’ve seen elsewhere. The landscape went from Arizona to Utah, created its own aesthetic then (when I reached a river) switched to Alpinesque landscapes. Then back to desert.. I can’t promise you photographs, half the road had no stopping space, I didn’t have time to stop for photos when there was space and by the end of the drive I’d lost the ability to comprehend how stunning and photographic a view was.

So almost no photographs – only 229 all day. Most of those were my patented ‘Photo out of the car window’, so there are only about 30 different photographs, the rest are just coverage or trying to avoid the wing mirror.

One bit I couldn’t photo was another delay on the journey. I had to stop while they cleared a rockslide from the road. Imagine a sheet of slate, about a foot thick and taller than a two storey house. Now imagine what that looks like shattered on a road. Glad I wasn’t driving past when that one landed!

No issues today with the police, fortunately. I did get stopped at one roadblock (I’ve driven through around 17 roadblocks every day, they like them here) but he seemed more confused about why I’d stopped than I did. He asked where I was going (in French) and luckily ended it in ‘Marrakech?’ so I just replied ‘Marrakech’ and he waved me on.

Note ‘he’. I’ve seen 3-400 police officers in Morocco, both Gendarmes and Surete, and only one of them was a woman. She smiled at me.

Back in the same hotel I spent my first night in Morocco. On the same corridor too, but on the other side – instead of a window on the street I have a balcony above the pool. The view is just built up city though so no photos. I did back up my pictures ahead of the journey home. 1382 so far, may take a couple more tomorrow.

Found a restaurant around the corner that charges £80 for its set menu. Admittedly this includes champagne and seven courses, one of which is swordfish. Still, out of my budget (and why would I want to eat swordfish anyway?) I must be staying in the expensive part of town, everywhere charges more for a starter than I’ve paid for my whole meal everywhere else this trip.

Google tells me there’s a nearby restaurant called La Jacaranda and directs me to this website: http://www.lejacaranda.com/ – use Google Translate to guess whether I decided to eat there..

Marrakech traffic remains a joy, although now I know where my hotel is I got to avoid most of it. Just four miles to go, back to the airport in the morning. I’ll get up, drink coffee, drive to the airport and hope the guy I got my car from is around. He’s a bit dodgy, and seems to be a one-man (and possibly one-car) car rental company. The car’s done ok though, 1800km over sand, gravel, paved roads, unpaved roads, river beds, impromptu diversions where they’re fixing the road and across the desert up a small hill so that I could photograph an unexpected lake at about 11am this morning.

Flight home is at 11.45, unless it’s delayed (as the flight out was). Probably wont have to wait for the aircraft defrosting though. My seat is the same number as the flight out, so I’m wondering if I’ll end up sat next to the same HVAC engineer that was sat next to me on the way here. He’s spent the whole week in an ‘all inclusive’ hotel, no car, so I think it might be cruel to tell him what I’ve been up to while he’s been sat at the pool.

I will though tell him about the man I watched fall off a donkey. The poor thing was loaded down, full panniers on both sides, and this muppet leaps into the air and tries to land sat on the donkey’s shoulders. The donkey just ducks, one of the bloke’s legs goes up in the air and I swear at one point he was balanced on his arse on the donkey’s neck, arms and legs flailing, almost hovering in the air before gravity kicked in. I drove on.

Just had dinner at one of the top rated restaurants in Morocco. It was very French, by far the best service I’ve had here, and the food was very nice. The meat wasn’t the best cut though. They charged horrific prices by local standards: £23 for dinner, pudding, coffee and water (you pay for the water here, as it’s all bottled). So average price for a UK restaurant, and I got to enjoy the large steak I’d been craving.

The rest of the clientele looked to be French expats or French holidayers. No locals. Two young women there, I wondered why they’d eat at such an expensive place with so many options elsewhere. When they stood up the Chinese looking girl (who’d been rattling on in French to her friend) was wearing what must be a £400 dress. Guess it’s that sort of place.

Today’s Drive: