Tuesday 24th March (was the day that this entry was started).

We stayed last night near Temnay, cold and disturbed in the night by rain and a chorus of barking dogs. The latter seem to be a feature of all the sites we've stayed at - perhaps it's some form of "piped musak" to help the locals get to sleep.
We ate well last night with home-cooked chicken and Edam, wrapped in ham from the Marjane.

OK, I hope that you’re paying attention at the back: I should say at this point that I'm writing this in our desert camp on the east side of Erg Chebbi on Friday 27th, so clearly we've a lot of catching up to do! The reason I mention it is, as I write, there's a Bedu wanderer (Touareg?) sitting on the ground not 4 feet away, watching me. He turned up 5 minutes ago, alone and on foot. He muttered something that neither of us could understand, but then, with gestures, made it clear that he quite liked the look of Mike's shirt. No. The shirt isn’t negotiable. OK, then, how about the trousers? When this second suggestion was rejected, he's just sat down to observe me tapping away. A bit unnerving but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Hope he clears off soon, though.

Anyway, back to the Ship's Log, and I’m copying what I wrote 3 days ago, so bear with me if the present tense swaps with the past sometimes. I ate on Monday night almost sitting on top of the stove, wearing 4 layers and a woolly hat. On the way to the shower a French lady asked me where I'd bought my mitts, and that they looked jolly warm. Clearly, she wasn't. The hot shower was very welcome though. Before we left that morning we had time to seek out one of the five wi-fi hotspots around the site. When I say "had time", I mean that there was no point in staying in bed, cold and needing a pee....

Back to the present, and at last, my private audience has got bored and wandered off, at least by a few yards. Doesn't look like he intends to give up completely yet, as he's circling us like a renegade Navajo round a wagon train. I'd take a photo, but Mike's already been ticked off for snapping away at a tourist camel train and we don't want to give this chap any excuses to get more interested in us. He looks healthy enough, so we think we'll leave him to his own devices unless he collapses at our door. Tricky one, this. Mike's experience in the Middle East makes him want to offer hospitality, swap travel stories etc, but this guy’s demeanor isn't conducive to repartee.

Where was I? Oh yes, site wi-fi at Temnay. It was the first connection we'd managed to get since we arrived in the country so we had a lot to catch up on, and sending stuff out was done at the rush as we didn't know when the connection might break. The pages of this blog had already been prepped, so all we had to do was log on and copy & paste. Amazing that this simple job took an hour. The alternative hotspots included "la piscine". We went to look for this only to find a big blue hole sans liquid which is clearly what rejoices in the description of "swimming pool" when the weather gets a little warmer. The Maroc Telecom modem hasn’t been a lot of use so far.

We paid up and left in a minor snowstorm, pausing only to take the obligatory photos at the gate. These are actually so that we can remember where we've been and on what day, as they are beginning to merge into one, or at least it's getting difficult to recall the order that things have happened or sights seen. The date stamp on the photo at least helps with that. Mike was keen to get away quickly as we could see the High Atlas from where we were and they looked pretty snowy. A detour to avoid them would take a day or so extra to what we'd planned so we were keen to get over the top before the weather really turned on us. The road twisted upwards with the altimeter. The thermometer went downwards. I sat with alternating items of bedding draped over my knees, trying to get them aired using Daphne's heater. Being a Landrover heater, this doesn't really push out much in the way of comfort, but it's all we've got at the moment and it gave me something to do as we climbed through the clouds, passing increasingly larger patches of snow. Of course, eventually the sun just had to make an appearance - we're halfway to Timbuctou, for Christ's sake! When it did and the murk below us burned off the view back over the plain was stupendous in the clear air. Altimeter was now unwinding and the air was getting warmer – nay, actually verging on hot. I exaggerate a little, but this was in comparison to last night, OK?

We were now in the area that we’d seen on the news late last year, where there had been some really bad flooding. The results of the deluge were everywhere to be seen. We had several detours to avoid damaged or completely washed out bridges and the oueds (watercourses) had obviously been nasty places to be as all the junk and debris from higher up the mountain came tumbling through.

The locals seemed much more interested in us than “ them up north” as well. Berber kids and mums would come running to the roadside to wave as we passed by. It reminded us of the times when, as children ourselves in the 1950’s, cars were enough of a novelty in country areas to warrant a wave as they passed the garden gate….that tells you more than you need to know about our ages and backgrounds, doesn’t it?

The architecture is now very different. The houses are made of mud bricks, flat roofed and often just single storey unless they’re what looks like forts of some kind. We stopped and had a quick look around one of these – a ruin- because it was mentioned in the Rough Guide as a real “Beau Geste” Foreign Legion throwback. We were surprised to find a donkey tied up inside, so obviously not as “disused” as its ruinous state would suggest.

Into the Gorges du Ziz. A deeply cut incision which had its fair share of ruins and spectacular rock formations. We spent quite a bit of time here, taking photos, but we’re beginning to realise that if an opportunity of a great view has just been missed – we stop and go back.

"Stop and go back?" This, up to now, would’ve not got a great deal of cooperation from Mike, but his attitude has changed. We may never pass this way again.

Still heading down, we can see the big manmade lake that feeds water to the power station at El Rashidia. The water is a brilliant blue – a “Caribbean blue” - and Mike compares it to the water around Arisaig in the Highlands. Same colour. Same temperature too, probably. The sun is blazing down from a cloudless sky but the altimeter still reads over 1200 metres and the air is pretty chilly.

We stopped in El Rashidia for groceries since there happened to be a supermarket on the route, an “Acima”, where we wanted to get water, meat, bread and booze. Not necessarily in that order. With no obvious racks of the local vintage in sight, Mike asked the security guard if the shop actually sold “les vins ou les bieres”. Non. In fact, Non throughout Morocco. This could be bad news…still got the emergency stocks from Windswept Brewery, though.

Freshly replenished apart from alcohol, we stopped for lunch at the side of the road, to be joined after a few minutes by a large Toyota 4x4, kitted out for the Dakar Rally and covered in advertising for a tour company. The driver made sure that we didn’t need help and asked where we were heading. A few minutes conversation followed at the end of which we had a recommendation for our next nightstop, a business card, emergency telephone numbers in case of “depannage” and 2 very large –and gratis – oranges. Lhassan – our new friend – said he’ll see us later and sped off northwards as we finished lunch and went south. A few k’s further on we stopped for fuel. A pair of local guys at the garage, also refuelling, wanted to know where we planned to stay tonight. Wary of getting caught in more long negotiations and unwanted offers of “free” guiding, we said, fairly truthfully, that we had already got a recommendation for a very good site, but thanks anyway. They seemed happy enough with that but asked if we’d take their card anyway. He handed us the same card that we’d been given 20 minutes previously. All laugh, lots of Franglais-inspired banter, and we end up at Camping Karla in the company of Atman, Mohammed and Ismail – with Lhassan turning up later as promised….