I had a great nights sleep and woke to find that my ankle felt a little better. There would be no piste today just a bit of road riding, so it would give my ankle a bit more time. I had been told to leave my bike outside on the pavement which I was slightly concerned about. I needn't have as a guardian wearing a florescent jacket had looked after it all night. The cost 10 dirham, 63 pence. It is a bit hard to get your head around. 63 pence wouldn't pay for Group 4 Securities to clear their throats back in the UK!

I left Zagora behind fairly quickly, I didn't want to fall into a tourist routine and was keen to see what the desert highway had in store for me. This was a newish road that links the southernmost towns through the desert. It was only half past nine, but the temperature was pushing 40 degrees today would be a hot one, and being in a desert would make it more so.

Hot

You could tell that existence for man or beast was on the rough side, you saw few of either. Traffic on the road was incredibly light with just a few private cars and grand taxis with the occasional lorry with the odd face peaking off the roof. I took a few off road excursions to look at dunes, ruins and the odd tree.

Flooding that winter had caused a lot of damage to the roads, we were back to oued crossing

A little later, I was faced down by a camel standing in the middle of the road. This dude had attitude. I however, had time. I took a few pictures of the attitude laden beast who was dribbling for some unknown reason. Maybe the sun had got to him?

"Go on son, make my day....."

On we went, through Forum Zguid and eventually into Tissinnt. Now it was well past lunchtime and I was ready to stop for some food.

There were lots of school children in the street. Come to think of it, there are always lots of children either coming or going to school. I'm not sure if they go home after every lesson, or there are mass expulsions and later reinstatements but at any time between 8am and 4pm, an army of school children are likely to hamper your transit through a town. Which is fine, it’s their town, not mine, but I just worry they spend too long either going or coming from school and not enough time in it where they will be safe from being run over by a motorcycle.

I knew I would be in for a bit of 'stylo action' but I was needing to stop here so I'd have to face it head on. The bike was surrounded by 30 five to ten year olds chanting 'donnez moi un stylo' like I was some representative for BIC ballpoint. I shook my head telling them non, but as I approached my top box the crowd silenced ready for whatever goodies I was about to deliver. I felt a bit bad that I had built their hopes up, but this was a bit of a learning curve for me too. I opened the box, threw the gloves in and walked off. There was a lot of booing, but you could tell it was good humoured. The crowd quickly dispersed.

I had a great tomato omelette at the cafe where my seat gave me a fine view of a butcher slaughtering chickens. Most chickens accepted their deaths like a credit card refusal, but Whitey, a chicken with attitude was fighting back, he was pecking away flapping into corners, feathers everywhere. All I can say is that when Whitey finally met his maker it wasn't in the usual Alhalal way!

I was glad to be eating omelette and bread.

The road gave a feeling that we were leaving the desert behind, we were getting higher and I was soon in Tata, an administrative town on the edge of the Anti Atlas Mountains. I found a hotel and had a quiet night.