So, we had aimed to stay at places longer than you would on a normal Global venture to get a better understanding of the people and to avoid it being just a box ticking exercise. However, we failed almost immediately. Whilst being in the high Atlas with the Berbers was by far the most rewarding part of our trip so far, if not the most enjoyable or comfortable, it was also quite limiting. With one of us unable to do any hiking, there wasn’t a lot else to do. So with quite a bit of guilt we broke camp early explaining to our hosts “it’s not you, it’s us”. They were so very generous, even offering to not charge for the meals we had had in the first week. This of course made us feel even worse for deserting them. But leave them we did and headed to Agadir on the Atlantic coast, offering as it did cooler weather. When we asked around, the consensus was that this large coastal city was the best place to head. Stuart was keen to go to Casablanca and ask some random man called Sam to “play it again” but on discovering that the film of the same name was shot during WWII and as such mostly filmed in the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, he lost interest.

Our view of Agadir was unfortunately underwhelming, appearing to be mostly a building site with a random scattering of posh looking hotels. Not daunted by this we still sought out some Moroccan experiences where we could and amongst these was the tradition of the Hamman. This involved an hour of being scrubbed to within an inch of your life by what appeared to be wire wool and Swarfega and then massaged with oil for another hour. On discovering that this would be performed naked, Stuart’s English reserve kicked in and he passed. Informing him that it would be carried out by women in her underwear seemed bizarrely to make him even more reluctant. Not having such a sensitive soul it was left to Fran to be the trail-blaze on this occasion and the result was baby soft skin and a dopey expression that lasted for hours after, so if you ever get the chance we would highly recommend experiencing this. Word of warning however, they have both public and private Hamman, so unless you are a signed up naturist or extremely happy with your body ensure you pick the latter.

It was all quite slow and relaxing in Agadir, until a day before we thought we were due to leave a phone call from reception asking us why we hadn’t checked out sent us into a state of controlled panic. Now there is no point detailing whose planning error this was, as we have a no blame culture in the Graves household but only one of us is responsible for hotels and flights due the fact that he they claim to be “better at that sort of thing”!!! Of course, the hotel was fully booked and it being August, so was everywhere else. Notwithstanding that, our usual ability, gained from years of experience of getting out of the shit, meant we had booked a hotel in Marrakesh and a taxi to get us there within the hour. We have been to Marrakesh before and whilst the old part of the city, The Medina, was as we remembered it, the newer part was a lot more sophisticated …….and expensive. Prices that would make a Chelsea restaurant blush seemed to be the norm. It has to be said though that the prices were reflective of the quality with some of the nicest meals we have had anywhere, albeit not particularly very North African. We thought on this occasion we’d hire a guide to do a walking tour of the city; top tip, don’t. Whilst our guide was very knowledgeable, once he’d shown us the Koutobia Mosque and El Badi Palace, which took about an hour, we then got dragged into the Souks and shown “his favourite, rug, wool and leather shops” for about 2 hours. He seemed to get quite annoyed discovering that he had the worst shoppers in the planet for whom even a trip to a One Stop is a chore. Our mood may have been affected by the fact we were walking in 47 degrees of heat. Lesson learnt, don’t go to North African in August.

Having said all that, it was a really great place to spend our last couple of days before we flew back home for a brief stopover to check on family.