The bank didn't turn out to be that far away and a hotel was right next door. Kat had been saying how much she'd love to stay somewhere with a pool. This place turned out to be amazing. It’s called la gazelle hotel and was ironically in our ancient guide book so it’s been in business for a while.

After dumping our bags and had a splash around in the pool, Ben scaring the kids in his Speedos, we got ready to have a walk around the small town and find a place to eat. One place we looked in a guy stopped us and said he'd seen us at Marrakesh bus station that morning. He had come in a car and I asked why he didn't give us a lift. He seemed friendly though and told us of the places we should visit whilst in town.

The next day we headed out to do just that and started walking to the Kasbah. The map the hotel gave us was dated and not to scale so it seemed a lot further, especially as we kept being stopped by people along the way. One guy showed us in his shop and we were just sat talking to him as he showed us the shop items he gets from the desert to sell, we were interrupted as Kat’s mum called. We apologised and left. It was a great catch up and it made Kat sad to hear her mum say she missed her. After being cut off by sim 4 travel that change tariffs without informing their customers thus us being charged for the call and running out of credit, we continued walking only to be stopped again about 20yards up the road. The man's name was Abdul and besides running a shop and 4x4 and camel excursions to the desert, he told us that his family appeared in the BBC Michael Palin documentary about around the world in 80 days. Finally saying goodbye and getting his business card we headed further down the road, this time getting not much further when we were stopped for a third time! This time however the man asked if Kat would write a letter for him. We went into his tiny shop and he dictated whilst she wrote. His name was Mohammed and as a thank you he made us nana tea which is a sugary tea with mint leaves in, the tea is poured from a great height 3 times before serving to give it lots of air adding to the taste. We got talking and he invited us to one of his sister's weddings that were taking place in 2weeks in the desert. We had to decline due to getting to Mauritania before our transit visa expired, but were touched by the offer. It was when we were talking about life in the desert did we find out that the sister getting hitched was only 12years old! Kat's still in shock now just thinking about it.

Around the corner from the weird kissing girl we stumbled across 'le musee du cinema' Ben managed to persuade the ticket attendant that we were English students and that we left our student ID cards back home so we got in half price.

Recovering from our long afternoon in the sun with a slash in the pool a quick shower and little snooze we headed back out to the first shop we had entered because our time was cut short from the phone call and that Kat had seen an amazing golden compass made from brass for reading the stars to navigate through the Sahara desert, we had a price in mind and said we wouldn't go over it. Unfortunately we had extremely underestimated how much the compass was worth but we drank green tea infused in elk and talked for ages it seemed about life and foods. Hassan invited us to eat lunch with him and his family the following day, to see how a tagine is prepared to which we accepted.

The next day after packing our sacks up with all the clean clothes we had managed to wash and dry in the hotel room during our stay we left our bags at reception as our bus was due to leave a 9pm we heading to Hassan’s shop for lunch with his family, while the tagine was slow cooking Hassan showed us around the shop and all the pretty things his family bring from a town in the desert called m'hamid. M'hamid is where the river has been Dammed and is the last town south with a river, it's apparently a very important and religious town. Getting back to the sparkleys, Kat had seen a bangle that was beautiful and also a pendant Ben could see this tagine costing more than the bread and biscuits we had brought as a thank you for him. Having not nearly enough for the compass 200 euro's, Kat fell in love with the bangle, it was a real shame that although it was really beautiful Ben had pointed out some major flaws in the practicality of it. It was rather thin and would have just bent out of shape really easy in our luggage and Hassan had accidentally broken it when sizing it to Kat’s wrists.

One of the men said he would help us buy the tagine spices in the local market, we left the stall after saying our good byes and followed the man to the spices he was proud to show us them all and explained what most were and how the were used. We brought the head of shop spice which contains 45 different herbs and spices which are good for the heart, blood, and cancer amongst other things.

On our way back to collect our bags and to use the hotels toilet and courtyard to chill we past a westerner in a wheel chair with blue hair, Kat wasn't sure if it was the same boy Hassan had described but Ben pointed out how many blue haired wheel chair bound people could there be in Ouarzazate bearing in mind this is the only other westerner we had seen in the small town, so we approached him to say hello 'hablo anglais' and that Hassan said to pass on his regards if we saw him. After introducing ourselves, Albert explained how he has traveled the world from the age of 14 with no money and by showing card tricks to people for money to eat etc. We explained we were leaving to go to a place on the coast called tan-tan and he asked if he could join us. We think he thought we were driving, when we said the bus was 200dirhams each he said he would try to blag it some how 'buy two get one free' we arranged to meet up at 7pm which would give us 2hours to walk to the station and buy tickets.

Bad news the bus was full and we had been told the day before there was only one bus a day from Ouarzazate to Tan-Tan we found a place to sit and put our bags down. Not knowing what to do Ben went of to talk to the ticket touts, he found out there were two other busses one and 10.30 and one at 3am the bus at 10.30 had one change in Agadir and the 3am bus was direct. We didn't buy tickets because of Albert, we thought it best to ask the driver for the 3for2 deal, and we sat and waited in the depot for ages until the bus came. It was filling up quick as Kat and Albert went off to barter Albert free passage. by that time the bus was full, we decided as we couldn't miss the 3am bus to buy two tickets and try to get him on the last bus some how. After dinner Albert went to sleep under a tree and we watched his bag and played cards while we waited and waited. By 2.30 we were both really tired and the bus had started boarding Ben went to wake Albert, Kat stayed on bag duty. We spoke to the bus conductor and explained that we had only enough money for 2 tickets and that in the UK disabled people travel free of charge but this didn't work. Ben got on board to bagsie some seats while Kat and Albert tried to bend some ones arm. The bus started to leave and the conductor was now saying the bus was full and that Albert could not join us Kat came to sit in the reserved seats and the bus was half empty. We felt sorry for Albert but Ben said he had been travelling for 4 years sleeping rough and he should be ok, this made Kat feel slightly less guilty but still worried.

Our first night bus journey.... It left at 3am half empty and we sat on separate seats to sleep, but with frequent stops it filled up quickly we woke up with people trying to sit on our feet so Ben asked people to move so we were next to each other Kat against the window and Ben against some ones bottom the bus was packed and more people kept getting on. In the morning Kat let a little girl sit on her seat while Kat sat on Ben’s lap in the desert heat we think the girls mum saw Ben’s leg getting pin's and needles and told the girl to give the seat back. Kat then invited the girl’s younger sister to sit on her lap for part of the journey rather than on the cramped floor thus allowing her to sleep in between staring and laughing at Kat waving her fan. Kat noticed the girl’s hair had been tied up with bits of old string so Kat asked the girl’s mother if we could give them a hair tie each. The girls loved the present and one put hers in straight away. The journey in whole took just under 14 hours with one half hour stop but the views over the Atlas Mountains were spectacular.