We had one more day in Marrakech before we started the Great 2005 Italio-Australian Moroccan Tour. We spent the first half of the day with Mark and Mark, checking out some tombs. Here we encountered the first of many tour groups, showing a great deal of disrespect to the vast majority of the graves, some virtually setting up picnics on them. Others were more interested in the vast number of feral cats lying around the place.

Mark and Mark regaled us with stories of Club Med, where they had ended up the night before. Apparently they had to surrender their passports at the door if they wanted to come in, thus proving what we have all suspected, that Club Med really is another country. As Swiss Mark puts it, how to travel without having any cultural contact with the country you are in.

In the afternoon,we met up with the Italians to sort out the car, and to say goodbye to our American hippy friends who, it turns out, were leaving that day for a mini version of our tour. They had even less time than us, so they were hiring both car and driver to take them out East to the desert, then North of Fez and back to Tangier. We sincerely wished them well, hoping that this driver wasn't like the first one we encountered.

We then managed the first of many Frangloitalish conversations with the Italians and the car hire guy, who ended up doing a bit of translating for us. This was going to prove to be a feature of our week... Moroccans, we soon discovered, have a great aptitude for gringo languages, and could usually understand everything said in all languages (at least, when it suited their purposes to do so). But fortunately, the Italian's version of not speaking English was vastly different to our not speaking Italian, and it actually turned out that they (well, Vanessa at least) could understand and speak a bit.

After sorting out the car, we decided to spend the afternoon together and tried to find one of the old imperial summer palaces. Nato and Kato lead the expedition and promptly get us all lost, probably making the Italians wonder what they were getting involved with. We finally found the Palace and wandered around it's beautifully ornate interior for awhile. We then went back to the hotel in time for Kato and Vanessa to have a quick hammam before dinner. Nato and Vito declined, on the basis that they didn't yet know each other well enough to be bathing together.

We then met up with Mark and Mark again and headed off to the square for dinner.

The square (Place Djemaa el-Fna) as we have mentioned, is the centre of Marrakech life, and during the day is a very lively place to be. At night though, it really comes alive, with all manner of entertainers doing their thing, a vast array of food stalls selling their wares and the constant beat of various drums. The guide book calls it one of the wonders of the world and they are not wrong...

We plunged into the depths of the food stalls and were quickly met by hawkers convincing us to come and eat with them, all in French, English and Italian, switching between the two with ease. They were very good natured hawkers though and generally let us get away without too much fuss. Eventually we settled for one and had an excellent meal (no tajine).

We then set off for somewhere to have coffee but came across place after place that was, as American Mark put it, 'full of dudes', which of course was no problem for the dudes of our party, but not particularly comfortable for Kato and Vanessa (though we were to encounter many of these 'Dude Ranches' with a much more 'dudey' atmosphere than in Marrakech).

And so, it was back to the gringo bar, this time just for coffee, and to say farewell to the Marks.....