The tour started early (by travellers standards) when we met the Italians at their hotel for breakfast and coffee at 8am. Vito got through about 5 cigarettes waiting for the guy to show up with the car, which means they guy was about 10 minutes late. Coffee and cigarettes, as we soon discovered, were very near and dear to Vito's heart, his appetite for coffee even outdoing that of Tegan in Italy, which is saying something. And as for the cigarettes... we were later to find out that he has a ritual one every morning at 4.30am.. truly a champion Jonny!

But for now we were on the road, heading out of Marrakech. Our first stop was the Ouzoud Waterfall (Ouzoud is Berber for Olives) about 160kms North East of Marrakech. However we hadn't driven more than 50kms when it looked like our trip was in trouble.. we were stopped by police on the road side. Turns out Vanessa and Vito didn't have seatbelts on. Nor did we, but that didn't seem to bother the police..

The occasion quickly turned into a cheerful one though, when the policeman, realising that we were tourists, asked the Italians (in French) where they were from. They told him they were from Torino, where it turns out he had a great deal of friends, family, and a brother with a restaurant. He then insisted that we join him for some tea. All of this was lost on Nato, who was looking a little worried as the policeman motioned us to get out of the car. We quickly reassured him that it was just for tea and he quickly relaxed.

Tea (or coffee in Vito's case) finished, we were again on our way with the name of a hotel in Erfoud (the policeman's sister's) and a phone number (his) to call in case we got into any trouble. So far the weather had been less than accommodating, with the rain drizzling down. We were in the car however so weren't much bothered. When we finally got to the waterfalls, however, it has turned into a definite downfall, so we decided to get something to eat. The only cafe in town had only one thing on the menu (tajine, of course) and only one dish of it, but we settled for it anyway with plenty of bread to go with it. While we ate, the sun came out briefly, but was well and truly gone again by the time we got out and headed down. So we had a very wet walk down to the waterfalls, accompanied by our first of many new guides.

Now the technique of the Moroccan hawkers had to be admired (by hawker connissiers like ourselves....). Rather than coming out with what they wanted to sell, or just offering their services right away, they would walk along beside you for awhile, start some general conversation, ask you where you were from, point out a few points of interest (often not much more than 'Waterfalls, down there.... shops too.... and over there some hills), then casually offer you their wares / guidance / sister for 1000 camels, whatever it was they wanted you to buy. This slow and steady technique, coupled with their natural aptitude for languages, made it very difficult to ascertain what they wanted and harder to rid ourselves of them. The advantage that we had was that we were speaking to each other mostly in Spanish, so the hawkers immediately assumed we were. When they discovered that we were Italians/Australians, and that only two of them understood any French (I was keeping quiet in the pack), it made them difficult to hit us all in the one hawk. Usually they would hit Vito and Vanessa first, and when they got nowhere with them in French/Italian, give us a go in English. But thus divided, they seemed to lose some of their hawking power and most of them gave up.

So after accompanying us down to the falls and back, it became clear to this guy that he wasn't going to sell anything. It also became clear to us that the rain wasn't going to stop, so we hopped back in the car and decided to get as far as we could in this weather. This turned out to be the bustling mecca of Beni Mellal.... but not before we discovered a few more waterfalls, these ones inconveniently over what was supposed to be the road.

We found Beni Mellal ok, but had a little more trouble finding the hotel (which none of the locals had ever heard of, on a street none of the locals had ever heard of). We then headed into town for dinner and found nothing but dude ranches. Judging by the reaction of the dudes, not many of them had seen women out at this time before (it was 8.30pm) and certainly not gringo women. We finally found a place serving food, and all the dudes looked up as we walked in (from what looked like some kind of Eurovision contest that was on TV... maybe an Afrovision Song Contest?). We were quickly ushered out through the cafe, up the stairs, into a back lane and finally into a little restaurant which we had all to ourselves. The food turned out to be good (despite the tajine) and very cheap, and we celebrated over our mineral water to a successful first day...