Slept really well in the tent despite being woken at, I assume, about 4.00am by a group of young people talking noisily as they were walking past camp. At 5.15 the call to prayer echoed around the valley, followed by a reminder a few minutes later. Despite the interruptions I felt I had slept really well by the time I finally woke up at 6.30am.
Following a breakfast of very thick porridge, bread and various spreads, we set out walking at 8.30am. up the valley on a wide track. This later became a river bed. The going was easy and very little guiding was needed as obstacles we few and far between. The ascent was gradual throughout the day. At one point I climbed above the river to film the group. Having done so, I put my camera away as a fox ran past me in an arc about 15m from me. By the time I had got the camera out, remembered to turn it on, it had almost gone. I got one blurred shot. Lunch was in a leafy glade by a river on the edge of a village. Naturally we proved interesting to some of the village children, who had just come out of school, and who sat watching us from an elevated position.
In the afternoon we had only about an hour and a half before we reached camp. It had been sunny all day but there had been a cool breeze. By the time we arrived at camp the clouds had filled the sky and it began to look threatening. Without the sun the cool breeze became decidedly cold. This was not what we were expecting of Morocco; it is significantly colder than any previous visit I have made.
During the walk in the afternoon Rhiannon lost Humph. In camp her lack of care was highlighted and as a forfeit she was given the task of learning to count from 1 – 10 in Berber.
Ben developed sickness and diarrhoea after lunch. By the evening he was no better so I put him on a course of cypro.