South from Midelt takes you down through the Gorges du Ziz and the Tunnel du Legionnaire. As it was still lashing with rain I didn't stop for any pic's, but did explore a small road up into the mountains during a brief break in the rain. Definitely an area best to explore during summer?

Er Rachidia sits at the bottom of the High Atlas on a major road junction. Quite a large city it isn't of great interest to many tourists, or so every guidebooks says. As it was I would have quite a lot to do with Er Rachidia during my stay in Morocco.

I initially blasted through heading 30km south to the campsite at Source Bleu de Meski. It has a nice setting but far too many souvenir shops onsite which makes for a slightly annoying experience when you first arrive. I find it easy enough to make it clear that I will not be buying anything, but when you are paying to stay somewhere it is annoying to have to deal with carpet salesmen sticking their heads into your landy offering 'a very good price for you'.

As I still had a tank of duty free fuel sitting in the back of the landy that I couldn't use because of the leaky fuel switch I decided that Er Rachidia might be the best place to sort it out as it would be the last big town for a while.

After buying some fruit and veg in the market I asked one of the friendly veggie sellers where I could find a mechanic for a landy. He helpfully sent his son with me to find a suitable place. Initially all went quite well. They were a small crew working on the side of the road who were friendly and only asked for a slightly inflated price which was fine. Sadly they couldn't quite fix the leak despite their best efforts.

As a very white foreigner with a very green land rover you tend to attract attention if your in a situation where you need some help and will have to pay for it. It is a sad blight on the average Moroccan that some of the attention you will attract will be super friendly. Super friendly with the goal of extracting large sums of money from you.

And so began my introduction to the Evil Abdul (as he shall hence forth be known) Greedy Valencia Mustafa and the rip off landy mechanic of Er Rachidia.

As the first helpful bunch of mechanics couldn't fix the leak some of the small crowd that had gathered to watch came forward and spoke quite good english with me. They said there was another mechanic on the edge of town who specialised in landies and that he would be able to fix the leak.

Feeling slightly uneasy about my new friends we went down to the landy mechanic. He claimed he could fix it, but would have to do it tonight as the King was going to be in town the next day and he could not work then.

He seemed trustworthy enough and I agreed to let him sort it out. One of the bunch of guys was called Mustafa and he lived in Valencia in Spain and was home visiting his family during Ramadan which is a very popular time for expats to return home. I agreed to stay with his family as he seemed nice enough and a bit more trusty worthy than the others.

His family was very nice and I was very well looked after with nice food and I had a good sleep.

The fun started the next day when we returned to the mechanic. He claimed to have swapped the leaking switch for another one, but could not produce the old switch to prove this, plus the one fitted looked just the same. Certainly it wasn't leaking externally anymore (but it leaked internally between the two tanks I later found out!) but this combined with the fact he refused to give me a quote the price the night before (always get a quote!) made me realise that this was a bit of a setup.

The guys had obviously spoken and agreed to overcharge me with them all pocketing a portion. So the fun began in the small little office of the mechanic's. 1800 dirhams was the first price, quickly dropped to 1500 (150 euros) but still about 6-8 times more than a fair price.

Luckily not being in a hurry I stood my ground and they all had a go at working me over to see if I would cough up. After politely refusing their prices for about 2 hours I said I would pay 250 (more than what is was worth) and no more.

This caused a (faked) uproar with wild hand gestures and loud Arabic flying around the room. In the end I they took that price and I even suggested they pose for a few photos which they did so they can't have been too unhappy.

One of the quiet ones in the group was named Abdul. He had quickly made it known that he lived in Merzouga and would like a ride down there with me (tip; never say where you are going!). Feeling a bit worn down by the whole process I rather stupidly agreed, but quickly realised it wasn't going to be so bad after all.

I didn't fell in any danger and felt able to take care of the situation. I thought I may as well give in once to a tourist hustler to see what he would try on as it is certainly part of the Morocco experience for many. And if I was to make a documentary about the place I should have a good understanding of all Moroccans. All very De Niro of me.