Tea was finished off and a tour of Tamanart was undertaken which was fun as nobody spoke english but they insisted in explaining everything anyway. I picked up a few words of either Arabic or Berber, never quite figuring out which language they were telling me about.

Tamanart and it's surrounding villages was an interesting little place. People here were often of a much darker complexion and it seemed very conservative. Clothing was also much more conservative and 'traditional'.

Leaving Tamanart I blasted along the asphalt and through a few police checkpoints ("Passport please...") to the town of Assa. Assa is very much in the desert, whereas Tamanart was the last town on the edge of the Anti Atlas mountains, so the contrast is striking at times.

This great moment from my email list happened on the way to Assa:

"I'm not sure why, but a lot of my music sounds much better in the desert.
I went for a drive the other day and turned on the stereo without any real idea of what was going to come on as it had been a while since I had filled up the 6 disc unit. Bash! Crash! bang! "If you want to gamble babe, I tell you I'm the man, win some, lose some its all the same to me....." wa wa wa waa.....

Ah excellent. A bit of Motorhead.

The sun was blazing down, the road emptier than tony blair's fan club and
Lemmy, Motorheads crusty old singer was telling me he is going to "Love you like a Reptile! Wait till I get my fangs in you!". What more could you ask for? Well, how about a snake shooting off the side of a road just as Lemmy sings "Reptile!".

A great little heavy metal moment."

Assa is not untypical of many places in southern morocco. An older part of town with a large palmary, and a newer French built part of town. In this case the French built part consists of an abnormally long road, dead straight with a nice red footpath on either side.