Day 3 - Marrakech to Taroudant

Not an awful lot to say about today as it was basically a travel day. We left our Riad in Marrakech at 10am and had a long trip to Taroudant. I think it's meant to take about 4 hours but there were quite a few cars and lorries that we kept getting stuck behind. For a little while out of Marrakech the surroundings were mostly flat with the distant Atlas mountains to the East of us as a constant travel companion. Further on into the journey and we started to drive through more of a valley between hills and mountains and the scenery was a little more interesting. The earth ranged from a luscious yellow gold to a fiery red and you could even see snow capped peaks of distant mountains. Far more interesting! We could have played sheep, goat, dog for hours but instead spent most of the journey wondering where the shepherds must live as we couldn't see any buildings anywhere within sight. Lily did pretty well and fell asleep an hour into the journey. Our driver was just asking whether we wanted to stop when Lily opened her eyes-definitely lunch time! Sadly the restaurant only served beef tagine or beef and vegetable tagine. Apparently impossible to make only a vegetable tagine! I had a pringle sandwich whilst Jon had a laughing cow sandwich and some muffins. Lily had a little nibble and appears to prefer cake to bread. I think I forgot to mention that when the sun made a brief appearance yesterday, on our walk to the cyber park, Jon decided to have an ice cream which Lily also got to have a taster of. Second time for her having a little bit of ice cream and it definitely is a favourite!

The second half of the journey seemed a little bit too long. Lily was still a little tired and fought going back to sleep so was whinging a lot. My back was killing from leaning around the car seat to try and entertain/help her sleep. When we finally arrived in Taroudant it took a while to find the guesthouse as the driver had only been there once before and as this town isn't particularly touristy not many of the locals know where the guesthouse is either!! I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but as we were driving through town it didn't feel as though there was a lot around for us to look at. Mind you the reason we are here is mostly for the various excursions so we won't always be in the town anyway.

The street the guesthouse was on was a little bit sparse but when we got to our “suite” it was pretty cool. A nice main room with a large couch and ensuite bathroom and through the connecting door to Lily's room where she has two single beds, a cot, a couch and a fridge all to herself! We are going to see if she minds sharing the fridge. Latifa went through the options for the week and they just let us know each evening what we will be doing the following day. Tomorrow we have a free day so I imagine we will go for a little wander in the morning and then we are having a caleche ride around town at 4pm. Unfortunately it is probably a bit too cold to take Lily swimming but I think she will enjoy getting to have proper naps and lots of time to play! The evening meal was good we had couscous and vegetables with a sauce, plus salad and then fruit for dessert. We shared our evening meal with a mum and her son from England, who are leaving for the Desert tomorrow. Lily seemed a bit confused by our special travel high chair and was a little more at ease with what appears to be a slightly bigger version of the Lindam high chair we have at home. She wasn't too taken by the strawberries but seemed happy to munch on some apple. She is now in bed and once Jon finishes doing the bottles we will watch some more dollhouse before bed I imagine!!

P.S we are looking forward to trying out the Jellabas in our room, and wondering if anyone will make us a little one for Lily!