Napoleon’s hat

Once we got off the Tafraoute bus, we stood around waiting for our bags and I was icily rude to the tout who was asking me about what accommodation we were staying in (obviously planning to tell me it’s full/burnt down/infested with rats and take me to his cousin’s hotel).

Turns out he was actually the owner of the hotel we had booked and was just trying to figure out who his guests were.

Times we’ve thought we’re being scammed: 7
Times we’ve actually been scammed: 1

The hotel was quite pleasant and had the trifecta of bathroom comfort – no mould, a door on the toilet AND hot water. I feel like Josh left out a vital part of the private Marrakesh apartment story when he didn’t post a picture of the bathroom there. Here it is:

Ironically, that bathroom technically had the trifecta of bathroom comfort, although I didn’t hang around in there long enough to inspect for mould.

Anyway, we headed off on foot the next morning to explore the beautiful rocky landscape around Tafraoute. We climbed around on some huge rocks, enjoying it just being us for miles, with the only sounds from some goats and the lunchtime call to prayer from the nearby village.

(the huge rock we climbed is called Napoleon’s hat and is visible for hundreds of kms around… It had some truly spectacular views of the countryside – josh.)

The Lonely Planet was a little bit optimistic about the options for public transport out of Tafraoute….in reality, there really aren’t any.

Every other tourist seemed to be zooming past in a rental car….Josh was only allowed a quota of 17 “I wish we’d hired a rental car” comments per day. Our options were catching the bus all the way back to Agadir then a bus to Ouarzazate (not appealing), or paying a taxi driver to take us the five hours from Tafraoute to Ouarzazate ( also not appealing, assuming we could even find one prepared to do it).

We ended up finding a guy offering a three day 4WD trip to Ouarzazate, going via some awesome places that we really wanted to see. He was literally the only guy in town who could get us where we needed to go and it was a good price, thanks entirely to the Polish couple also on the trip, whose bargaining skills are far better than ours…

They had spent two solid days bargaining with him and got the price down to only twice what it would cost us to take the buses ($200 Aud per person for 2 days and 3 nights, dinner, breakfast and accommodation included), so that’s what we’re doing!