I slept well. The morning looked grey through the small window in the door, but after a while more in bed I see blue sky.

I return to the same café I'd dinner in the evening before for breakfast of crepes with honey, orange juice and coffee. Sitting outside I've my warm top on as it is cold this early and I remain seated using the wi-fi until nine when it is time to be moving.

It remains cool as I ride out of town with sharp blue sky and the fragrance of pine from plots of forest between plots of pasture. Approaching the next town, Azrou after fifteen kilometres, the road descends to a triangular tee, where I veer left following arrows for Midelt and Ar rachidia. My road changing from N8 to N13 and going up a steep forest flanked incline to the left.

Soon it is too warm as I climb and I stop to take off the top. Further up ahead a dog starts barking. The dog remains put under a tree at the roadside baring teeth and looking crossly at me as I ride pass, but starts off two bigger brutes further up the road. Then before reaching the barking dogs ahead, a quiet dog rises to its feet just ahead. Wait that's no dog as it walks on all fours like a human. A monkey. The monkey stops and sits upright among the trees looking out at me. I've the camera out and am just turning it on, when an old Mercedes come round a bend below, rattling up the road and the monkey takes flight.

Though all is not lost as a little way on there's vehicle parking at a visitor centre and whole families of monkeys. I get a close-up photo of a female nibbling on bread left by tourists.

Over the hill the forests recedes as the road drops down to high desert. The landscape is ochre except for a thin long green stripe against a wall of low tabular hills of the same ochre hew, approaching which the greenery spreads in width to long stands of trees sheltering fruit orchards watered by a river and shortly I see the beginning of a small town. Timandte on the map. I'm looking forward to stopping here for lunch.

There's no shortage of eating-places along the main thoroughfare. Though some don't look too professional being little more than a place cutting up a carcass and grilling the pieces on a half oil drum fire. I wait until I come to a place with neat wicker woven seating and neatly dressed staff. Dinner is beef targine, a meat stew containing big tender chunks of potatoes and carrots slowly cooked in its own juices in a conical crockery pot. This one is delicious, costing 30 DH, in comparison to the bland targines I had back in Fes costing 40 DH,.

The way ahead after lunch follows the same river, which is small and slow flowing, up a narrow canyon with chocolate brown screed slope up to rock escarpment on the opposite bank. Then rises up out upon another high desert plain with a long straight road ahead. The kind of road I like if it weren't for the number of trucks.

They come from behind like runaway waggons on steroids. They don't believe in slowing when there's a hazard ahead like a cyclist such as me. They're so ancient that they perhaps don't have brakes. You hear them coming from behind well in advance. Then they manically sound the horn. I remain put riding close to the edge of the road, so comes another manic sounding of the horn. Where exactly are they expecting me to ride. Off the edge is a shoulder of rough and often loose chippings. These drivers are probable thinking, what a bicycle on the road and usually bicycles wobble about and are ridden by people that are half asleep not knowing they are on the road. Sound that horn again and waken him up in case he wobbles out in the road in my path.

Most are just taking the precaution that I know they are coming as they swing out and give me a wide berth. Except for one country-boy with a truck overloaded with straw bales that didn't pull out and supposedly took delight in draughting me sideway onto the gravel where the wheels skid and I almost come off, but regain balance and shout fuckwit after the truck to the bemusement of occupants of cars following along behind.

Around five I'm passing through a ramshackle town and stop for a cold coke while keeping an eye on the bike as curious boys gather to look at it.

Ahead the countryside is as usual not looking safe to camp, but I pass a sign Camping 12 Km, so head for there.

With stout wall exterior the whole way round, the campsite is like a castle in the desert with irrigated green interior. Trees demarcate each grassy tent space. The cost when I inquire at reception is 40 DH. There's also a hotel and a restaurant where I eat later. The other guests are a school group and their teachers from Denmark.