We continued traveling south east through the Anti Atlas mountains towards the Sahara Desert, stopping for a day or two at Ouarzazate where we planned to restock our booze cupboard at Carrefour’s supermarket before the 2nd April when Ramadan began. It was the last day of March when we got to the supermarket and discovered that the alcohol department was already firmly closed and locked – no alcohol available. We visited another liquor store in town and found that too was closed and shuttered. I am a tough old bird but I felt my bottom lip quiver – not so much because we were running out of beer and wine but more because we were prevented doing what we expected to do – much in the same way that we were prevented from leaving Morocco when we planned to. It gave us a feeling of not quite being in control and that was very unsettling.
We had a beautiful drive along Draa Valley to Zagora where we settled at Palmeraie D’Amezrou. We had been to the camp site at Zagora the previous November when the owner, Himi, had several other campers staying – now we were his only guests. As ever, we had a very warm welcome and later Himi produced supper of lamb cutlets cooked on a wood fire, served with bread and salad. Better still he managed to procure a case of rose wine for us! The weather was hot, too hot at 30° so we spent our days sitting in the shade reading and enjoying a chilled glass of rosé wine as the sun went down.
