Ouarzazate

Last night we spent the night in Ouarzazate. Wazazeet is how it seems to be pronounced. It was uninspiring. We drove today through the mountains to Marrakech. It was probably the most scenic bit of our tour yet. There were loads of red rock like everywhere else we'd been but there was also snow. The trees also returned on the Marrakech side of the mountains making the landscape look like the Moroccan flag. Marrakech so far has been what was expected, although there was a lot less hassling than Fes. This could be because of the large increase in the volume of tourists. We also found that the prices for stuff is cheaper, therefor we felt like we got taken on some of our earlier purchases. Tomorrow we do a little guided tour of the city and try our best to not get every dirham wrung from us! Truthfully, Spain was just as cheap as Morocco, probably cheaper simply for the fact that every man, woman and child is trying to get some coin. Hotels are only a little cheaper in Morocco but meals are still around 10€/$13Cdn. Even in the more remote areas it was this much. The comparison to say Nepal is that if you wanted a meal on the trail, the most you would pay would be 210npr/$3Cdn. In the tourist area of Kathmandu the absolute most I spent on a meal and juice was 700npr or $10Cdn. You could easily find a nice little guesthouse for $10/night and the hotels in the tourist area were $35/night. Here it is more like $50/night. I'm not saying its a bad thing, as it is pretty neat and there are loads of interesting things to buy at the souks. The desert is pretty nice too.