We arrived in Sefrou late due to a slight over heating of the van, and some dodgy navigating through the back streets of the run down outskirts of Fez. Loren and Marta joined us a while later having bussed it down from Chaouen. Christmas Eve went without notice and by this stage we had got the knack of Moroccan firewood so we sat round watching the orange glow of houses on the hills in front of us and the immensity of the sparkling African night sky.

Christmas Day was greeted with a few exchanges of 'Happy Christmas' a couple of extra big joints and that was it as far as the seasonal celebrations went. We set off mid morning, heading for the cedar forests and expectant of a glimpse of the Barbary apes (not knowing the only monkeys we would see that year would be chewing our shoelaces next to the road side stalls selling souvenirs). Late in the afternoon we clambered around slippery rocks to get a view of waterfalls and a few dirhams lighter we aimed for the forests. We pulled over for the night by a lake high up in the mountains. Not a soul for miles and the biggest sky of the trip all around us. A lot of firewood was required at this altitude so we set about collecting fallen branches and any other dead wood we could hack at with the axe. That night was cold, very cold and after Marcel had to get up in the middle of the night to wave the axe at a car pulling up near us, we thought it time to crawl up in a ball together in the middle of the tent and fart our way through the night in an attempt to keep warm.

The morning was a very crisp one, a mist rose as the sun reflected off the ice formed on the outside of everything, including the tent. The air was still and after a few smokes and stoking the fire I grabbed the binoculars and camera and went off looking for wildlife. I didn't really see anything, quite possibly due to the others blasting Spanish 70s punk rock at full volume into the valley, but the feeling of walking through an ancient cedar forest on a clear winter morning is reward in itself.

After a few pleasant chats with the passing locals on their way to work in the middle of absolutely nowhere, we established that the car the night before was probably people from Khenifra, who came up to the lake in order to smoke hash and drink alcohol, something they would have difficulty doing in town with any freedom.

We moved the van into the sun and lazed around watching the people and animals coming down to the lake in the warm mid morning sun, the almost perfect reflections of the sides of the valley mirrored in the still water, the women loading donkeys up with plastic containers of all sizes and shapes, children leading the sheep and goats down to the waterside to drink for the day.

Waterfalls near Khenifra, Middle Atlas mountains

The rest of the day was spent in the van up and down small Middle Atlas roads, roads that didn't exist on the map, roads that required vehicles to pull right over if confronted by oncoming traffic, sheer drops of hundreds of metres and an overheated car with Moroccans laying resignedly next to it in wait of the several cars that would pass that day carrying water. The sun was setting and we were nowhere near where we intended to be that night, not a campsite for miles and not wanting to drive along the precarious roads in the dark we checked into a hotel and basked in warm showers and bed sheets.

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