I started down the rocky descent to Askaoun and crossed the dodgy looking concrete bridge. I then picked up a passenger, a shepherd making his way down, and he was good enough to rebuild the piste in front of me as I drove down it. I had a look down the road south of Askaoun and found what would have been a great camp site . It off a bend in the road, but as the road's a quiet one it would be OK. Turning round, I headed north up the Aquim piste. Route finding is a little tricky through some of the villages, but if you just keep going higher you go the right way. At the top there is a magnificent view of Toubkal. It's even better when you take a walk over to the ridge west of the piste. The drop off is very dramatic, being countless hairpins more or less straight down. At the bottom I turned back south along the parallel piste aiming for Aoulouz. I camped by the side of the road that night as it's very little used and very peaceful.

Into Aoulouz next morning it was market day, so very busy and a bit chaotic for the re-supply. Next it was over the Test heading back north. I thought I would drive up the piste from Ijoukak to see if I could camp. It's very tight and very exposed and was the end of a long day, so was bit hard on the nerves. Having to do a three point turn to get round a hairpin involving reversing a van backwards towards a 100m drop was the highlight. However, it was worth it as I found a great camp site at the top. Although at 2100m, it was a comfortable night.

Next morning was nice and warm so I delayed the drive back down as long as possible. As it turned out the descent was OK. I then turned back up the main road to Marrakech expecting to be there in no time as it's only 100km or so. There must be more bends per km on this road than any other in the country and lots of slow lorries so it took nearly three hours. Once in the town it was simply a matter of getting to "our" hotel which can be seen from the road in, but streets were closed and it took a bit of back street driving to get there. After all that it was full, so off through rush hour evening traffic to find another one, and here we are.

Of course it was all to quick and I tried to do too much in the short time I had. Siroua was only picked because it was so relatively close to the airport, but it turned out to be a lucky choice, as the pistes are as interesting as the Atlas ones and feel more remote.

Pics and data in a week or so when I get back home