Day 6 - Quiet morning in Dades Valley

After our rather full morning yesterday, most of the rest of the day was spent driving with occasional panoramic stops. The higlight if which was Toudra Valley and Gorge. The valley is essentially a picturesque oasis nestled between mountains, which eventually feed in to the gorge. Its beautiful, but the roads were treacherous - sometimes barely more than a single pitted lane up and down mountains. I'm really glad that we have an expert driver and a suv. We were originally meant to visit Dades Gorge aswell, but by the time we got to the area it was already getting dark so we went straight to our hotel and will visit the gorge first thing tomorrow.
Driving to our hotel from the main road made me glad again about having an suv - we actually had to cross a rocky stream to get here, though apparently there's a long route from another direction that normal cars can take. The hotel, la perle du Dades, is a stunning property. We have it all to ourselves at the moment - sadly the gorgeous pool I mentioned earlier is not heated and its too cold here at night ti consider swimming. Theres a library though, in addition to various other acrivities including pingpong, though we mainly repacked our bags and went through our suitcases and then headed off to bed early to catch up on our sleep. With the desert camping and early wakeup it was a long day. Oh, except or using the inroom sound system. Theres an interesting selection of CDs - mom is listening to Cat Stevens.
Our room is massive with Barbara sleeping in a separate loft, and with two bathrooms. I don't know if rooms in Morocco are always this nice, or we've been upgraded because it's the off season. Anyways, we're heading to breakfast now in the hotel dinning room, which is bound to he delicious if it's anything like dinner yesterday will be fantastic. There was a yummy quiche, then veggies and steak, and then dessert was melon balls - which sound plain, but were in this yummy honey sauce, apparently scented with rose water that this region is known for. Seeing roses are one of the many stops on the itinerary today, as we wander towards Marrakech. Hopefully our hotel has wifi, as we'll be there for three nights, after which we leave Morocco for our two nights in Paris enroute to Toronto.