To Mauritania

Time to move again. Today I board a Supratours bus bound for Dakhla, a mere 25 hours from Marrakesh and into the land of no return of Western Sahara. Dakhla's as far as I can get on public transport and from there I'll try to hitch a lift with someone heading in the same direction south to Nouadhibou, my first point of entry into Mauritania. Dakhla is deep into the disputed territory of Western Sahara and as such there'll be many roadblocks along the way - whether this is to tighten security or to offer the guards who patrol these roadblocks ample opportunities to ask for bribes is open to debate. We'll see.
Marrakesh has been a fantastic base though. Walked around Djemaa El Fna (I've never seen two consecutively similar spellings of the place even here in Morocco) one last time last night and it occurred to me that this rowdy square with its vertically challenged violin players, open to all boxing bouts, freakish Berber storytellers and their dancing shemale assistants, chaotic Moroccan music ensembles, philosophical debates, snake charmers and a whole lot else besides - it's like you picked the weirdest characters from a David Lynch movie and let them run free. Quite the most wonderful place.
I've loaded my mp3 player with podcasts and, ahem, helped myself to some new albums - Elbow, Edwyn Collins, Low, PJ Harvey and Mogwai to help me while away the endless day that lies ahead. All good though.