Our adventure – booked through Ultimate Adventures – began in Marrakesh with the handover of a mixed bag of 4x4’s from the rental agency. Andy and Sonja Johnstone joined Michael Barton and I in a Land Cruiser Prado, with Russell and Joanie Tarr in a Jeep Cherokee. Sander and Stienie Silva were given a Volkswagen Touareg, and Vicky Johnstone and Richard Hayman travelled in a Fiat Fullback double cab. This marked the moment we all learned what we dubbed the ‘Arabic Shuffle’ – wrong car door, erroneous seatbelt-grab, empty handbrake snatch – before setting off in our left-hand drive vehicles on the right-hand side of the road.
Our guide, Khalid, threw us straight into the deep end as we exited the Lé Meridien N’Fis hotel into a roundabout on the main road. From there, we all negotiated the roads remarkably well, scaling the impressive Tizi n‘ Tichkan Pass through the mountains towards lunch in the little village of Telouet, home to19th century (Thami El Glaoui was the Pasha of Marrakesh from 1912 to 1956), and the lavish kasbah was constructed in 1860.
