After the festival was over, we headed back to Ouarzazate, rented a car, bumped into Landon and his friend Heidi and all drove to the edge of civilization to a place called Erfoud, from which we could make a trip out to the dunes of the Sahara.

Our drive went through some amazing desert and we passed the occasional village, stealthily tucked into the hills.

Stopping near the villages turned out to be a bad idea because a pack of kids immediately swarmed around the car and started begging for stuff. Before we left, I gave one of the kids my last Yoga Bob, which she gripped firmly in her hand and refused to show to any of her friends. Hopefully he eventually had the chance to bring joy to more than just one of the kids in the village.

Due probably to the lack of wood, the telephone poles were all made of concrete. They don't tell you that in the guide books, eh?

The rest of the trip involved more boxy Moroccan desert architecture.

And more Mars-like scenery.

We arrived in Erfoud and had the tastiest dinner of the entire trip. I had something called Kalia which was some sort of specialty at the restaurant and not necessarily even a traditional Moroccan dish. I didn't much care because it was dang good. Where does the cat come into all of this, you might be thinking? Well, he was not for dinner, he was hanging around dinner. The whole country is overrun by cats which we had already discovered in our short time in Marrakesh. Apparently Mohammed said that cats were the one holy animal and should be looked after, so all of Morocco is tolerant of the little feline scavengers. They seem to turn up around every corner and can be extremely persistent. This one sat next to me and tapped me on the knee about fifty times despite my steadfast refusal to give the little bastard anything to eat.

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