Yasmine at the Marrakech end met us at our riad at midnight on a Thursday because that was when we landed, and she had brought soup. The next morning's tagine class was held in the kitchen of a woman who has cooked the same six dishes for forty years. The desert was the desert, but the country before the desert is the thing we will go back for.

Fes was the trip. I had been told Marrakech was the country; it isn't. Fes is the country, and Tibro put us into a riad in the medina with a hostess who took us through the tannery on day two with a face cloth and a story about her grandfather. We added Essaouira at the end because Tibro suggested it for the breeze, and it was the right call.

We are not trekkers. Tibro put us into the Atlas anyway, but routed it so we walked for four hours a day and arrived each evening at a village house with hot showers and a goat curry. Imlil was the hardest day, and the best one. We came back to a riad in Marrakech and slept for fourteen hours.