So then, Djemaa el Fna - the main square and market place of Marrakech, located in the medina. This is a miniature of a full 360-degree panorama I took from the middle of the square - the full version is here.

The square is full of pedestrians but is also used as a thoroughfare for traffic. However, there is no real distinct 'road' where traffic is supposed to go so it's basically one big free-for-all with cars and scooters and bicycles and pedestrians all fighting it out hahaha, bloody hell!

Some common sights throughout the square: water sellers in colourful costumes with traditional leather water-bags and brass cups, and arseholes with chained Barbary macaques. While the water sellers are somewhat entertaining, the pricks with the monkeys are really quite cruel in what they're doing. The Barbary macaque is endangered, and found only in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria and Morocco. Here they are used to earn a buck off the tourist by posing with a photo of one sitting on you, and they are very clearly pissed off by the whole thing. Note these shots were taken at a distance, as otherwise we would have been followed and had money demanded off us for doing so (good tip right there).

Horses and carriages lined up along the edge of the square for carting tourists around town, with Koutoubia Mosque in the background again.

So-called snake charmers are another common sight in the square complete with their drums and trumpets and other bullshit. And yes I did have to pay for this pose.

Behind the square lives this huge maze of markets known as the souk, the traditional North African markets which service both the common daily needs of the people of the city and the tourist trade. You can buy a myriad of crap in here, and much like the evening food-stalls, the owners all encourage you into their stall for a nosey. Haggling is the name of the game here - you can usually knock 50-75% off the original asking price if you're determined enough. Tricks such as threatening to walk out and declaring this is all you have left in your wallet all worked for us.

After a long morning of meandering and getting pestered by pushy fuckers wanting money off us, we chilled out in the sun before leaving on our first excursion...

Quad biking - hell yeah!

We were led along a 40-something kilometre route by a couple of guides which took us through several local villages and some pretty amazing scenery!

A lot of the local children, who must be bored out of their minds, all came out to wave at us as we hooned past.

On-road, off-road, uphill, downhill, smooth and rugged terrain - we covered it all.

Looking down over one of the many little traditional villages in the area.

We stopped up in the hills for a break, and Katie and I tried to have a moment but it didn't really work ;)

By this stage (about half-way) the guides had stopped the tour and told me off on three separate occasions: for deliberately crashing through huge puddles, blatantly drifting around corners, and spinning the ass of the bike out in a zig-zag along stretches of gravel road. Now here's the thing, I've done a lot of quad biking before - check out (for example) our antics in the Greek Islands when I had my Mum and brother over here last September. We screwed those little bastards something wicked and it was awesome, but here we weren't allowed to do any of that :( The problem was though that these bikes were grunty - far gruntier than anything we had in the Greek Islands, I mean these things fucking motored along and I just couldn't resist having some fun on them! Eventually Katie started getting in on the act too, and the tour got stopped a further two times for her to get a telling off (below-right) hahaha!

Be that as it may, we still went for it whenever we thought we could get away with it - we didn't pay £60 quid for just a fucking tiki tour, we wanted some fun! After my third bollocking they gave up on telling me off and instead adjusted my throttle back so I couldn't get full power out of the beast. However, these bikes had so much pep in them that even that didn't work hehe. While stopped to take one of the photos further up of Katie going through yet another mud puddle, I got deliberately rear-ended by the arsehole behind me who had taken exception to me. Fair enough probably but nonetheless I wasn't too happy about that, and so as I went through the same mud puddle I locked up the front brake, held the (restricted) throttle wide-open, and sprayed the wanker in mud hahaha! And for that the inevitable happened, I had my bike confiscated, and had to hitch a ride with Katie to the next village while one of the guides went back to get my bike. There it is in the naughty-corner on the right hehe. We stopped here for some more mint tea with the villagers, after which our guides had no choice but to give my bike back because they had no other way of getting it home otherwise. At the end of the tour, one of them thumped me several times on my helmet with a rock in jest hahaha!

This was someone else's bike towards the end of the tour - pretty clean really...

...and these were our bikes, barely half-way thorough the tour and they were twice as bad at the end ;)

Incidentally check out the building walls in these villages - mud and hay!

After a long muddy shower we went out to a typical Moroccan restaurant for dinner. Cool decor huh!

There was a bit of random entertainment as well. This chick danced around the tables with candles on her head...

And we had a couple belly dancers come out and service the randy tourists (in front of their wives).

This was one of my courses, pigeon pie - nice!

Oh it's also the done thing in Morocco to pour the tea from as great a height was possible. There's no real point to it other than showing off. Katie the tea-addict also had a crack.

Addiction in motion ;)