05 April Kasbah Defat Tamdaght

We left Sahara Sky this morning. Such luxury, I could have stayed there.
We drove back through Zagora and on to Agdz. It was good to see the Draa Oasis and Valley. Last time was through double speed wind screen wipers. We saw evidence of the flooding back along the road, sand lying in dips.
It is a picturesque route, kasbahs beside the road and so many villages of basic mud brick dwellings, women with donkeys laden with animal feed, the odd camel.
We by passed Ouzazarte and headed straight on to Ait Benhaddou and beyond. We had read so much about Ait Benhaddou as the venue for lots of films, going back to Orson Welles 'Sodom and Gomorrah' and on to 'Gladiator' taking in 'Jesus of Nazareth' on the way. Sure enough it was heaving with tour buses and we crove straight through to book into a quirky place on the way to the village of Tamdaght.
We tried to take a path beside the river from the hotel/kasbah to the village but had to turn back as the river was so full after the recent rains that the water covered the path. We picked up the car and drove further up the mountain to the village where we were amazed to see an abundance of large almond trees growing in the valley. Unfortunately we are a couple of weeks too late for the blossom, the nuys have already set. We made the required visit back down the road to Ait Benhaddou, there weren't too many tour buses. It's a bit like a Disney Theme Park, I looked around but didn't see Robert Powell dragging his cross, or Russell Crowe brandishing his sword.
So back to our Kasbah, where we have wifi! Tomorrow onward and upward to the Valley of the Roses on the way to the Todra Gorge.
Additional Notes:
We have found the Police here to be very good. We are not sure if it's our car number, different to everyone else's and obviously a hire car, but we get waved through at every police stop, with a nod and a wave. On the odd occasion when we have been asked to stop they have been courteous, kind and helpful. We are aware that our number plate is very different, we are not sure if it is exclusive to Europcar, we have seen other hire cars with Moroccan plates ( maybe local car hire). We don't know if they get the same treatment.
As we climbed up towards Ouzazarte we caught our first glimpse of the High Atlas mountains, snow capped and glistening in the sunshine.
It's quite cold up here tonight, we are at about 1500 metres, but it has been very hot in the sun today. After the stormy weather of the last few days maybe summer is on the way.