I wake up in my beautiful location after a freezing night. I realise I have repeated a mistake that I will pay for, that is to take a summer sleeping bag to Morocco, into winter, and into the Atlas.

  But the sun has come out and is defrosting me. I continue along my way via Tassemsit to Demnate. As I come into one of the small towns I make the only questionable experience in all my time in Morocco.

It is the time of the Eidal-Adha, or festival of sacrifice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha). In short every family slays an animal as a sacrifice to honour the prophet Ibrahim. It is clearly also celebrated in a style we would call carnival. The lot in the video were not to friendly looking, and neither was their behaviour clear and engaging. So I decide to move on. As they are trying to hold onto my handle bars, invisible on the video, is the kick one of them is getting from my right motorbike boot, steel toe caps an’ all. Studying the scene in slow-motion, you wonder why the guys that are not dressed up are running away as the attention shifts to me.

It was earnestly the  only time I felt potentially threatened in all my time as a lone traveller.

The route takes me through some very intense mountain passes, that have me loose traction and fall over a number of times – hard work on a 300kg bike – but I get rewarded with the most intense scenery and colours.

In the middle of no-where I meet this Polish family that are doing research for touristic routes in Morocco which they seem to be promoting. I help them with their tyre change, which supposedly is their 5th in even fewer days. Ask me which way I prefer to travel? No doubt, by bike.

  Having frozen like hell the night before and being at even higher altitude now, I opt for a night in a gite.