Last weekend was the Gibraltar Music Festival. bands from across the generations were playing; Supertramp; Spandau Ballet from mine and Rita Ora and The Script from today's along with a bunch of other has beens and wannabes.

Unfortunately they were playing on three different stages and all stages at once. We were where the sounds collided so all we heard was a mush of raucous noise.

However, when we walked up the alley when the main stage was changing over we got Supertramp live and bits of Spandau Ballet.

Anyway, we should have been out of Gib by now....or then. However, fixing the Duogen (again) was a must do and the wind was not quite right.

The plan was, and remains, to use the Nortada, the summer northerly from the Azores High to take us south to Rabat from where we planned to tour Morocco. However, once again the Azores High seems more like an expression of welcome rather than a wind pattern.

Last weekend the forecast was for a week of light to stronger headwinds from the south so, rather than hang in Gibraltar for another week we have cheated and jumped on a Morocco tour and we are currently lying on recliners beside the pool of the 5* albatross hotel in Fes.

It was a fascinating drive here (in the air conditioned tour coach) through he d villages and rolling, extremely fertile rolling hills. From the sea to Fes we drove through farmlands freshly harvested for the livestocks winter feed.

The shepherds' "tended their flocks" (presumably also by night) and seem to spend their days keeping an eye on their animals to stop them mixing with the neighbours flock and/or falling victim to predators, perhaps both human and animal.

Up in these middle Atlas Mountains the Berber tribes are the dominant people managing their farm and animals. Their villages, perched on the hillsides are similar to Spains white villages just they're not white and litter, rubbish,and abandoned vehicles are everywhere.

We arrived in Fes about 9pm into the oasis that was our 5 star hotel. Friends had recommended a night in the Berber village. Having seen a couple, call me soft but I was grateful for the air con, restaurant double bed and bath.

We toured the Fes souk this morning and had the usual carpet, bags, leather and linen pitch. All quite interesting yet mildly tedious! The souk, was real life shopping for the residents in the housing area where water is gathered in bottles and carried back to the house... up a 100 metre slope. The house that seems to cling to the torn down hillside existing in defiance of gravity. Where chickens clucking in their cages probably are not going to have that great an afternoon and cats and their offspring clean up in the dark narrow alley where the butchers are busily chopping up carcasses.

The streets are too narrow for motorised transport so you have to watch out for the laden donkeys transporting the next load of stuff to the stalls. Some looks authentic but I suspect most comes from the giant warehouse in Central Europe that distributes all the tourist crap you see in every town south of Watford.

Just 15 kilometres separates Europe from Africa and it's one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. We crossed the shipping lanes at 35 knots with the catamaran ferry dodging shipping, fishing boats and tourist boats. How we will sneak across at 6 knots I'm not so sure but, wind permitting, that's for next week.

Tomorrow it's on to Marrakech and Casablanca and more collisions of culture, smells and tastes.

The picture below is of the tannery. I sure hope health and safety don't turn up anytime soon!