We’ve just arrived at in the town of Zagora, our first taste of modern civilisation since departing in Marrakech. It’s been a bit of a long drive here, as although there are two roads to town, the shorter route is actually under construction; something we only found out after arriving at a dead end 45mins after starting down it. Unfortunately for us it nearly doubled our journey adding, another 130km to our journey. It’s just as well Emma likes driving…

We left Merzouga extremely early; there’s not much going on in the desert after the sun comes up (unless you want to get a wicked suntan) so we hit the road to Alnif, on a mission to mission to expand Emma’s as yet uninitiated fossil collection.

Rather than risk being ripped off by local gift shop salesman and dodgy roadside shops, we did our research and found a small trilobite shop run by Mohand Ihamadi. A bona-fide qualified geologist, here was one of the most attentive and hospitable shop vendors we’ve come across on our travels here. Thinking that we were just going to pick out some nice looking specimens, spend half the afternoon haggling and leave, he actually spent a considerable amount of time telling us all about our choices.

Clearly an aficionado, he knew all about exactly where they were found in Morocco, how old they were and how the finished article for sale was transformed from a hunk of rock to the scientifically and aesthetically pleasing shape on sale. He also told us what not to look for - identifying fakes is something you really need to be aware of here, as there are many shops and roadside vendors selling carvings which look almost exactly the same to the untrained eye for ten times the price of the real deal.

Clearly in her element, Emma spent a couple of hours chewing the fat with Mr. Ihamadi (I had actually zoned out by that point and was people watching - or more accurately being watched by people), he offered us some mint tea and a tour around his workshop. Now call me a cynic, but alarm bells were starting to chime at this point - wasn’t this the same ploy that got us to buy (against our will) a carpet in Bomalne du Dades? I was quite wrong however, and on arriving at his workshop there was not a carpet in sight - just wall to wall unfinished trilobites.

After a (what’s rapidly becoming habitual) lunch of brochette and pomme frites, we were off on the road again passing palmeries and date salesmen along the way.