INTERVIEWER: It was in many ways a social trip,wasn't it?

CHARLES: Yes,yes...we'd arranged to meet up with friends at various points on the journey.I mean this was actually one of the purposes of the trip...and we managed to keep all these dates,which is amazing really considering the detours we made.An old friend acted as a sort of transport organiser for everyone and hte Hotel Ali in Marrakech was a good social base-I'd really recommend it,although I can't remember who runs it.Andway,groups of friends actually joined us for three-week stints and others just linked up with us.Some,whom we hadn't met before the trip at all,tagged on for short bursts-people from the area-who just came along for the tide.But outside the major visitor areas like Toubkal we only met one other group of travellers like ourselves in the whole 96 days.