Meknes was a low point. After a memorable dinner in a 'restaurant' in the ancient medina that was really just a family's front room - Mum cooked for us, and the kids were being put to bed in an alcove as we were shown out - we tried to get a couple of taxis back to the grim Hotel Malta. One took Kevin and me in the opposite direction to the hotel, down ever-smaller back streets until I thought it safer to bail out. Given the (still) torrential rain we took the only other cab around, an ancient, tiny Fiat hatchback with no lights and an equally ancient, tiny driver. ("Isn't it dangerous with no lights?" "Yes!" "Don't the police stop you?" "No!") Our route back to the hotel took us past what looked at first to be the dead body of a pedestrian hit by another unlit cab, though he seemed to be twitching as some passers-by hauled him off the road. When we finally got to the hotel we thought we'd have a rare beer in the bar to celebrate not being mugged or dying in a road traffic accident, only to find it had turned into a crowded brothel where tubby locals leered at dozens of equally tubby hookers through a thick fug of cigarette smoke (they're still enthusiastic indoor smokers, the Moroccans) before repairing to the rooms upstairs together for 'business': the same rooms where we planned to sleep that night. I slept on top of my bed, alone and fully clothed.