No monkeys and freezing rain soaked cedar trees...

But it really wasn't that bad. The forests that surround Azrou run deep and thick and it reminded us of the mountains of our Northwest home. The environment was so familiar and un-Moroccan that we had to constantly voice such expressions aloud like "We're in Morocco right now," "This is North Africa" and simply "Africa, huh." It is important to note that less than five days before we were in the Saharan desert. So the contrast is Never the less profound comfort was found in our surroundings, getting away from the city heartbeat was a healing choice before moving north back to Europe via Tangier, the sharp end of Morocco. We luckily skirted the port when we first came upon this country with our road friend, Chelsea, almost a month ago.

Back in Algeciras, Spain our options were either Tangier, the hyper-scuzzy....

You know what? I'd rather do this:
I bought some stickers for the continuing and blooming decoration of my road-Ukulele, Cha-Cha Lorca Castinango or Cha-Cha for short, and wrote a found poem. Here's the first draft geographers, keep an open mind.

Moroccan Alphabet Stickers

Sheet One

Unidentifiable House Plant, Red Office Telephone
Rose, Baby Hand
Reading Glasses, Protractor, Horse
Present with Number Wrapping Paper, Leopard, Clock
Clipboard, Grey Whale, Beach Bucket
Longboat, African Elephant, Wood Chair
Assorted Sparkling Fruit

Sheet Two

Cucumbers, Training Wheeled Bicycle, Corn
Green Shovel, Five Multi-Racial Children playing on a Slide, Red Porsche
Sheep, Cruise Ship, one whole and quarter Watermelon
Teddy Bear, Triangle Teapot, Green coin sized Discs
Wolf, Tree Stump, Porcupine in a Frame
Feather, Bell, Mushrooms
Giraffe, Dear, Cherries
Butter knife, Belt Buckle, Trophy
Assorted Sparkling Vegetables


It's hilarious because it's true.

Well now that's out of my system I'll wrap up our cedar forest story. The days were introspective, reflective, and full of contemplation. Which is another way of saying that when you're in the outdoors all you do is build fires to look at them, nap in the sun when it's out, do some more sitting in front of the fire and wander around among bushes and brambles in the moon light. The only food we brought was a 2 kilo bag of popping corn, a loaf of bread and jar of nutella. It was monk-like and full of profound zen-thought between the fart jokes. I finished reading a copy of Ishmael that Jeff picked up in Essaoura, which seemed appropriate in the wilderness until we used it to A: Start a fire with some of the pages and B: Cover the pot when making popcorn. Then it was just ironic. Jeff made the point that we only used what we needed. I'm sorry, I guess, Mr. Quinn.

Saturday night was clear, with a practically full moon gleaming down on us. We slept soundly. That is of course until the unending and freezing rain began to pour on us at 5 in the morning. I sunk further into my cozy sleeping bag, trying to ignore Jeff's poking and mentions of rain. As soon as I gave up my selfish and pointless burrow in my bag, we quickly realized we needed to bolt, as our fingers became numb and the rain further soaked our bags. A dirt road showed us the way out of the howling wind swept cedars. 3 miles back to Azrou, no sign of motorists let alone human life for at least 1 mile of farmland. To our frozen march a sheep farmer came upon us in his truck. We yelled him down and sat on tires among the hay back to the Azrou bus station, still raining, still freezing. A bus station's dryness doesn't make up for it's chill and our bus to Tangier didn't leave until 1 am, so we have spent the day drying off and warming up between cafes of coffee and internet. We are so lucky, it was SO much fun. Seriously.

Next stop geographers: Alacante, Spain. Stay with some warm hearted Canadian girls we met in Marrakesh. Maybe they have cocoa for us. Until then, road awaits.