Thursday, November 11, 2010

Morocco


Rock of Gilbraltar

October 20, 2010 We crossed the Strait of Gilbraltar today.  Gilbraltar is a huge, quite magnificent rock overlooking the Strait which separates Spain from North Africa with the Mediterranean sea on one side and the Atlantic ocean on the other.  The meeting of the two bodies of water cause powerful swirling whirlpools and apparently many people have drowned trying to cross the Strait. 


On the road to Fes
Moroccan landscape

Ferry ride to Morocco

Seven hours on the bus to get to Fes but it wasn't too terrible because Morocco is lush and fertile and seems to grow everything -- bananas, prickly pears, strawberries, corn, melons and lots more -- so it was a relaxing ride just watching the landscape pass by. 






One thing for sure is I never want to be an agricultural worker,  because you have to spend your days wearing unattractive hats either bent over or stretching your arms upwards for hours and hours in a hot sun.  You also have to work well with donkeys (real ones),  because they follow you around so you can fill their baskets with whatever it is you are harvesting,  and then there are the birds, who follow the donkeys but every once in awhile attack the workers hats and cause general all round chaos.   Finally there are the people with sticks who follow behind the donkeys tapping the ground, I think they are dispersing donkey poo, but who knows for sure.  What is certain, is everyone involved is sweating buckets and getting insect bites.

Worse still would be to be a shepard as there are sheep all over the place and they seem to wander everywhere including into fields filled with cows and bulls, so the shepards must walk miles and miles, dodging bulls,  all the while wearing only flimsy flipflops and a sideways handtowel on their heads.

Count me out of sheparding but I may adopt the handtowel head cover cause something has happened to my hair -  it is an awful mess -- and there is also the covering your head thing to respect.

I tried the headwrap techniques Denise taught me but failed miserably and have been going around all day looking like a pirate.





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