Intermission

We left Marrakesh early this morning and we spent the entire day on the bus. It was a CTM bus which is the Moroccan equivalent of grayhound so it was quite comfortable. Unfortunately that means there were no chickens, goats or otherwise interesting stories… It doesn’t make for very exciting reading so thought I’d use this post to recap a couple of other interesting tidbits that didn’t really fit anywhere else.

For example, when we stayed in dar tassa and ate dinner, penny actually nearly burned the hostel down. She waved her serviette too close to a candle and it caught fire. She blew on it to put it out but it only got bigger… The guy who worked in the hostel had to run over and stomp it out on the ground. I never thought my wife would remind me of Mr Bean but there you have it.

Also in dar tassa we found this shepherd boy watching a flock of goats and listening to Arabic pop music on his phone all day.

We imagined that it was the best spot in the village and everyone would try and get up early to get there first and claim the spot…. He was there the next day as well. I’m not sure if it would be an incredibly relaxing or an incredibly boring life… Probably both.

Two of his goats got stuck in the hostel courtyard and we spent a half hour helping them get out…

They were quite adorable and it was nice to see penny get back to her farm girl roots.

Earlier on the trip, back in imlil, penny had a sudden craving for a cheese sandwich… She spent ten minutes explaining to the waiter what she wanted before he vanished into the kitchen. He came out an hour later with what can only be described as an egg mcmuffin.

It looked and tasted nothing like a cheese sandwich but it was still delicious. It helped me take my mind off the fact that we forgot our sunscreen… I have very delicate skin and the harsh desert air and constantly scorching sun has wreaked havoc on my beautiful complexion.

Also back in imlil, we encountered our first snow… The lonely planet warned us that in winter there can be so much snow that the mountain roads can be impassable…

We were lucky this year I think.

Anyway enough joking around… The last two hours on the bus have been like something out of the twilight zone… The lady opposite us has been sick and now has vomit in a bag (just like China!) and the bus driver has decided to stop every hundred meters to let people off, as if he’s driving a local bus… There’s no streetlights and we’re just driving through the desert stopping every ten minutes for people to walk off into the darkness…. Are we dead? Is this what purgatory looks (and smells?) like??