Hills Clearance Centre Malaga

malaga and morocco

It's 6 am here in Stockholm, -14C outside and Nerina Pallot is playing on my laptop and since I can't sleep, I'll recount my recent trip to Malaga and Morocco. In many ways, this was a true holiday - I did minimal planning, no navigation at all and the trip was truly enjoyable for the most part - thanks largely to Mourad, also on exchange in Stockholm from France but originally from Algeria. I'll be posting tons of photos on this entry. Loading times may be slow but the wait is worthwhile. We then boarded a train to Fes, one of the imperial cities of Morocco and the first of two unenjoyable aspects of the trip occurred - it snowed. FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1970. And since I had checked the weather forecasts before leaving Stockholm which had projected temperatures of 10 - 15 C, I brought a pair of jeans, bermudas, T shirts, a summer jacket and no winter attire. To compound matters, the Moroccans were equally unprepared for the cold - no heating at all in the restaurants and accomodation. I was very cold and soaking wet. I'm on the lead camel in Zagora with three Portugese people behind me. We were supposed to catch the sunset which we didn't really cos of the clouds. Here it is worth mentioning that originally I had wanted to do a 3 day 2 night camel trek but 10 minutes on the back of a camel and I was hoping for it to end. It got dark and every light I saw in the distance I wished was the end point. We eventually reached the campsite after 2 uncomfortable hours. Back in Marrakesh. And here I should mention that traffic in town centres are beyond horrendous. You've got lane markings which people don't follow, vehicles going in all directions at the same time, horns blaring every few seconds, a stream of pedestrians oblivious to the traffic and loads of these motorcycle things that whizz around the place crazily.

Hills

Hills

Hollywood Hills, A Novel

Hills

Oakland Hills