The New Year...

Hi all, thanks for thaking the time to visit the blog. The new year has been busy with work and changing classroom programs. We are also saving for exciting holidays to come so haven't been off exploring too much.
Hopefully something worth sharing will happen soon.

Happy flying...

Flying Ryanair is never going to be anyone's greatest aviation experience. Famous for more bad than good reasons, it is most known as the airline that finds ways of charging for every small thing. At one point it looked like you'd have to 'pay to pee', thankfully someone somewhere saw sense. Europe's 'favourite''low cost airline is also reported to have once treated a man suffering from a heart attack with a sandwich, and then charged him for it. This is an airline with a very bad reputation, deservedly or not.

Believe it or not, despite first appearances, this is not a blog bashing Ryanair. Before living in Morocco I had only used the airline a handful of times, and it was okay. That is apart from one ridiculous occasion where a calamity of errors made our flight from Paris Beauvais look more like a Carry On film or some silly sketch with Benny Hill music as passengers from two unexplainedly late flights comically ran from gate to gate as teasing staff pretended to commence boarding.

Living now on the outskirts of Europe we have found ourselves regular customers of this airline we said would never again use. The Beauvais experience was not limited to the Benny Hill farce and it scarred us. However, with little choice available and repeated exposure to the experience, you find that while far from perfect, if you prepare yourself for it then the Ryanair experience is everything it promises to be. Cheap, quick and no frills air travel. That is, until you fly into Morocco. This is a stand alone experience which makes all other Ryanair routes look premier class.

Having lived in Thailand for six years and travelled a great deal around Asia, I am no stranger to budget airlines and have encountered many people for whom flying is a rarity and who are nervous or a little confused as to what to do. Saying that, in all the flights I took there, I have never seen chaos descend quite like I have seen in the last two years of travel here.

By chaos, we are not just talking about the frantic pre-boarding rush for the gate when the steady trickle to the line becomes one person too many and everyone decides that it is now or never to get in the line, or the distinctively 'long-legged' striding that people use in the fruitless attempt to carry you past a few people on the tarmac in a bid to get a better seat.

This chaos begins when people start queuing up to an hour before boarding. Not that the queue perturbs those who arrive late, they just push their way unquestioned past people, using age, illness or just the inability to look up and make eye contact with all the annoyed passengers around them as an excuse.

While the 'queue' develops it becomes noticeable that nearly every family has a child. This means that as a child free traveller you are left to stand there and pray that they don't invoke the 'children first' boarding rule. If they do you might as well go and sit back down and wait for the end of the line. That hour queuing? Wasted. Have I just found a reason to have children? Not a chance. It is airport travel and the extra stress it seems to bring every parent that has cemented our resolve on maintaining our 'child-free' status.

The stress of travelling with children didn't seem to bother the parents on our last flight to Fes. They opted instead for the 'low-impact' parenting. This entailed letting their children run wild between people and go behind the departure desk and down the stairs on their own while the departure staff were desperately trying to maintain a semblance of control and work out which child belonged to whom. While dealing with this they also had to organise the first twenty people in the queue who after an hour of standing there had obviously forgotten why they are there and misplaced their boarding passes and passports.

Once on the plane the fun of getting into a seat starts. For us we have one thought in mind. Emergency Exit Seats. On our last flight, after a lot of bargaining, we were told by an Eastern European flight steward that we could sit in our desired seats as long as no one else arrived having reserved them. As he stood by us protecting the seats he got increasingly annoyed at the attempts of passengers finding seats and spaces for bags and become increasingly blunt with people. As the plane filled, greater numbers of people attempted to sit in the 'reserved' emergency seats. At first he was quite polite, telling them simply 'no, they are reserved'. As the plane got fuller it became obvious no one had reserved the seats and he needed responsible people to sit there in case of an emergency. He began to ask select people if the spoke English. Usually just receiving little more than a grunt or a blank look in response he moved them on down the plane. With some people he didn't even ask, he just looked them up and down, shook his head, muttered something under his breath and moved them on. His frustration got the better of him and by the end he was saying 'English only in these seats' in a slightly aggressive manner. This would have sounded a lot better if he had just explained that he needed English speakers to explain the exit instructions to, instead he just ended up sounding incredibly racist.

As a nervous flyer I am the first to fasten my seat belt to circulation restricting, and to turn off all electronic equipment for fear of making the plane take control of itself and steer off the runway before we even leave the ground. No such fears for these fliers, some of whom I have seen stand up and receive calls during take off and landing no matter how many times instructed otherwise. On landing women are up and in the locker before the brakes are even eased off. One friend said that on their flight last month there was even a lone child wandering up and down the aisle during landing.

To top off our last flying experience, within moments of standing up to disembark, a fight broke out within arms reach of me. This was not just a heated discussion kind of argument, but an arm swinging and shoving argument. It was between two women so there was a lot of hair pulling and face slapping as well. For some reason this made it all more unacceptable. Apparently the fight broke out as the result of one of the ladies deciding she needed to get from her seat at the front to her bag stowed at the back, right at the point everyone stood up. Shoving her way down the plane she obviously bumped into the other lady who was probably as fed up with the lack of queuing courtesy as I was, and decided she would do everything in her power to stop her. These women had to be dragged off each other and the argument continued down the length of the plane.

What a welcome back to Morocco. Nothing like a little travel stress to make you appreciate getting home. Well, inside the safety of the apartment at least.

Hanging out with little people

It is that time of year again; the leaves are off the trees, there is dirty snow on the ground, the students are tired and eager for coming break, the teachers more so, the classroom is littered with part finished winter decorations and I am permanently covered in glitter. For two weeks at the end of every year I am driven to distraction by sparkles catching my eyes and stuck on the end of my nose. Regardless of the mess, the glitter annoyance, and the fact that everyone is tired, as I am wrapping up 2012 I have come to the realisation that I love what I do. It's taken nearly nine years, but better late than never I say.

This may seem like a strange observation to make, not many people can say they truly love what they do, but in teaching you often meet a large number of those who do. Teaching is not a job people usually find themselves in unless they love spending time with children. I am ashamed to say that is not the case for me.

I started teaching in Thailand in 2001. I had never really liked children and it was purely a means to an end; I was living there and needed to do something to earn enough money to survive. I found myself doing what about 80% of western people did at the time... standing in front of a class of people who barely understood a word I said, trying desperately to look like I knew what I was doing, and fighting the impulse to stop myself running screaming out the building. That first year was a baptism of fire and I’m not sure how I ever ended up doing a second year. I was obviously lacking in sense in my early twenties.

While I have always loved the perks of being a teacher; free periods, travel opportunities, unrivalled holidays and no two days the same, I never really liked the contact hours. To be honest, initially for the most part I didn't even like the children. During the first few years my fondness of the students thankfully did increase; I realised that on the whole they were quite harmless, and that the classroom actually wouldn't burn down when I ran out of ways to keep them busy. In fact, at times, it was almost fun. I still didn't really like teaching and preparing lessons, and still liked the classroom best when there was no-one in it, but as far as jobs go it definitely wasn't the worst thing I have ever done.

Finding myself still teaching six years later, having limited career alternatives available, and being unable to face the thought of losing the three months of paid holiday a year, I decided that if I was going to keep teaching then I might as well do it properly. Confident that with six years of experience I would find a training course a breeze, Nick and I set off to Australia for a high speed teaching qualification. When we started the course it quickly became apparent that apart from classroom management (teaching a class of up to 34 six year old boys has got to be good for something), we didn't know much at all. We had been doing the best possible job we could as untrained teachers, but there was so much we had missed. It was a tough year with some tough teaching experiences. Definitely not a breeze.

Last year was our first year as qualified teachers, and for those who follow the blog you'll know that for all the training and experience we had had, nothing could prepare us for the work and stress that was to come. We spent the entire year fighting hard to keep our heads above water. There were tears, tantrums and full on nervous breakdowns from me and I questioned whether it was the easy career choice I had thought.

Eight years on, my second year as a qualified teacher, and all the pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together. Now that I can do it properly, or thereabouts, the contact hours have become more of a pleasure than a chore and even planning lessons can be enjoyable. I always used to question the boundless energy and motivation displayed by some of the supremely dedicated teachers I have met. Now I find that instead of being desperate to down tools at the end of the day and get as far away from school as possible on the weekends, I find myself reading and thinking about school stuff a lot of the time, and while I wouldn't go as far to say that I look forward to Monday mornings, there are times after a weekend in sleepy Ifrane that I’m not far off.

Now... if only someone could enlighten me with a fun way to do report writing and life would be perfect.

Let it snow...

I am frequently one to rave about the amazing weather we are blessed with in Ifrane; not too hot, not too cold, and usually with a crystal clear sky. With the occasional arrival of bad weather, the old-timers would laugh and say 'you haven't seen anything yet' as the we sat in the clouds and the rain whizzed horizontally passed. We heard tales of tremendous blizzards, with roads closed, temperatures as low as -27 degrees C, and snow higher than the windows. Hearing all this we were somewhat disappointed when, having brought a snowboard out with us, there was barely enough snow for one week of sledding last year. It was with this in mind that when the temperature dropped last week I urged the snow to come. Each night the clouds rolled in and it started to snow, but each morning there was barely a dusting.

Friday morning we woke up and looked out of the window into solid clouds. On the way to school there was already a light covering of snow on the ground. We were due to leave for the Spanish enclave Melilla straight after school and it was supposed to snow all morning. Saying that, we weren't too concerned as the snow that was falling was fine and powdering, looking almost like spray snow out of a bottle. We figured something that fine wouldn't really stick.

The snow continued silently. Busy in the classroom with fogged up windows, it wasn't until morning recess that I noticed the gathering piles. By lunch, which I was hosting in the classroom for our only student/parent lunch of the year, to celebrate the end of International Week, it was so thick that some parents were stranded at the university and couldn't get through down-town due to the accidents. 

With an hour of school to go we made the decision that we would at least try to get to Spain. The old-timers said, 'this is the real Ifrane!', and 'if you can just get down the mountain to Imouzer it'll all be clear”. Nick set off to pick up Nate from the Best Western 500m down the hill. On the way back Nate had to walk behind the car and push it up the hill, getting covered in snow and taking the occasional face plant along with it. The journey took just under an hour. With the heavy weight of the week long expectation of Friday night beer and pork in Casa Marta, we decided to press on. A snow plough had gone down towards Fes at 3.00, and leaving school at 3.30 we figured we'd be long down the mountain before a snow plough led a convoy down at 4.30.

Within 500 metres of setting off we had to push two cars out of snow drifts. We figured that maybe having done good deeds that Allah might choose to ignore the fact that we were doing all this in the name of alcohol and keep us out of a snow drift. Our progress soon got halted however, when we reached the lowered snow barrier on the outskirts of town. It was 4.40 by this point and somewhat foolishly we were surprised that the snow plough hadn't been through. An hour later and we were still sitting there, by this point with little way of getting back up the hill into town and with a long line of cars behind us The thought of setting off down the hill in the dark wasn't appealing, but by that point it was too late to turn back.

The snow plough arrived at 6.00. Lights flashing and third in line in a long convoy we set off down the hill. Progress was good and the snowfall lessened. Spirits in the car rose. The snow plough pulled out from the convoy a couple of kilometres before Imouzer, and although it seemed that the snow was actually thicker we figured that as the snow plough had left us we must be through the worst. We were wrong. Imouzer was in chaos. On the other side of the closed snow barrier cars were parked haphazardly and people were blocking the thickly covered slippy road. Waving you through they stand in the way of the moving cars which are likely to skid into them at any point. It is as if they have never driven on snow and have no idea that you need to get out of the way. Instead they stand and walk in the middle of the road and expect you to jam on the breaks, forgetting that this will just induce a slide. 

Once through the chaos of Imouzer the sight that faced us was not a positive one. Imouzer sits on the edge of a valley and the road winds down out of it with a steep drop on one side. The cars coming up the hill were sliding all over the road and into our lane at times. People were helping push them up the hill with little thought for getting out of the way of oncoming traffic. If no one went off the mountain that day then it's a small miracle.

To cut an already too long story short, the 45 minute journey from school to the highway took us four hours. The snow line was far lower than anyone expected. We crossed the border into Spain at midnight, 1.00 local time, were in the bar by quarter past, and still didn't make it to closing. By the time that we had panic drank ourselves silly on empty stomachs, we had to go home just as the real party was starting.

Our trip to Melilla followed its usual routine, and we set off on Sunday on our return journey with every nook and cranny of car loaded up with pork and booze, telling ourselves that the extra weight would act as traction to get us up the hill into Ifrane. The drive back was uneventful. That is until we reached the snowline. As soon as we hit snow there were cars parked at every angle along the side of the road, people taking photos of each other and their cars in the snow. If this wasn't annoying enough, we started to see cars making their way down the mountain with mounds of snow on the roof and blocking the windscreen and limiting the drivers view of the chaos on the road. It took us a while to realize that this wasn't just due to the drivers being lazy and not clearing their windscreens, but it was in fact placed there on purpose. Locals drive up from the city, pull over at the first patch of snow they can find, take all the pictures they can, maybe get out a stove and make mint tea. Then, before departing, they make enormous snowballs and pile them on their car and take it back down the mountain with them. We even saw a snowman, complete with eyes, mouth and twigs for arms on someone’s bonnet. What they expect to do with the snow I have no idea, but judging by the mounds of it that we kept encountering on the road at the roundabouts, they didn't really think the plan through. 

How long this current batch of snow will last I don't know; it is still up over my classroom window-sill a week later. I know one thing for sure, we are avoiding all travel on roads that we can. Drivers here are accident prone in the best of conditions. With the added hindrance of slippy roads and snow tourists it like a Demolition Derby. We'll just stay up here and enjoy the spectacular views.

This weekend

Been away and have had some unreal Morocco experiences this weekend... post to come soon,

thanks for checking for updates.

Imlil to Setti Fatma

It's nearly the end of November and I’m not quite sure where the year has gone. I am however mighty impressed that this time in a month we will be making our way home for Christmas. The joys of teaching... never a dull day, time really flies. What with Portugal and all the exciting stuff we've been doing in school it seems like quite a long time since we were up in Imlil and setting off for our three day hike across the mountains.

Advertised as easy, the 40 kilometre walk would lead us through connecting valleys and over a 3180 metre pass, with two overnight stops in Berber gites, before finishing in Ourika Valley where we had left our car.

 

The morning of our departure we were met by our guide Mustapha, chef and muleteer Hamide, and our mule Bob at our Aubegre Dar Adrar. We really didn't feel that we needed all three to take us on an 'easy walk' over the mountains, but travel experiences have led us to belief in, where possible, providing opportunities for locals to earn an income. Setting off it did feel like a bit of an entourage, and I was a little concerned for our mule. We only had a small bag each but he seemed really overladen, thankfully I soon realised that a lot of the stuff was lightweight bedding for Mustapha and Hamide.

Day 1 – Imlil to Tacheddirt

The first day we set of slowly climbing up the Tamatert Valley heading east from Imlil. Initially frustrated with Mustapha's somewhat plodding pace, I soon realized that it enabled us to walk a lot further without stopping, and we could actually enjoy the view while walking. It was with this slow and increasingly enjoyable pace that we wound our way up through a pine plantation before crossing the 2362 metre saddle and descending slightly into Imenane Valley. Here we travelled down a long and windy mountain road. Strung out along the green valley floor were lots of little villages. Linking these villages there are are pretty gardens taking up every available space. Moroccans have to come be experts at water use, working in whole communities to build complex irrigation channels that are controlled with little drop doors, or planks of wood. Water can be directed from one side of the valley to another so that everyone can water their crops. At the head of this valley, nestled against a ring of high mountains lies the small village of Tacheddirt, our stop for the night.

Mustapha looking back down towards Imlil

 

Villages along Imenane Valley

The village of Tacheddirt at the end of the valley

Part way along the Imenane Valley we stopped for lunch. Our mule was unloaded and the kitchen was set up. This was a very impressive sight and way more than we needed for the four of us. They brought everything. Everything that is apart from something to light the gas stove with. Unburdened and grazing happily Bob the mule bucked and protested greatly at being loaded up again so soon so we could continue in search of a lighter. Thankfully this worked in our favour. Bob was soon unloaded again and got to lunch on an enormous pasta salad with sardines, fresh lentil tajine and sweet mint tea in a beautiful spot next to a stream with views of the snow-capped peaks behind us. 

 

 

 

 

It was something of a surprise to discover that our mule Bob was actually a girl. I’m not even sure she had a proper name, I think it was just a name they decide to give the guests to keep them happy. She is a working animal and not a pet, we've yet to meet a working animal that gets a name here. Interesting fact from our guide about mules... females are used in the mountains, they are stronger and have greater stamina. 

We reached Tacheddirt at around two in the afternoon. Although we climbed 1070 metres the day's 12.5 kilometres did indeed feel easy, but it was nice to arrive at our gite early to enjoy a hot shower and relax on the terrace with the incredible views. Ten years ago accommodation in Tachedddirt was limited to a Club Alpine Francais Refuge, now there are a couple of guesthouses. Our gite was the newest and was far grander than we expected, we had a clean, warm and dry room with six thick mattresses on the floor all to ourselves. 

Views from the terrace...

Day 2 – Tacheddirt to Timichchi

We had been warned that day two was to be the toughest day, but the day with the most rewarding views. We set off from Tacheddirt at 7.30 while the valley was still quite dark. Not long after we left we began to climb. This was the hard part, a continuous climb up to a 3187m pass into the next valley. Bob and Hamide set off long after us and we were determined to beat them to the top. We stopped a few times for a five minute water break but basically climbed over 1000 metres without a proper break. 

On the way up we encountered a little old man resting with his donkey. We exchanged greetings with him before he continued on ahead of us, pushing his donkey from behind. He went all the way up the hillside, winding along the narrow paths, all the while pushing his donkey hard. When we reached the top he had secured his donkey and was sheltering from the wind behind a large rock. He had unloaded his donkey and had a handful of Mars bars, five soft drinks and a kettle for mint tea to sell to passing hikers. Impressed with his effort we bought a Coke off him. It was only then that we found out he was completely blind. He makes the climb every day in the hope of earning what can't add up to more than $5.

Having taken a couple of hours to reach the top we then had to start going down. I am quite content with up, I am not a down person. Never too sure-footed at the best of times I tend to hesitate and lack commitment in my strides, often leading to uncontrolled skids. To compound the issue our route down was much trickier than the way up. Loose footing and steep drops made it quite an exhausting descent. Narrow and slippery in places it was challenging for us with our hiking boots on let alone the overweighted mules with skiddy metal shoes that usually use the route. By the time we reached our lunch spot we had climbed a 1000 metres, descended 1100. Not sure about this 'easy' walk classification. 

Our lunch stop was in a small town clinging to the side of the valley. There were roughly twenty houses clustered together around a mud-hut style mosque. While waiting for food we observed that the village only stretched as far as shouting distance. Every so often women would climb onto their roofs and shout up and down the village at each other. Who needs a telephone when voice projection and mountain valley acoustics will do just fine. This was one of the most rustic villages we have come across. Not a satellite dish in sight. This village can only be accessed on foot or by mule so much of the modern trimmings of the outside world has been kept at bay.

We were sitting just outside the village, close to a large sand pile. The whole time we were there children of all sizes were going back and forth to collect sand. Using any kind of container they could find, some as young as two or three, these children would walk, bent double under the weight of the sand, shuffling in sandals, flip flops or over-sized wellies, carrying the sand to a growing pile by one of the houses. It pulled at the heart strings to see one little boy help an even smaller boy try and carry his load back. This tiny little boy just couldn't get a grip on his container and kept stopping and crying. Each time, the slightly bigger boy would stop, put down his own load and try and help the smaller child before picking up his own and continuing. They would make it about five metres before the process was repeated.

The children didn't ask for anything; help, food or money. Some were curious about us, but they were still very timid towards us. It seemed they had little other to do than move sand, throw stones at each other or, as many bored and unoccupied children have a tendency to do, make noise. One boy on a nearby roof decided he was going to try and serenade us with Berber songs and wailed at the top of his voice while banging a pan lid. It became strangely acceptable after a while and he was joined by a few friends. This is something they do every time tourists pass through. As we left the village we did feel when passing one group of children, that they were going to turn away from their stone throwing at each other at start throwing them at us, but Mustapha prevented this by speaking to them quietly.

Day 3 – Timichchi to Setti Fatma

Day three was supposed to be the easy day, and we were looking forward to it being so. The night before had not been quite as comfortable as we had hoped. We stayed in Auberge de Timichchi. This simple auberge was run by a friendly man who had set it up many years ago with only one room. Every year or so he tries to add on another room and now he has eight or nine he can use for guests. This is impressive progress, but the rooms are basic and the mattresses of the thinnest variety. With no sheets to lie on and a sleeping bag zip that decided to choose this occasion to die on, the night was quite cold and uncomfortable. Little sleep was had and I arose in the morning hurting all over and ready for our 'easy' day.

The map showed up that we were simply following the road that wound along the side of the valley before descending down into Ourika Valley and our final destination Setti Fatma. While the terrain was easy what we hadn't counted on was the fact that we had 14.5 kilometres, 420 metre ascent and 900 metre descent to do all before lunch. The walk was beautiful and dramatic, but with the end in sight and the thought of the hot shower and soft sofa awaiting us in Ourika Garden Resort, we just wanted to get to the end. Our first sighting of Setti Fatma was a welcome one. The view from the top of the valley was amazing, and as the crow flies the journey there would be short, but following the dirt track that zig-zags back and forth down the hillside makes it a few kilometres further than you think. So close but yet so far.

Ourika Valley, Setti Fatma is at the far end.

Arriving to the hustle and bustle of touristy Setti Fatma was a relief to the by now descent hammered knees. For an easy three day walk it felt like we had gone a lot further. The views we got on route were well worth it though. Combine it as we did with a few days of post hike luxury in and around Marrakesh and it's a great option for an unusual week break. Experiencing a little bit of the rough makes that soft bed in the kasbah or riad all the more rewarding, especially with the thought of the 8300 calories we had just burned.

Update coming....

Thanks for all who have been taking the time to check for the continued Imlil update, life of an elementary teacher can be hectic to say the least, I will try and get the post up by Saturday afternoon at the latest....

Thanks

Back to the mountains

I always used to think of myself as more of a beach person than a mountain person. It is only when we head up into the hills that I appreciate just how at home I feel there. It's refreshing and invigorating in a completely unique way. And while I don't have that drive to climb the highest peaks and scale all I encounter, I love the feeling of being nestled in valleys and protected by the massive peaks. Around this time two years ago we were in Nepal, and while nothing will match the grandeur of the Himalayas, the feeling of increased energy you get is the same.

Arriving in Imlil our taxi was met by a boy with a mule. Without a word he loaded our bags into the mule pack and headed uphill out of the town. Ten minutes on having passed through a damp walnut grove we found ourselves at Dar Adrar. Here we were welcomed with speactacular views from our window, a roaring fire and hot mint tea.

http://www.daradrar.com/

The view from Dar Adrar

Imlil is a small town perched on a hillside at the joining point of three valleys ringed with tall rocky mountains. The Atlas Mountains are very dramatic. At the highest point they are only about 4170m, but driving across the Marrakesh plane towards them they appear to rise straight up out of the otherwise flat and featureless ground. Once up in the mountains you are struck by the rich red colour of them. These are rough and ragged peaks at their best. 

Once a small Berber village, Imlil has become a hub for tourists keen to experience Moroccan mountain life. Imlil is the starting point for nearly all summit attempts of Morocco's highest mountain, Jebel Toubkal. Toubkal can be summitted in two days with an overnight stop in a refuge near the top.

 

While many guidebooks describe Imlil as an ugly and characterless town, I think it would be hard for any town to be described as ugly when it sits in a location like Imlil. As well as incredible mountain views stretching out along three valleys, the valley floors are lined with apple and walnut groves that are criss-crossed by babbling irrigation channels. Exploring on foot it's possible to wander round villages such as Armend and see life that has remained relatively unchanged for centuries. That is apart from satellite TV, there are more satellites here than in any other country I’ve ever been to. Life is not easy for people here and is often subsistence based; growing and trading to get what you need. Outside the houses you see weather-worn women cooking over home-made clay ovens. Walking along the dirt tracks you pass women carrying heavy loads around on their backs, taking the shopping home from the weekly souq a few kilometres away. It is quite humbling to be overtaken by an eighty year old carrying two enormous sacks up a steep hill. 

Although life in the High Atlas has many parallels with that of what we saw of Nepal, while exploring Imlil that first day we noticed one distinct difference. In Nepal the villages we walked through have a long history of interaction and dependence on tourists. Big smiles and warm welcomes cames from everyone you encountered. Walking around Imlil and other small villages, while many people were friendly, you got the sneaky feeling that some people would just rather you weren't there. The occasional stare and frown could be a little unsettling.

We stayed two nights in Imlil where we were lucky enough to have great fireside company with an American couple who travel the world looking for adventure. A love of speed flying had brought them to the area. For those unfamiliar with the extreme sport of speed flying (as I was), it is the slightly questionable activity of throwing yourself off mountains with a mini and seemingly fragile para-glide that weighs a no more than a couple of kilos. Usually done over snow with a pair of skis on it seems that the idea is to slow your fall down the mountain only enough not to injure yourself while still making occasional contact with the ground before propelling yourself into the air again. 

   

Our time in Imlil was just the start of our adventure, the stay there was just the relaxing precursor to a three day hike across the mountains and into a neighbouring valley. I’ll post more about the journey with our guide, cook and a female mule called Bob very soon.

Dancing Days

This isn't the blog I had intended; the long review of our latest adventure, that has been temporarily postponed as life has caught up with me instead. This blog is instead to share with you one of my depressing moments of realisation of the undeniable fact of getting old.

Fast approaching my mid thirties and lucky enough to have had a full and varied social life, it has been easy for me to stick my head in the sand and whisper sweet words of denial about the ever increasing gap between how I see myself and how others see me. It feels like only last year that I spent six hours dancing on top of a wheely bin with some random stranger in Cream, or last week that I spent the countdown at New Year on podium at Ministry of Sound Bangkok. Sadly, or not, depending on who's looking at this, many years have past, and in all likelihood if I did these things now there would be unprecedented levels of embarrassment experienced on all sides. This weekend while away at a professional development conference in Lisbon, this depressing realisation slowly dawned on me while watching people dance at the last night gala dinner.

Throughout the night the dance floor could usually be separated into three parts...

The first group is those between roughly 20-30 who dance to every song, no matter how bad it is, and who truly believe they are Michael Jackson reincarnate. If you belong to this group then good on you, doesn't it feel great, enjoy it while it lasts, because believe it or not it doesn't. I should know, I clung onto this group for as long as I could. I shall refer to this group as the 'Jacksonites'. 

The next group who I’ll I call the 'Handbaggers' are a big group made up of two smaller parts; those who may never have had that love of dancing and have been unwillingly dragged into that great place of embarrassment they know as the dance floor; and those who used to belong to the Jacksonites until they hit 30 and suddenly found themselves strangely self conscious when they spun across the floor and felt like everybody turned to look at them. The Handbaggers are busy on the dance floor in many ways. Unlike the Jacksonites, who are just busy thinking 'this feels great' and letting their body do the work, the Handbaggers are busy either trying to maintain that even rhythmic side stepping move that blends right in with everyone else, or they're trying to relive their youth by throwing a few moves out there, which they then busily analyse in their heads as to whether they actually pulled it off without looking stupid. Finally this group is busy with occasional furtive glances at the Jacksonites with something akin to horror “do they know what they look like?”, “look at all that sweat”. 

And then there is the last group, the Christopher Walken's amongst us. These are those brave people who manage to break the boundaries and effortlessly move between the other two groups. Often slightly older, they have managed to overcome any feeling of self-consciousness and as a result have found their mojo again. They whip it up on the dance floor and really don't care what they look like. Instead, not unlike the Jacksonites, they simply dance and enjoy the music.

So, where am I at...? Well I’ve sadly left the Jacksonites, but I’m not ready to join the Walken groovers; there is still way to much self analysis going on for that and I run when the music isn't in my favour. I have to sadly admit that the days of mindlessly dancing to anything and everything have passed. Soon I will give up any attempts of fancy footwork and become a master of the side to side step.

For those of you out there, you know who you are...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM1fkHQP_Pw

Off Again...

Thank you for checking for updates....

We are off on our travels again so there may not be an update for a week or so. Right now I am sitting in a small cosy gite on the steep side of a valley under Morocco's highest mountain; Jebel Toubkal. When we arrived last night we were met and escorted to our gite by a boy and a mule.

Tomorrow we set off on a 3 day hike to an adjoining valley staying in Berber villages on route. Accompanied by mule and guide. We have little idea of what to expect or where we will be sleeping...

Stories and pics to follow soon.

And, for those who were concerned, Snowy is doing fine in his very very grand temporary home in Meknes, with a student who didn't talk about anything other than his impending visit for the last 3 days of school.