A long needed update.

First off I apologize if any one has been waiting for an update from me. I have been sticking to emails and postcards and just did not ever do the blog thing. I will try to summarize the trip the best I can, but will surely come short of a description worthy of the trip's various stories.

I started this trip in Madrid, Spain but only spend about 6 hours in the bus station, as I missed my bus by about five minutes. The bus ride to Almeria was not to bad and looking back at it in comparison to bus rides in Morocco, it was quite the luxury. The first night in Almeria I stayed in a hotel way more expensive then I was willing to pay but because of how tired I was and on the verge of not being able to speak Spanish or English I payed and got a great night of sleep.

The next day I took the bus to my new temporary home for the next two weeks, a campsite right on the sea. The campsite was made up of Ex-pats burning and tanning the end of their life away, gypsies staying as long as the campsite would allow and then once they had stayed long enough would move on to the next campground, the occasional traveler, lots of French coming to work for the summer, locals coming for the day or to camp a night, and various other interesting individuals. So I spend my days trying to develop contacts for my trip in the fall, going to the library to find books on greenhouses, touring a greenhouse, getting plenty of sun, siestas, and internet.

After the two weeks I jumped on a boat and 8 hours later was in Melilla, the Spanish enclave in Morocco. Then a bus ride later was in Morocco. I have spent two and a half weeks here and it has been great but I am ready to move on. I have walked alone in cedar forest, seen monkeys in the Atlas mountains, ate food in a Berber adobe house, ate dinner with the town clown who lived on top a roof covered in rubbish, multiple bus rides where the heat seems to only go one direction....up, walked through waist deep water through gorges because that was the only way to get through, walked in arid mesas where the only form of life is beetles and plants that can stick you, medinas that seem to be lost in time, tanneries that are 2000 years old, and cites where the veils come off and the beer flows.

To Portugal on July 4th for a week. Then to Salamanca, Spain to visit my friends.

Peace and Love Ty