Day 26. Atlas Mountains and Marrakech!

Hey All!
We are still venturing through Morocco at the moment. We are stopped just outside of Marrakech for a few days, and looking forward to some beverages and superclubs. We have been driving through the atlas mountains for almost a week. There were plenty of gorges and mountains to be seen. The camping weather was more...Canadian. We are both glad we brought warm sleeping bags.
Nothing really crazy has been happening to us, which could be good or bad. One highlight was sleeping on a Moroccan dude's roof(some sort of hotel building). I think his name was Abdula? He was an alcoholic, but since he was Berber or a Muslim(or something we don't understand) he couldn't buy it from stores so he was constantly pestering us for beer, wine, gin, anything! We even caught him stealing gin on the morning we were leaving. But sleeping on his roof was awesome! Katey claims to have seen 4 shooting stars, Spots is skeptical because we were looking at the same sky and he only saw 2. Hmmm...
During our stay at that hotel we cooked shepherd's pie which was Spot's favourite meal thus far. Least favourite for Spot so far is the heart(either sheep or cow) that he was surprised to be eating in Fes. If only he knew the french word for heart before hand....oh well!
Other than that we have done a lot of driving, which is a great opportunity for Spots to read great literary works such as Marley and Me, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and Angela's Ashes (all happy books) and for Katey to take an uncomfortable nap while deafening herself to Easy E and Miley Cyrus.
People are starting to open up and not be so shy and polite, which is good and bad. We have made a few friends in the like minded people of the group; this makes for a funner, drunker trip. Some people have negative attitudes and can't seem to make lemonade out of lemons, but we are obviously to awesome for that. As much as we miss home and everyone there, this is just way too fun to be sad, at least for now haha.
Just to give everyone a picture of what this trip is like here is a daily schedule:
7am - Wake up and go to the toilet or bush. After that we eat a great breakfast of cornflakes with milk that never goes bad and/or toast with bread that never goes bad. If we are moving that day we pack up our sleeping stuff and tents and try to get on the road by 8:30. During driving we read, nap and listen to music between seeing sites and making delicious lunches of cheese, jam and potato chip sandwiches(which are awesome!). When we arrive at the next campsite we set up the tent and either cook or wait to be fed while we chat the rest of the group(until they start talking about british television). We usually stay up really late; 9 or 9:30 if we feel like being cool. Then it is a little gossip/venting session in the tent and sleep. If we aren't on the move we will catch a bus or taxi into the medina(old market type place) or centreville for walking around or whatever. It really is a simple life for us right now. Supposedly the next 3 months will break our spirits and our need to be clean. Spot is already wearing shirts for about 5 days at a time and has only showered maybe 6 times. Katey still changes clothes and smells good. She will have to give it up at some point.
And this is the life we have chosen for the next 10 months! We may seem crazy to want to pay for it, but it has been awesome and well worth the effort it took to get here.
We have no clue when we will get another chance to post. Maybe in a week in Agadir. After that we are motoring through the desert in Mauritania and having Christmas in Mali. No hope for snow there...
Talk to you all soon!

Day 16. Casablanca

Yo YO. Still on a french keyboard...bare with us.
Well its day 16 of the trip and already so much has happened. We had our first night of bush camping.. which was amazing. Katey was the first on the trip to get violently ill. Of course there were no toilets...which may be a good thing since she could ralph anywhere. Awesome. Top notch now.. it only lasted 24 hrs. THe view here is amazing. Morrocan Mountains and huge twenty foot Waves. We have been camped outside Rabat for three nights while we have been waiting on visas from Mali and Mauritania. The cities are filthy and constantly stink of piss. There are cats everywhere, and for Katey this is a good thing. After dinner we mostly polish off a bottle of wine... well Spot more so than Katey lately. Bedtime is around 9ish nish. Still haven't broken the comfort level between everyone....but were working on it. Some are gettin used to our Canadian sense of humour, and Katey's love for burping. Dinners have been awesome, apart from the one Katey cliams to have made her sick. The weather is around 26ish daily. Laundry is needed and we are getting more and more used to the idea of being constantly dirty. Gav and Summer...our leaders are great. We went into Casablanca for a side trip and a shower last night. The night of cheap beer was in dire need for a few of us. You will all be very happy to hear that Katey has made a little harajuku friend on the trip... Miyumi is 24, from Japan... and both of our japanese friends share a love for the peace sign, pictures, and giggling. They also shared a night under the stars ....Miyumi had never seen a shooting star before....she saw 5. After we recieve our visas we will be on the road again...destination unknown. Internet may be hard to come by over the next couple of months but we will try to post somehow. Still working on the picture thing. I swear we are still in one piece. And the exclamation point has been found!!
Also i think Summer is going to start filling in the african trails blog at www.africantrails.co.uk maybe she will post some pictures.
Stay tuned...

Day 12? Rock the Casbah

Hey all,
We are stuck with arabic keyboards at the moment, so sorry about the length of this post. Supposedly everthing is spelt wrong so far. We finally made it to the African continent yesterday after a night in southern Spain.
A few nights back we met up with Lena (seattle) and Sarah (toronto) and spent the night drinking and realizing we are actually going to africa. After trying to shake a wicked hangover, we met a few more nice people at the airport before our flight, which was a bit delayed. Our flight from London to Gibraltar was...cheap. After stretching out our legs we met the rest of our best friends and our truck. After paying up, we were introduced to what it is like to sit with 22 other people in 1 vehicle. Once we made it to camp after shopping and eating what could be our last big mac for a while, we set up our tent and ate a dinner made by our fearless leaders, Summer and Gavin. Over dinner we began meeting more people over some wine, and they all seem nice so far. And that was our first night of 301 that we will be spending in our stinky but sturdy tent. The next day we changed all of our money into Euros and took the ferry to Ceuta (pretty sure that is the place). After arriving and realizing it was our turn to cook for everyone we hit up the spanish supermarket. We decided on making a stir fry of sorts, but could only afford whole chickens, to which Spots stupidly agreed to debone. With the help of Sarah deboning and Peter teaching Spot the tricks of the trade, dinner only took about 1.5 hours to prepare. It was delicious though. Thank God for head chef Katey and the help of what seemed to be everyone. At least today we get the day off. After dinner we drank some more wine and all got to know each other a bit more.
Well, we are wandering around somewhere in Northern Morocco, still alive. We are still having trouble uploading pictures to prove it though. Hopefully we get it sorted soon. We are headed to Rabat soon so the internet should be a little better.
We will try to keep you posted(pretend there is an exclamation point here, i can't find it)

Day 6: Nevermind the Bollocks!!!

We moved hostels on the 6th of November, and could not be happier! Soooo much nicer than our last hostel. It's cleaner, smells better, doesn't look like a prison, and the mattress is not chinese torture at night. After checking into our new hostel we had a big day, we took the tube to The London tower, and the London Bridge! We got some great pics (unfortunately we can't post because we lost the last ones we posted).... we will figure that out along the way. Anyway, after a large photo shoot at the London Bridge we went back to JUMBO EATS in Picadilly, where they made us huge falafal wraps... delicious!!! By this time our bellies were full, and we were tired so we went back to the Generator (our Hostel) to have a good long nap! Surprisingly when we woke,... it was happy hour!!! 1.50 pounds for a pint of Strongbow.... Katey was in trouble!! By this point we were both getting a little bored with one another's company sooooo Katey invited a young Aussie girl over to our table to join us. Renee was in London for the weekend while studying psychology in Leeds during her 6 month exchange program! The three of us had dinner at a near by pub, and went back to the hostel bar for some SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS!! We met another Aussie Steve, and he joined us into the night, until the night became no longer clear. We spent the next day in bed... all day. Spots and Katey finally peeled themselves from their lair around 5 pm and headed to Picadilly, a much needed crisp walk. We dined at Pizza Hut, and caught a flick.. A Christmas Carol in 3D! The theatre was big, and old, and made the whole evening a success. On our long journey home we took a wrong turn and ended up in the Couture area of London. Spots has never seen Katey soo happy during the London trip when we fell upon Burberry, and Vivian Westwood! Every little girls dream I am sure. On Monday we spent the day on the tube, and traveled into Notting Hill. Katey was in hopes to see a glimpse of any movie sets from the film... not successful. Spots needed to buy an American Apparel hoodie so we did some shopping in Oxford circus. Grabbed some lunch and The Green Man pub, and headed home for another nap! We like our naps. After the cat nap we searched the streets for a currency exchange, and some food. A Shisha bar caught our eye, and we dined with some Lebanese tapas. Surprisingly delicious! When it came time for the Shisha Sesh .... we had to sesh outside... uhhh no. Tomorrow we move to the Gatwick hotel were we will meet Sarah, and Lena from the tour. Wednesday we all fly out early to Gibraltar. Wish us luck!! We will keep you posted. Hugs N Kisses!!!
Stay Tuned...

November 6: London Calling

Well as you can see we made it safely to London, somehow. We are both kinda sick, Katey more so than Spots. The flight was easier than expected, and so was finding the hostel even though it was a 2.5 hour journey through the London "tube".

After we arrived we did some wandering and then slept for 16 hours in our tiny room. The next day we did more wandering and found Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and the London eye. It seems that whenever we are not sleeping we are walking somewhere. After the Eye we went to find a couple of cheap pints in some dingy little pub. On the way back our bladders got the best of us as we frantically searched for a public toilet. After releasing some pressure we went to the hostel to freshen up and found a little Greek restaurant that had an overactive air conditioner and a cheap bottle of wine. Thinking it was party time, Spot found some cheap Foster's (Australian for beer), however we were both out by 11pm. After another night of trying to sleep off the jet lag we were up at the crack of noon to do some more exploring. We walked for about an hour to our next London hostel after enjoying a delicious pho breakfast. Katey is getting sicker, but trucking along just fine.
So, we will try to update this once more before we are off to Gibraltar and Morocco next Wednesday. Stay tuned....