Jonesberries

We made it to the Dali Museurm. The Surrealism dude. The painter and sculptor. The show off. Sam and Liz will be upset but we got them postcards. We all had a great time and went through in our old way.

Alana and Abi running around mumbling, “Dali, Dali, Dali!” with the glee of little girls. Quickly twirling from painting to sculpture, from ceiling to floor.

Hannah, in solitude and deep thought contemplating the extreme rebel and individuality in his creativity.

Andrew, with a book in one hand contemplating the complexity, intelligence, the spirituality and references to other artists.

Me and TJ wandered around together made a great time to talk about a person that wasn’t as concerned with what people thought. He didn’t care if people thought it was pretty or silly. He was his own person. Making things that said what he wanted to say or were just plain silly. And TJ loved to hear that Dali’s bones were buried there. Dali seemed to like bones too, and rocks.

I wasn’t aware of how he worked so much with found objects. Even the building was recycled.

Well worth a visit. We noticed that at 2:00 alot of the bored school kids left and the museum was alot less crowded. Worth noting for future museum visits.

So here we are, a week into our time in El Moreon, Spain. Just down river from the Beneficio Family. We were supposed to leave on Thursday but one of our start-up batteries decided to announce it’s retirement from active duty. As things seem to go, our truck was surrounded by mechanics at the moment of truth and they jumped to action. So, here we are, 4 days later, expecting the delivery of 2 new batteries. One of our old batteries is already in place, ready to start our 12 volt solar bank. Our dead battery gets left behind to go to Danny, the guy who runs the health food store in town and loves to bring new use to dead batteries.

How did we use our week, you may ask.

We adopted a puppy from our mechanic. An El Moreon/Beneficio mutt. Named him Inigo. He has also been traveling since the day he was born. Poor thing, he has already had is first vaccine. He pooped all over the table at the vet he was so scared. We have a schedule of more vaccines and stuff. He now has is temporary passport and is ready to travel with the family.

We hiked up along the river to Beneficio. It takes long legg Andrew an hour for this hike each way. Took us 2 hours plus but oh the wonders we saw along the way. Including lots of sunbathing lizards and a smushed snake on the road. TJ wanted to take the dead snake back with us to watch the decaying process on a daily basis. Uh, yeah, I know, wierd. We decided against this as we live in a very confined space.

Some of us took a shower in a waterfall.

We filled up our waterbottles from the source of our river. The river we have been hiking next to and crossing over and dipping into all week. How great to hike to the source of the river.

Ever think about where your river comes from? It could very well be something magical and beautiful like we found. Ours comes from a spring of water tripping over a rock on the edge of a transparent pool of spine tingling icy cold water.

Some of us went in. Who? You guessed it. Abi, Alana and Hannah.

Hung out with a friend from the “Hippie Van” in Morocco, Chris, at the tipi he is living in.

Andrew and Alana and Abi hiked up to Franchesca’s straw bale house that she is making.

Franchesca and her friend have been making a mixture of mud and cactus goo and it was now ready to go on some walls.Abi and Alana, worked on, uhhh, helped with, uhhhh. They threw some mud around and some made it onto the walls.

Me and Andrew did a Tango workshop. Swiss tango instructors who live in their truck with their 3 young boys. They have a geodesic dome that they have removed the cover of for repair.  We entered the dome frame thru double wooden doors. Their part monkey son with the long blonde hair spent most of the time swinging from one bar to another over our heads as we learned how to listen to nonverbal cues and respond to each other as we move around the dance floor in random intentionality. Most definitely a surreal experience.

We have bought some amazing wholemeal, or integrated, bread from some of the most interesting international bakers we have ever met.

We also sampled and learned how to make chocolate desserts that are raw and vegan. They are made with raw chocolate and no sugar. Avocados for creaminess, dates and bananas and Agave syrup for sweetness, buckwheat and seeds for crunch. Very rich and gooey and yummmmmy.

Abigail got some recipes and the ingredients to add to her collection as well as a couple of “funky raw” magazines.

Yes, Maureen, that is your daughter – COOKING. Actually she has been cooking lots of wonderful things for us. Don’t ever let her try to convince you she can’t cook again.

We have also been hanging out with our new friends. Will and Kie and their girls, Albi and Ziz are our neighbours. Hannah, the book geek, is hanging with Albi, a fellow book geek and plan to do a book exchange – if they can stop playing for long enough. Will is building his mechanic’s workshop into the back of their horsebox. They also open up cafes outside of their truck. Just a few tables and chairs and a homemade sign and the healthy, tasty treasures that come out of their little, kitchen.

Another family is finishing fitting out the back of their truck to take off to the some festivals in UK and Berlin, including the worldpeace festival. They do amazing, creative sessions and installations with oversized puppets and flowers.

Andrew helped produce a CD and his group of gifted musicians.

We really like it but figure it is time to go…. possibly…. this evening…. or maybe…. tomorrow morning….. or…. ?

You know, it is all so relaxed here.

WE HAVE A PUPPY! WE HAVE A PUPPY! WE HAVE A PUPPY!

PUPPY PUPPY PUPPY PUPPY PUPPY!!!!!!!

i like puppies….

Alana

So to catch up or should I also say “Cache” up. He, he, he.

We went out the next day to try again. We looked at the comments and looked for one that everyone found that tried. and……

SUCCESS!!!

So we touched into Portugal and Paulo and Edna came down to see us at Monte Gordo. Paulo found a little Chameleon.We named him Fred and put him in a comfy tree after giving him lots of cuddles.

We got a new football as our old one went astray in Morocco. Of course, we had to test it, so we put our best footie player on the job.

We went to find some friends in the Beneficio Family in the South of Spain. We could not stay at Beneficio because a landslide last winter blocked the road in but we found the most amazing collection of communities of traveller folk, gypsies and circus people from all around the world at the other end of the valley.

Trucks and geodesic domes, yurts and tiny stone homes everywhere, with lots of kids to play with. We are not seeing much of our kids these last few days as they now have many friends to keep them occupied. Many people have just left to “do the festivals” but enough remain to make some good friends.

We have been checking out the Geocaching website. I found out about it on Families on the Road. They have a “Roadschooling” section. Seemed like a natural fit.

I watched the little videos. Showed it to the kids. It looked so easy. It is like a treasure hunt with a GPS. There are these amazing little treasure boxes buried all over the world. “Cache in, trash out” is their little slogan. You find these little treasure boxes. If you take something out of the box you put something in of the same or greater value. What fun! No worries. Right? Time for our quest of epic proportions. A treasure hunt.

In Morocco we didn’t have maps for our Nuvi GPS, for Africa, so we tried to use “Girlpod”. Our dear little Girlpod is a handmedown ipod touch with a broken screen. We gave her a facelift (replaced the glass) but she is still a little old lady (old ipod touch) and in need of frequent life-support (electricity) as her heart (battery) is that of a little old lady. Her battery has seen many moons and would only take us one hour into our quest. Not nearly enough time for a quest.

Back to yesterday. Attempt number 2.

We start off singing. “We’re following the leader. the leader. the leader….”. We took off to find the first cache.

A construction site. They are redoing the roads. We look longingly out at the bus stop in a cage. Bus stops should never be in cages of construction. It must be in there, we thought. Lets try another one.

Not another construction site. It couldn’t be.

At this point I pointed the way home for the kids. They can make it back without me. I must find one of these little boxes. Isn’t this like a kids homeschool thing. I like puzzles, for goodness sake, I am good at puzzles. When all was lost I navigated my family back to the truck without getting lost IN FES! Everybody gets lost in Fes, Andrew got lost in Fes, repeatedly, though he will probably never FES UP to it. Dang, I am sure not going to let some silly kids game get the best of me. Determined to trek on til I FIND A GEOCACHE BOX. I can be quite stubborn at times. Only occasionally. Uhhhhh. The kids unanimously decided to continue on our quest. I think they regretted it later. Could be the 4+ km of extra trekking for the next geocache. Maybe they are as stubborn as me. Trying for geocache number 3 we see many wonders along the way.

Pink bear and rabbits in captivity.

A headless bear with a button “guess who killed the cat”. Hmmmmm.

We played in the sun (get it?!? There was a sun in the middle of the roundabout. A sun in the sun. Ha. Ha. Hmmmm.)

We skipped along the yellow brick road.

The third geocache place was much more scenic. Pine trees. Dirt trails. Still, no luck. In real life it could be GONE. STOLEN. Maybe our geocache is MIA. These things are so hard. Maybe nobody has found these for years. Perhaps we have stumbled  across the most difficult level of geocaching. Perhaps no one has EVER found these enormously difficult geocaches.

We come to grips with our defeat. Finding comfort in the fact that these were geocaches of an extremely difficult level. We find consolation in other ttreasure on the way home. Treasure like pink shells and starfish.

We contemplate the day.

Surely these things must be findable perhaps they were especially difficult geocaches.

We get home to discover they were, in fact, exceptionally easy ones to find and gazed unbelievingly at the cocky faces of the LAMERS that have found our geocaches before. Ooooh they think they’re so smart. ONE of them found one of OUR geocaches only 2 days ago. Perhaps it was one of THEM that stole it. See what can happen to a, somewhat normal, middle aged woman when she plays kids games. Knock yourself out of it Deb.

After about an hour or so of going back and forth, unbelievingly, between the pages about OUR geocaches. Looking at the photos of the uh… particular individuals… that were successful. I am determined to go out again the next day. TODAY. As I make my declaration the girls all pitch in. WE will go out again. We won’t let some silly little geocaches get the best of us. Seriously now, we have trekked the Sahara. We have been chased by drug dealers in the Rif mountains. We aren’t going to let a silly little kids game get the best of us. WE WILL go out again today. They are MY stubborn little offspring, plus 1, after all. Grrrrr.

Well… out of Morocco, at least. We made it to Tanger. Had pizza with Karim.

Said goodbye to Karim and went to the ferry terminal. Not quite sure if we have this whole ferry thing worked out. Both times we are among the last to make it through the ferry terminal on the Morocco side. Whether it is landing in Tanger and getting through immigration and customs or getting onto a ferry to Algiceira. I wonder if we are missing something. If we are doing something wrong. We heard from one source that putting some money in your passport helps, or if we chose the ferry company with the least ferries or if it was simply the grocery store complex and your line always goes slowest.

It was an entertaining day at the port, anyway. Saw 5 teenage boys remarkably being pulled from underneath various trucks. They were trying to get a free ride to Europe. So, that is why inspections were so thorough. All the cars were searched but the larger vehicles were pulled off to the side where we had to all get out of the truck and Maggie some high-tech truck x-ray machine went over the top of or dear truck. We just sat there most of the day. All in all, did alot of people watching.

We think we may have even seen Mr. Bean. Well, kinda. One guy was quite entertaining. I think he wasn’t quite all there. Every once in a while he would come up to our truck and say, “It’ll be about a half an hour” and ask for a euro. He was also in the habit of grabbing people’s suicases when they were most the way down the stairs and asking for a euro. He was like a little boy that had watched his dad doing official business but didn’t quite get the plot.

Finally made it through – well after dark and headed for Gibralter where we had some people to see. We took the opportunity to get some of the foods we remember like English tea, HP sauce, malt loaf, bacon and cheese. Mmmmmmm.

We also met up with Musa and hope to see him when we get to Beneficio. Musa makes amazing jewelry and is selling some in Gibralter now. We talked about having sort of an online store for travellers trying to support themselves by making and selling stuff. Don’t know how to do an online store. Something to think about.

We got kicked out of La Linea by the police again with the other motorhomes. Ahhh, just like old times.

We are somehow changed coming out of Africa. Some things are more obvious.

TJ went to a shop in Gibralter and saw a little butterfly t-shirt. She looked at the price of the t-shirt. “Hmmmm, 7 pounds. That’s alot of money. I think 3 pounds would be right and she started looking for the sales lady.” “TJ we aren’t in Morocco anymore and prices are fixed here.”

Hannah has been having a great time shuffling between 3 currencies in the last 2 days.

Alana and Abi are enjoying walking down a street without getting any extra attention. “So relaxing.”, They say.

Andrew is enjoying the macho feeling of coming out of Africa. We have been to Africa. Kinda like being in a new club. He also enjoyed putting a bit of wine in his spaghetti sauce.

I have enjoyed using some good washing machines and will, hopefully, enjoy a good clean out of the truck today. The outside of our truck looks great but the inside is falling apart a bit. Some of the cheap wood shelves are falling apart a bit. I think particle board is a poor choice for bookshelves in a home that is always bumping around.

Some things are not so obvious. People are right when they say Africa gets inside you. I have a feeling that many things we will not be able to label, they just are. I feel some sense of relief. Yesterday I was aware that every cell in my body was relaxing. I am also sad about leaving. Every cell in my body is also groaning.

I miss being woken up by donkeys and chickens in the morning.

We are now looking at the next season. Re-europing our truck. Pulling out the Europe maps and putting away the Africa ones. Looking at the next year. We will spend the summer in Europe. Not sure how much western europe or possibly Central Europe. Asking questions about the Rainbow Festival in Finland and Freakstock in Germany. Asking about other festivals. Thinking about friends we want to see. Thinking about making some things to sell and where and how to sell them. Got some fabric and wool for making some things. Thinking about wings. Yeah, I know, I just like the thought of making brightly coloured wings and seeing people walking around wearing them. Also thinking about spending time with friends. Making pottery.

In September we want to be in Turkey. We have met some other travellers that want to go to India. They all plan to meet in Turkey for a month of getting visas for Iran, Pakistan and India. I am the only one in the entire group, so far, that is carrying a U.S. passport, they think it will be no problem. There are 2 other families that want to go, A Croation family and a Swiss family. The Croation family has been there 4 times already. Seems like a good group to be going with. There should be about 4 or 5 trucks going, so far. We figure, may as well try. If it is meant to be it will all come together.