I’m sitting on our bus, yet again, watching the arid Moroccan scenery slowly unspool through the windows. The colour pallet is similar to the Australian bush, although the contours utterly different with the Atlas Mountains on one side and the Ante Atlas on the other side. The detail is acacia, or almond and olive trees rather than our scrubby bush or eucalypt.

This tour is testing my tolerance for moving nearly every day, and sitting in a ( admittedly very comfortable) bus. I find it quite dislocating, spending such a short time in each place then packing up and moving on. There is the ever present fear of leaving something vital behind, and the desire to spend more time absorbing the atmosphere and vibrancy of each different place.

As a conflicting emotion, I’m handling the actual travelling fairly well. The bus is not packed so there is plenty of space, and I put a lot of preparation into the travelling in terms of downloaded music and podcasts. Reading doesn’t work well on some of the rough roads, but listening either to some favourite albums or thought-provoking podcasts, while watching the landscape scroll past, is a peaceful way to pass some contemplative time.

Things to enjoy while watching the world go by;

• Watching a rural secondary school spill out and loads of girls get on their bicycles; unheard of a few years ago in Morocco
• A mosaic of little fields separated by almond and olive trees
• Passing a donkey carting a load of straw and blankets on the road, while the driver is chatting on his mobile phone
• Seeing a bizarre tower and light at the top, wondering what on Earth it could be. Finding out it’s a Concentrated Solar Power plant, generating 350GW of energy
• Watching herds of goats and wondering what they could possibly be eating on that arid, bare ground
• Being dismayed at the litter strewn everywhere while trying not to be critical of a still developing nation

The travel itself is fine, indeed enjoyable for me, it’s moving so frequently and not having time in each place which doesn’t suit.

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