Two short diary pieces--2001

18 August 2001. On the Rabat-Fes train about an hour and a half from our destination the countryside reminds me of Aragon or Castile. There are olive plantations and long expanses of dry rolling fields. The same sort of wild cane and willows grow along the little creek here, but agave is more prevalent. An occasional pair of royal palms. The plowed up harvested hay fields vary in color, gray, brown or red. They stack the rectangular bales up in the form of a small house with a hip roof. Grazing sheep. In the watered areas maize grows and you might see half a dozen holsteins or black angus. Herds of sheep mixed with goats graze in the hay stubble.

22 August 2001. Leaving Chauen. Prickly pear and agave on the roadside. Olive plantations or scattered olive trees dotting rolling dry fields otherwise covered in scrubland, which includes a dwarfed palmetto. Tobacco in white flowering bloom. Wild cane. And the mountains in the distance enclosing the whole. Overcast slowly but surely penetrated by the sunshine. Oleanders grow wild in and alongside the rivers & creeks.