We’re in the Sahara Desert now, after ten hours of driving. We left Fez with Majid in his van at 6:30 this morning. That meant that the parental units got up at 4:45, while I was aroused an hour later. Breakfast was a quick meal of oranges, boiled eggs, bread, and milk, and afterwards Ethan washed the dishes.

After two stops, we stopped to see what Majid called the “crazy monkeys.” It was freezing cold—literally—and after about ten minutes Majid decided that the monkeys weren’t going to come out because it was too cold.

Of course, shortly after he said that, the monkeys arrived. They’re Barbary macaques, which used to be found in Tunisia, but that population has gone extinct. Now they’re found in only two places: the Atlas Mountains in Algeria and Morocco and Gibraltar. We saw them when we were in Spain about nine years ago. The 300 or so Barbary macaques in Gibraltar were introduced (no one knows quite how—maybe they swam?) and are thriving, while their African counterparts are becoming more endangered by the day. The macaques in Gibraltar make up the only population of primates in Europe that is not caged in.

Up we went til we were at about 6,000 feet. By then, the snow patches were several inches deep. It has been 54 weeks since I’ve last seen real snow—and we were on our way to the desert.

Ciao!