Hep Hep Hooray

                                                               Celebration Day.

Hep free after one month since finishing treatment. Really great news for us. Waiting for ongoing results can be a taxing time and good news, a welcome relief. It's not that we are expecting the virus to come back but nothing is certain in this life, other than, of course, we all go back to where we came from !
So after a good dance and cuddles, we decided to go for a bike run to celebrate. Nothing like whizzing around beautiful countryside, full of joy, to remind ourselves how lucky we are to be alive.

Hep free and Happy. My lovely Krysia is so pleased. She has been with me every inch of the way. Through all the lows and now, we seem to be getting some highs. Long may it last and spread to our loved ones.

We ride with the wind the 30 miles or so, to Larache. Well in search of Lixus really. A 12th century BC ruin, the oldest in Morocco. First inhabited by the Phoenicians but more known for its Roman ancestors before falling, along with their empire in about 500 AD.

Needless to say, we get lost to start with an end up on the banks of the river Loukkos, opposite Larache. Delightful, as I can't say old ruins are really my thing. Many blogs ago, I called a visit to Volubilis, another ancient ruin, ' the most boring day of my life' . I'm such a philistine when it comes to history. Still, this visit was to become a highlight in my cultural development. But not for obvious reasons.

                                                     The Snake and the tortoise

This wonderful likeness tells our story but I might as well add some words and pictures to expand on the event as it unfolded.

 Guides were available at the entrance to this free site but we chose the 'wander as you like' version, guide free. Now they might have said something to us at the start, perhaps a 'watch out for the wild life here' ! or something. But it didn't take us long to find out. Krysia stands here at an arch, leading to, another arch  !!

As seen below

 She notices something under foot, strange little somethings, which when I investigate with her, we find are little chicks, tiny things and mama flies off with a startle. Oooh, quite a surprise. But nothing like the one we get a few moments later.

To our utter astonishment, we disturbed a large green snake, the size of which gets bigger day by day. The thickness of an arm and as long as ? well1.5 to 2 meters !! We froze as it slithered at great speed along the wall, bottom left, turned right straight towards Krysia, then plopped over the side of the basin with a loud thud as it hit the bottom !

Time stood still. We then ran to safety. Whether green snakes are dangerous was not the question we wondered. It was a large reptile at high speed, no doubt about to devour the little baby chicks we had disturbed. And we were in the way. This ancient monument was taking on an altogether different meaning. Ghosts of the Romans is one thing but how many other wiggly creatures live here ? Now a guide would be handy !!!

Fortunately, Nordine was waiting in the bushes ! pretending not to follow us. So we asked him for advice, on snakes that is, not Roman history.

With a big smile, he told us that there were many snakes in the area. In fact, the whole hill was a snake paradise and you don't want to see the black ones. They can kill ! ??? Mmmmm

 So we took him on the rest of the walk, allowing all sorts of information to go over our heads as long as he kept any more crawly things away from us. A lovely chap. His grandpa was the first guide here, followed by his father and now he and his brothers do the honours of letting tourists get eaten by large reptiles. But what views and what are you doing Krysia ? Get your hands off that, whatever it is !!

Back to the views. The old inhabitants obviously chose the site for it's advantageous position.  Probably to kill anything that moved in the plains below.

And in the picture below, apparently, this toppled stone was used by somebody, the Carthagians, so we were told, to sacrifice babies to the gods !

nice !

We'll move on shall we !




To the second part of the title.

        The Tortoise.

                 Nothing happened here ! Just a quiet creature going about it's business, no fuss.

                           Phew, that's a relief. A pleasant non event !! Thank you Mr Tortoise.

And so comes to a close our celebration day. We fly home again on the wind and settle in to our campsite tranquility. No snakes here ! Are there ???