The four are led by Ethiopia Kenya, Rwanda and Senegal which however trails Morocco. Combined the four planted over the targeted one billion trees.In terms of geographic distribution, Africa is the leading region with over half of all tree plantings.
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We finally made it to Algeciras and caught the 2:30 ferry to Tangiers. At this point we realized that we had been far too ambitious in our original plan to catch the earlier train. Things operate on a different schedule here. It took us forever to go through customs to even get on the ferry, and then we had to line up again once the ferry was ,oving to go through passport control again. In the meantime we met an American named Zach who was traveling by himself while on spring break from his college in Edinburgh Scotland/ The three of us decided to take turns watching eachother's bags so that we could expedite our process through passport control. I was fortunate enough to be standing in front of two pretty funny (not on purpose) old hippy hash dealers. How do I know they were hash dealers? Because they were openly talking about it. But more on that later...

After we arrived in Tangiers Jon, Zach and I went to find authentic Morrocan food. We stumbled upon what might have been the grossest place to eat in all of Tangiers and promptly ordered three plates of chicken and rice. When I spotted the cochroach openly running around to no one's concern... that was about it for me. Thankfully it seems that was the exception, not the rule as we've had GREAT food since then.

After that we parted ways because Zach was heading straight to Marrakech and we were going to Fes first. Jon and I boarded our train and a young Morrocan woman came and sat with us. Turns out she is an English teacher at a middle school and spoke perfectly! She was absolutely lovely and we chatted nonstop for the three hour train ride, until we had to switch trains. Her name was Majouba and she spoke candidly about Morrocan culture and things that might help us on our travels.  Our goodbye was filled with hugs all around and talk of a visit from her to the US.

Ok, as a final word I'm going to leave you with a bit of hippy wisdom I overheard from those American hash dealers standing behind me on the ferry.

Hippy 1- Europe would be great if not for all the Europeans.

Hippy 2- The world would be great if not for all the human beings!

Hippy 1- Nah, because then we wouldn't get to see it...

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

The only problem is that when your batteries go flat you inconveniently lose all the data stored therein, which of course makes sending out Christmas Cards just that little bit more difficult! (That is my excuse this year and I'm sticking to it!)

So please consider this email as a surrogate Xmas Card:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

In all seriousness though, I hope you all have a fantastic holiday celebration.

This email comes to you from Malaga in Spain. I am just passing through having spent a couple of weeks in Morocco and a couple of weeks prior to that driving around the
Southern bit of Spain (Andalucia)

Tomorrow I head back to the UK to spend Xmas with my sisters and their families. Then in the new year I am off to Paris initially and then Prague to see what happens from there.

The last few weeks have been terrific. I have succeeded in my goal of avoiding cold weather and Christmas hype.

Potted highlights:

• Ronda in Spain. Ernest Hemmingway has a helpful hint for Europe based recipients of this email: "There is a place in Spain that is the ideal spot to watch a bullfight for the first time . . . I am referring to the town of Ronda, the perfect place to visit with a girlfriend or to spend a honeymoon" It's a very romantic place. The only pity was that I hadn't organised anyone to be romantic with while I was there :)

• Fantastic Islamic architecture right through the region, but especially Granada and Cordoba

• Spanish business hours. Basically the day consists of getting up at about 9.30, and starting work (or in my case sightseeing) at about 10.30 through till say 1.00 when you knock off for lunch until about 4.00 pm. Then another stint of work/sightseeing through till 8.00 pm after which you spend the rest of the day wandering around bars drinking very nice red wine and nibbling on snacks (Tapas) till it all gets too much!

• Cabo de Gata. Very nice, non touristy beaches. Every beach has it's own 17th century castle too! I've been carrying a tent around in my backpack for the past three months and it finally got some use

• Morocco which was more about the fantastic people, souks (markets), culture and food than the architecture and history - which was surprisingly disappointing (apart from some awesome Roman ruins). If you want to see Moroccan architecture, then go to Spain!

• (Lowlight) Trying to find a carpark in Seville

I am still alive and well and - no, I'm not bored yet!

Adios