"What time is it? What's that noise?"   ... It's 5.45am, the noise is the BBC newsreader on the T.V., set at this time to turn on and wake me up.

"Why am I waking up now? What day is it? What am I doing today?"    ...today is Tuesday, 12th August. This morning I'm flying from Luton to Malaga, to explore the southern Spanish coast a little, then backpack down through Morocco.

I fight the dreams off and try to wake up. Today will be the start of a new adventure, it's important that I get out of bed.

      * * *

When I first moved to the house I live in now, I didn't know a lot of people. I invited a friend from where I used to live to come and stay. We were playing basketball in a nearby school when two other local lads approached us. One of them, 'Charlie', asked if we would like to play a game, a two on two, first to 15 points.

That same guy, Charlie, is the guy I find myself on a plane with now, six years later, about to leave the tarmac from the heat wave-struck UK, heading off for a months backpacking.

The flight was cheap, and smooth, apart from a few screaming kids. Why are kids allowed on planes? They always scream and cry, they obviously don't like it, why bother pissing them, and everybody around them off? Especially at such an early hour!

During the flight Charlie dozed, (I would find out as the trip unfolded that Charlie has a unique ability to sleep on any type of transport, in any conditions, at any time of day or night) and I mixed my time between reading a book, and using this first point of transport time to try and imagine what was to come over the next four weeks, what Spain would be like, and what kind of experience Morocco, and my first time in Africa, would have in store for me.

As we came in to land three hours later, Spain below us started get clearer. The landscape was dusty and brown, hills and rises in the land looking as if they were being pushed up from below, fields sprawling with villas planted here and there, and the clear sign of swimming pools in the gardens. (bastards.)

The runway approach came into view, and we began our final descent. I'm not sure if it was pilot training day, but whoever was in charge clearly hadn't mastered the art of landing. 

We first touched down with both rear wheels, then tipped over to the left, running on just the rear left wheel. We carried on tipping, then, at a convenient time for everybody’s lives, the pilot corrected us and we pulled up safe. We were sure the people in the Malaga Airport control tower were astonished to see the people alive and the plane intact when it finally stopped.

Traveling by road, our destination was Tarifa, a town at the southern-most point of Spain, about a two to three hour coach journey away. We boarded a bus and headed our way through modern, commercial Malaga, away from the airport to Malaga's main bus terminal, at which, we caught a connecting bus to Algerciraz, then another bus to Tarifa. On our journey southwards we went past Marbella, that famous Spanish resort that all the English couples love, the geezers out with their Union Jack trunks, Kappa hats on, beers in hands, bulldog and football club tattoo's aplenty, lots of bling bling gold around ear lobes, necks, wrists and fingers, with their ridiculously tarted up English girlfriends, trying to look like sexy Spanish ladies, (give up now girls, you have nooooo chance) competing with their friends for bikini trends and tans, wearing fake Gucci sunglasses that are too big for their heads, carrying three packets of their duty free B+H fags, mobile phones with tasteless covers and even more diabolical ring tones,  Oh sweet Jesus I am ashamed to be an Englishman abroad, but at least I'm not on a two week holiday to Marbella with this lot!

Hurry driver, take me away from Marbella.

The route we followed was on a beautifully built freeway, that headed down the south east of the country, clinging tightly to the coastline. The landscape around the road was comprised of stunning Spanish foothills, and where they grew too high for the freeway the engineers had carved through them, and when they dropped too low they had supported the road on concrete legs, nothing, it seemed, was going to stop these boys, or their spanky new road. Unfortunately, between us and the idyllic coast was development hell, condos and tower block apartments as far as the eye could see, everybody after their own little piece of Mediterranean luxury, shame about a million other people had the same idea!

With hundreds of construction cranes dotted in between already built sites the development showed no signs of letting up, I'm guessing in about twenty years or so you won’t even be able to see the sea anymore, just concrete and over-tanned crispy people.

We arrived in Tarifa after about a three hour journey, and now, being at the southern most tip of Spain, the deep blue ocean opened up to us in glorious panoramic view.

On land, we were just above the straights of Gibraltar, the mouth of the Mediterranean sea.

Off the beach to the south of us, fifteen kilometers away was Africa, Tangier to be precise, the northern most city of Morocco. A city not without risk for the first time traveler, as we would come to find out.

We didn't know where we were going or what we were doing, so we just headed for the beach, found some shade behind a wall and sat down for a while. It was hot hot hot.

Charlie stayed with our stuff while I went off to do some reconnaissance, to find out info on hostels and campsites. (We came prepared with the camping jazz, hoping to save on cash.)

Tarifa is a holiday town for the Spanish, a little like Newquay is for the English. It's dominated with windsurfing and kitesurfing shops, full of expensive and trendy surf clothing.

The buildings are neither huge nor small, but painted in nice, bright colors, adding to the holiday feel of the town. I found the tourist info joint and made my enquiries which would help us decide where to stay tonight.

It turns out that all campsites are actually slightly out of town, the first being about four kms away.

 (I also found out that most Spanish people can speak English, but don't like to, especially not to English folk. Grow up people.) Tarifa is nice, but we were after something a little more chilled and away from hustle and bustle.

We upped and trekked with our gear to the north west exit of town, checked with a local shop owner that we were pointed in the right direction, and hitched for a ride.  Saves the hassle of trying to work out the local bus system.

It was a fair while that we stood and hitched for, and as we continued trying, two rather attractive young ladies headed towards us, also needing to hitch their way out of town, I think both Charlie and I were hoping that we would end up in the same place as these two little minxes.

But before they reached us, two cars pulled up to remove Charlie and me from the scene.

Both cars that stopped were occupied by families, but with enough room still left to fit one of us in each car, and our bags in the boot. Unfortunately we had to leave the ladies behind. Unlucky girls. 

Result, it had taken a while, hopeful looks had been wasted on people who looked like they would stop but had just cruised on, and the sun had been beating down. But in the end it was some chilled Spanish families on their holidays who finally lifted us away and took us toward our first base camp.

We got out by a roadside cafe, opposite the top of an entrance to the first campsite on this road. We opted to stop in the cafe to get ourselves a well deserved beer, then proceeded down the road toward the campsite, which, to our surprise was more expensive than we thought, but bollocks, as the campsites were all kilometers apart and we had been traveling for six hours, this was our first base camp.

We were shown to our spot, surrounded by many other tents in the busy site, and Charlie showed me how quickly he could erect.

Charlie had a nifty little two man tent you see, capable of being battle ready in a matter of seconds due to a rude boy snap lock tent pole system. I was glad about this. There's nothing worse than wasting good time on trying to build and de-build tents, this only cuts into good smoking and drinking time as far as I'm concerned.

The campsite was large, and pretty full as far as I could tell, a whole world of different style and size tents was in play, along with cars, motorbikes (bastards.) and campervans, ranging from classic Volkswagen style to just showboaters, the world of campervan technology seems to be passing me by.

The dominating species here seemed to be Italians, keen to soak up the Spanish sun, as if they don't have enough of their own!!!  But that's fine by me, as eye candy goes Italian ladies are just as fine (not quite as fine) as Spanish.

After Charlie's swift erection, we lay outside the tent on our roll mats and chilled. I switched on a small Sony radio we had bought with us, and surfed the waves for a while, until I realized something was missing from this first stage of our travels.

Alcohol and marijuana.

What better way to ease yourself into a months traveling than with a crisp cold beer and a smooth toot on one of natures finest.

The first task was solved easily by a swift visit by Charlie to the campsite shop, which I may say was equipped to the max with all you need, and whatever you may need was not restricted to one or two choices, but a wide selection. It really was a mini supermarket, and not bothering with beer chillers, these shop owners simply allowed you to walk into a huge refrigerated room with the selection of brewskis standing proud, and by standing I mean they were not the little bottles of beer that are commonly seen here in England, nope, these were HOLIDAY sized beers, a good litre/litre and half of cold, crisp vacation juice.       Nice.

The second ingredient was a little more tricky, but lucky for us there were two guys a tent or two down that seemed to be toking it up, and with some good hip hop bouncing out their speakers as they too sipped back on beer bottles of grand size.

I shimmied my way over, and met Flo, and Yan. They were both about twenty or so, spoke really good English, and were enjoying their camping trip round parts of Europe with a hired car.

Charlie joined us and we got chatting. Turns out Ze Germans had none of Ze Veed for sale, but openly invited us to sit down with them, listen to their tunes and share what Jazz tobacco they had. Cheers lads!

Two or three big beers and some joints later, the sun had set and the evening was swinging for all happy campers around. We were in a walled off section of the site that contained around 20 - 30 vehicles, the same number of tents, and around 60 - 80 people, and by the sounds of things they too, were enjoying the campsite shop's walk-in room selection of daddy sized beers. Music was being played all around from car sound systems, big portables, small personal stereo sets with speakers and even the sounds of plucking guitar strings and other instruments could be heard.

I was enjoying conversations with ze Germans; we had music and youth in common, liberal ideas, traveling tales, and humor.

In a book of war and soldiering that I read, there was a quote on the first page by a person named 'Ecclesiastes', - that reads...  "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth....."

 If only it could have been this way between our grandfathers and great grandfathers. Sitting there with those German guys I felt thankful that we were able to do what we were doing, enjoying the company of our fellow man, as if it had been fifty years or so before we would have been trying to kill each other. Instead, we were rejoicing in our young lives.

The good times were rolling. And as the evening rolled on Flo and Yan started to play us some phatt hip hop beats from their native Germany. I think a fast rap is impressive to hear, but a fast rap in another language is also groovy, and as Flo played one of his favorite hip hop tunes he rapped alongside in super fast German, and in between verses tried desperately quickly to translate what he was on about, then would start ripping off again into another verse in Eminem speed native tounge, I was hugely impressed by this!

Yes indeed, good vibes were swimming in my soul. After Flo finished his live performance, I sat back and leaned against a tree and shut out the other noises around me, for a quick private moment of reflection. All around me in this campsite were just human beings enjoying themselves. No one was pissing anyone else off and I just felt a big wave of unity and commune among us all. The tunes were good, and I was loving hanging out with Charlie and these guys, the beer was flowing and natures weed had had its desired effect on my body and brain. The stars in the night sky above us were shining bright, and dotted around our area were dim garden lamps adding to the flickering glow of campers candles, all contributing to make a fantastic dreamy atmosphere.

Yes, good vibes. This morning I was in Luton, England. Now, in another time and place outside my usual existence, here on the beautiful southern coast of Spain, among this chilled community of campers, one sentence sprang to mind...........

I had arrived.

Peace, 

Jim.