Last night I actually managed to stay warm despite the ghetto encampment and the lack of a mattress. We slept on the rock roof, but at least they had some straw mats for us. The secret to my warm night’s sleep though is all thanks to the brillance of Tim and his patented tuck technique. Basically this engineering marvel comes down to the creation of a full body cocoon with the blanket. I now understand why his entire family are engineers.

Today was much easier than yesterday even though it was pretty much all on the flat lowland. We only had to go like 16km and up only at the very end to get to Cassa. Actually it was pretty shotrt going up too. We reached Cassa by noon and are all getting some well needed rest now. The village itself is something totally new too. Everything seems to be made out of these large red rocks. The town is spread out and I don’t think they hardly ever get tourists here. The children that follow us here don’t even, for the most part, know the standard tourist greeting 'ca va? Donne moi un cadeaux'. It’s nice not to be totally hassled all the time. On the other hand there is no encampment ehre at all. Its stupid I know, I have a totally unfair double standard. On one hand I don’t want to be around tourists, but in some ways I want the tourist luxuries. Not a 4-wheel drive truck, or a swimming pool or anything, but some things are nice. And facts are facts; I am a tourist here. Its weird to see this really interesting culture being screwed up, in part by me and my presence, no matter how non-invasive I try to be. Is this my conscience, or am I just being selfish?

Yesterday evening Joe, Tim, and were talking about morals and ethics. I think I’m a pretty moral person, but I really don’t care much at all for ethics. Effectively my lack of ethics makes little difference because for the most part I’m not overly self-indulgent or possessive, and I really do like people. But the fact remains; I might do the right thing for the sake of it, or for myself, while someone like Joe would do it for the sake of others. He countered that it isn’t all like that though; we need to find the balance and morals vs ethics doesn’t always give you the answer. I think we also need to be guided by our conscience and our heart. What are morals and ethics anyways but an arbitrary expression of these emotions anyways that particularly in the case of ethical situations can be utterly wrong, or even destructive. I can’t write so much longer today as its getting dark but I did want to say that I finished a really excellent book that I’d guess a lot of people out there have already read, or at least heard about. It’s called "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. If you haven’t read this book, I’d really recommend it; I was very very impressed. In fact I’d like to read it again in a few days after it sinks in a bit more. Very perceptive writing on our culture, mythology and ultimately destructive nature. Don’t argue just read it; night all.