Chris and Paula’s World

Quick Update

We are in Ancona, Italy at the moment, waiting for our ferry to leave. We just scoured this small town for a supermarket in preparation for our three day long ferry ride. Found one after being directed from tourist information - as expected, we has passed it twice. Just thought I would do a quick update as we’ll be out of touch for a few days. We are headed to Turkey and at the moment are unsure of our path prior to May 5 when we meet our tour group in Istanbul. We both agree that some relaxing beach time would be a good thing, so will likely head to a beach first stop.

Cinque Terre was an amazing stop. We spent a couple days hiking along the trails that link the five towns of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manorolo and Riomaggiore. We also spent an afternoon on the beach in Riomaggiore… a tad rocky to say the least. The rocks were large smooth stones about the size of dinner roles up to the size of a loaf of bread. It was comfortable once the stones were arranged just so, however…. lets just say it wasn’t so easy looking graceful in a bathing suit trying to get in or out of the water. Once those babies are wet they are freaking slippery. The locals had zero problem, but man I struggled to stay upright. We had our first amazing Italian meal in Vernazza - a simple pasta meal and the best caprese salad EVER. We were sorry to leave this amazing place and I highly recommend a visit.

The next couple of days were spent in Florence. I love Italian food. If you love good food, Italy is a MUST. The ingredients are better and the simpler the recipe the better. One thing that doesn’t thrill me so much is the fact that all prawns are served whole -feelers, eyes, everything. I don’t know why, but it gives me the creeps. Regardless, I faced my fears and had my best meal of the trip. It was spaghetti with scampi and zucchini flowers. Three of the largest prawns I have ever seen (they had to be baby lobster) adorned a gorgeous plate of spaghetti. Once I dug into my first one, I had it all figured out. It was amazing, however I maintatin that it really isn’t necessary to have all of that on a plate when you can really only eat the tail… Who am I to tell them how to serve pasta!?

Anyhow, we also saw the city, including a visit to the Ufizzi. We were in line at 7:45 a.m and got in around 9:15. We had read that they recommend you book 5 days in advance, but the line was busy every time we tried. Highlight there for me was Botticelli’s Birth of Venus… it is HUGE!! Didn’t expect that.

Chris is anxiously waiting to get to the ferry, so I am going to sign off. We need to figure out how to get our visas so we are going to head over now. The boat looks really nice! We have a cabin for two nights, I am looking forward to hanging out on the Lido Deck with a tropical cocktail playing shuffleboard while Chris smokes cigars with the old boys in the lounge.

Bye for now.

P

PS - yes Mom and Dad, we will be very careful in Turkey.

5Terre, Firenze

7 minutes to make this.

Spent two FAB nights in Cinqueterre (probaly spelt wrong). That is a place worth going to. Perhaps a bit turisto, but nonetheless beautiful. 5 little towns on the coast that are connected by ferry or railway. Then yesterday we arrived in Florence. Saw the Ufizzi Gallery this morning, if there is one gallery in the world I can say that I liked, it was this one! Some of the paintings are over 800 yrs old. Today we are trying to see some sights and prep for our departure from Europe tomorrow night. We leave Ancona on the ferry at 22:30 for Cesme, Turkey!

Ive got a cold today, it is suckin. Food here is super. So simple the ingredients but so good.

More as soon as I can. Turkey awaits…

Barcelona

For starters, I just want to clarify that we are not spending all of our time on the internet!! We are in Montpellier, France at the moment and are waiting for a train to Nice. We have about four hours here, however the train station has no place for our big backpacks. We’ve decided to use the time for planning our quint stint in Italy, on the way to catch a ferry to Turkey on Sunday. We’ll be in Nice only for the night, passing through to Genoa en route to Cinque Terre — one of my dream locations for some time now.

Ok, now on to our time in Barcelona.

I LOVE Barcelona. What an amazing city. Barcelona was much easier communication wise than Granada (***side story below, doesn’t really fit here, but it does illustrate the communication issues we had in Spain, specifically Granada and Madrid), and has an excellent transit system. We had some challenges arriving on Friday night without a reservation and wandered up and down the streets surrounding La Rambla for 1.5 hours before we lucked out and found a room for the night (though they were not also available on Saturday night). La Rambla is one of the main avenues in Barcelona and is quite touristy, however at night it is filled with locals out for a stroll as well. On La Rambla at one of the many patios, we had the largest cervecas ever (in Canada we call them pitchers).

I am a huge Antoni Gaudi fan, and it was a huge thrill to actually go into his buildings. When Morag and I travelled to Barcelona after University, we were too broke to actually go into many attractions, so it was nice to finally see some of the places that I’ve admired for so long. Considering when these buildings were built (or started) - the late 1800s and early 1900s, I think it is amazing that his work was taken seriously. So much of it is purely for asthetic and fun. Casa Batllo was among the highlights of the entire trip so far for me. I have a lot of really good pictures that we’ll upload hopefully soon.

Just realized that we have to get a move on for the train. Sorry to stop mid way, but that’s all for now!!

P

***We stopped into a sandwich (bocadillo) shop in Granada for a late breakfast. On the menu, I recognized “omelette” to be something related to eggs, likely on bread due to the fact that we were in a sandwich shop. I asked for an “om-lette” probably too close to the french pronunciation… blank stare… I pointed at the menu, saying “omlette” (likely louder and slower, of course not helping matters)… this time I got a “whats your problem” look… finally the server half slid over the counter, saw what I was pointing at, and said “ah, om-el-ette”. We had lots of encounters like this prior to Barcelona.

Thanks!

Thanks so much for all of the good wishes for Chris and I! What a treat to log-in and feel all the lovin´vibes from home! xoxo Paula

Pics!

Hi,

I just uploaded a whack of pictures from the Moroccon Desert and also from Fes. Take a look! (Under the Photos link at the top of the page).

Off to Flemenco dancing and more tapas now!

The Big News

We were waiting to post on this until we were able to talk to our families… phones in Morocco were not so easy with our calling cards, so we waited til we got to Spain. That being done, I´m happy to share some big news…

Chris and I got engaged while we were in the Desert! Chris popped the question shortly after we arrived at the Berber camp on our first night in the Erg Chebbi. The picture above was taken about 3 minutes beforehand. We had just climbed up to the highest nearby dune to watch the beautiful sunset. Once the sun had set, we made our way down the dune and had tagine and mint tea prepared by our guide, Salim. Salim didn´t speak much English, and we didn´t bother to struggle en Français to tell him our happy news. We finished off a great day under a brilliant night sky in the Sahara. Until last night it was our secret and we are happy to share it with anyone who is interested! Feels more real now!

We have given zero thought to what/when/where, but we do know that we want to be around the people we love for the big day. No doubts that some kind of plan will be formed eventually but we are both happy to just enjoy this time and journey on in our big adventure.

Buenos Nochas for now!

Paula

Update From Chris

Hello again,

Lots has happened since my last post. We left Marrakech, travelled to Azilal, Cascade D´Ouzoudes, Merzouga, Fes and finally Tangier before leaving Morocco yesterday. I must say we were glad to be out of there. Not that it wasn´t beautiful and very learning for us, but I think we started to get tired of having giant $$$$ painted on our backs. Morocco has a large number of people who are trying to earn a dollar from tourists in their country. It is all wrapped up in the way of the Berber people and ´Family´. Every place has this sort of thing, but the aggressiveness of it in Morocco is hard to handle for the meek whitey. I think Paula gave you the jist of what we did while there. The Western Sahara around Merzouga are candidates for one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The Berber people of Morocco are some of the most hospitable I have ever met. The combination of French, Berber and Arabic cultures create a place like no other….

Two things I think hurt Morocco are Diesel and Plastic. I´m sure I will see this again on this trip too. Diesel fumes are HEAVY in all the large towns and cities we visited. You go home at night smelling like a old truck and having carbon shoved very far up your nose. Plastic bottles and bags have created a GIANT littler problem. Fields of plastic. They call plastic bags ´plastic birds´ because the fly through the air with the wind just about everywhere. Anyhow, I am sure they have bigger fish to fry than my whining about litter.

Our last night we spent at the Ramada in Tangier. Tangier is quite RAD. SO nice to be back to the Ocean. Next day we took a ferry to Algeciras in Spain, spent the night there and today we took the train to Granada, home of the worlds largest Arab Kasbah, The Alhambra. More touring of that tomorrow and then we are off to Barcelona for a few days….

That´s my update for now. Check the Photos link at the top of the page for some more pics. We are lagging behind in getting them uploaded, but hopefully now that we are in Europe for a bit, we can get them up to date…..

xoxox

Chris

Between Marrakesh and Fes…

Today I am typing this from a “Cyber Shop” in Fes, Morocco. Chris is at the hotel with a killer headache and I have ventured out on my own. I am feeling quite conspicuous as I type this as (not for the first time) I am the only female present!

Since Marrakesh we’ve definitely had an adventure. From there, our destination was a place called Cascades d’Ouzoud (Waterfalls of Ouzoude). We left Marrakesh by “Grand Taxi” - the first part of the adventure. In Morocco, there are “petit” and “grand” taxis — difference being the distance that you are travelling, “grand” obviously being the longer distance rides. We decided to head to a town called Azilal (under the impression that we had to stay in this town in order to access the waterfalls) by bus, however about three seconds after realizing that we would have to wait three hours for the bus to depart we were pursuaded to look into the grand taxi option. Pursuaded is a kind word. After being in Morocco now for almost two weeks, Chris and I have learned the hard way that “no, merci” does not seem to translate! The area behind the bus station was literally PACKED with big old beige Mercedes, and people everywhere vying for our business. In a grand taxi, you share… when the cab is full (and I mean FULL - six passengers in total) you go. We bargained (mostly by our new technique of just shutting up and letting the seller sweat it out) a decent price for the whole cab, roughly $35 for a 1.5 hour ride. The whole negotiation took about 30 minutes and about 15 mystery minutes later, we were on the road.

On arrival in Azilal it was pretty clear that it was a town that we wouldn’t be staying in long. We walked up and down the main drag in about 10 minutes and had a very good tagine for lunch. We found a small food market to check out as well as about 10 internet cafes to chose from. Dinner time was surreal. There were many cafes to chose from, however not one woman in the crowds! We walked up and down the main drag and decided to just sit down at one… asked for service and the waiter never came back! After about 15 minutes, we decided our best chance for dinner was chips, bread and La Vache Qui Rit cheese (that and Coca-Cola are the most recognized brands on the planet, I am convinced) in our room. We were in the room by about 7pm and played about 40 hands of cards when Chris heard “a whitey cough” outside our room. Sure enough, three American girls, Samantha, Abbey and Jess, had checked into the same hotel and were having a very similar experience to ours! We agreed to share a grand taxi to the Cascades in the morning as they were heading to the same place.

Cascades d’Ouzoud is a small town (about 1500 people) that has grown up arund the awesome waterfall. We stayed at Hotel Chellal which is a hotel run by a family of former nomads. It was a great place to relax and enjoy the hospitality. We went on a very long hike through the gorge which was amazing to see. I unfortunately got so dehydrated that I was sick for about three hours after our hike, but live and learn. What an amazing landscape, and what a great place to chillout in after the hectic pace of Marrakesh.

At Ouzoud, we met a guy named Medi, who we agreed to go on our desert trip with. We ultimately needed to end up in Fes, and he proposed a trip to Erg Chebbi that would get us to Fes - quite a long distance.

We spent a night in the Ziz Valley, then two in the Sahara desert in the dunes of Erg Chebbi. On arrival qbout 2 km outside of Merzouga, we met our camels, Jimi Hendrix (mine) and Bob Marley (Chris’), as well as our guide Salim, and were off. Riding a camel is fun, but going down a relatively steep dune is a tad nerve wracking! Our guide spoke Berber, Arabic, Spanish and French, so we had to make due with our rough French skills — they have come in very handy in Morocco, actually. He said that camels never fall “jamais” so we had to believe him, though Bob Marley came awfully close to sending Chris down a dune! Close, but he was right, he didn’t fall! Our first night in the dunes was incredible. We saw the best sunset ever then had tagine and mint tea under the stars, then went to bed in a Berber tent. The next day after breakfast we moved on and saw more of the dunes. Saw lots of scarab beetles (they eat chocolat de dromodaires, by the way), some cool little lizzards, and a whole lot of sand. We could also see the Algerian border from the dunes.

The drive from Merzouga to Fes took about 7 hours, including some stops for food and a sidetrip to see Barbary Apes outside of Ifrane. We’ve decided that we are ready to move on from Morocco and are now planning our route into Spain!

Salamu ‘lekum

As you have heard, we are in Morocco. Im typing on a french / arabic keyboard. That pretty much sums up how different and crazy it is here. EVERYTHING is different, but people are still people, and the people here are the friendliest I have seen yet. Little girls and old men stop to greet you on the road, kiss you on the forehead and hold your hand to their heart. Shocking the 1st time, but I love it. Marrakech is a hippie paradise. The shops of the Medina are unlike anything I have ever seen, look them up!.

This keyboard is driving me nuts!

In Marrakesh

Chris and I arrived in Marrakesh yesterday evening. We took a train from the airport in Cassablanca, and what an experience that was! The train ride was just over three hours and they could not have packed more people on the train! We both stood in the aisle with our bags - Chris for the whole trip and me for about 1.5 hours (until a nice man gave me his seat). People here are obviously very used to it - we were the only ones who didn’t bring sandwiches though I was offered some by a sweet woman that I met on board. This woman and I kind of communicated through face and hand gestures for the whole trip and I eventually ended up sharing my seat with her — squished in, but they seem to have different ideas about personal space here! Once in town, we had no problem finding good accomodation. We are staying at Hotel Touloussaine for 190 Dhiram (about 26 Cdn), a great change from accomodation in the UK and Amsterdam. People here are extremely friendly… on several occasions people (older men usually) have stopped us and said hello, shaking our hands.

We took our first trip into Djema el Fna the main medina this morning. What an amazing place, a real feast for the eyes and nose. Our first purchase was two glasses of fresh squeezed OJ which cost 3 Dhiram, or 41 cents each! I would say it is pretty well an impossibility to get out of there without spending money - it really is shopping paradise. The people are SO helpful that they make it extre,ely difficult to get out without spending money. You think that you are ok with an excuse like “no thank you, I don’t like the colour”, or “it doesn’t fit”, or even “I don’t like it”, but if any of those is the case, the shopkeeper will either take you by the arm to another stall where there are other colours, more sizes etc., or ask you to wait while he runs to his brothers’ stall down the way to bring back another selection! In a carpet store, the owner took us up to the rooftop (saying “its free, we are your Morrocan friends here”) we took some photos, then he took us inside and showed us the men making a beautiful blanket on a loom, and downstairs to the showroom to show us some samples. He told us all about the history etc, where all of the colours come from, shared a couple of glasses of tea with us… not surprisingly, 1.5 hours later we emerged with a carpet. Yes, we are suckers, but the carpet is small and beautiful (Kilim) and we will always remember buying it. I also was given a beautiful orange scarf by the shopkeeper - the second gift after purchase for me today. We also bought a pair of leather thong sandals for Chris, a very sweet pair of pink leather slippers for my niece Katelyn, and 2 jelabs (long sleeved shirts) — jelabs bought from the brother of the shoe guy.

The spice stalls were gorgeous and smelled amazing. The chicken stalls were a sight to behold - no smell as the poor chickens await their fate in cages behind the shopkeeper — talk about fresh! We didn’t try any of the food in the market this morning but plan to return tonight when the food vendors come out in droves at dusk. Something I did try was my first squat toilet — happily not as bad as I thought it would be, however still not eagerly anticipating my next venture.

At the moment we are in the “Cyber Park” - Public gardens that are sponsored by Ericcson, Maroc Telecom, etc. In the center of the park is a very cool internet cafe, possibly the most techy internet cafe that we’ve been in so far.

Pretty cool so far!

P