Chris and Paula’s World

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!

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