Off the map

Ok so Morocco is not really off all maps..it was just off our foldup map that we had been relying on for the previous several months..so in a sense we were now flying blind..it felt good.

After arriving in Tangier from Spain via the "2hr" ferry which actually took close to 4 hrs we immediately hopped the overnight train to Marrakesh, capital of the south. Feeling the need to up our standards as those around us fell we splurged 70euro on some first class couchettes..sleeper cars. First class my ass..these things were filthy and dank; the bunks were these old 1" thick mattresses on top of plywood with a few stained sheets littered with an assortment of strange hairs..before the train took off I asked the conductor in my really bad french "c'est premiere class?", "Oui" he replied..but as he did I could hear all the other travellers in the other couchettes scoffing...I could tell they were thinking the same thing..70euro..so not worth it..

We ended up sharing our cabin with a local lady who was carrying a very sick infant with her and after pleading for an hour into a cell phone at the beginning of the trip ended up crying herself to sleep..that was our first night..sticky hot, then freezing cold as the air conditioning apparently went into overdrive..trying to sleep on nasty bunks while the sounds of muffled sobs and a gurgling cough from the kid mixed with the steady chug of the train. And thus began our Moroccan adventure.

We arrived in Marrakesh early the next morning found a place to stay in the heart of the Medina and spent the next several days exploring the Souks and Djemma El Fna square.

Zonkers. That's what we have say about Marrakesh ..it's a complete frikin gong show here..you name it..it has has it. Snake Charmers, Boiled snails, Sheep head soup, fine Berber Carpet, imitation Prada, monkeys in cages, piles upon piles of saffron, teeth for sale, and men and women dressed like Jedi nights everywhere. Morocco comes in just about every color, smell and sound...its a complete assault on the senses. Walking through the souks you are confronted with smells of saffron, then of urine, then of frying fish then Jasmin, sewage and exhaust, then back to roasting lamb. Shoulder to shoulder people, donkey carts and motor bikes scurry about these crowded streets going about their days. There's lots of commotion and shouting and several times a day the many mosques that dot the Medina erupt into the call to prayers across their loud speakers. Despite the otherwise dirty public areas Marrakesh can also be very beautiful in spots. The main mosque in the area had beautiful rose gardens, some of the restaurants and souk shops we incredibly ornate and the Riads were always a welcome sanctuary.

After we picked up Kelly from the airport we ended up staying in a 'Riad' called Riad Catalina that was very nice..an oasis of calm in the midst of the Medina. The Riads are these old buildings built when women we not meant to be seen..so they are quite large structures completely devoid of any windows to the outside..instead they are turned outside-in with their centers opening up into massive courtyards in the middle usually crowded with palm trees, streams, pools, fountains, beautiful fabris and tiles framing eating and lounging areas etc..very soothing havens after a hectic day in the Medina. The food was also good and safe for the most part, although we did get sick of eating tagines and kabobs every day.

Instead of trying to describe the sights and sounds in any more detail I instead offer a brief photo tour of the area...bear in mind as you look at these photos that as we are walking in the souks we are being constantly harangued to come look and buy and that half of these photos we taken in super stealth mode while the other half cost me 1 or 2 dirham (30 cents) to get (Moroccans have zero qualms about charging tourists for any and everything...taking pictures, asking directions or standing in a crowd watching a street show will illicit touts demanding money..after several days it was kind of a pain in the ass actually)..

anyway..on to the pics. enjoy.

inside one of the Palais

tile detail

riad catalina

a moroccan pigeon

a mosque entrance

art display in the art and gastronomy souk

our first riad..

kotubia mosque

standard streeet vendor fare

bab something of other..a gate into the walled city

date, apricots, figs et al for sale
sheep or cow heads
dinner in the square
spices
card game in souks
monkey cages
snake charmers
a souk

in the souks

the square

Sangre y Sangria

Making our way to Morocco to meet our friend Kelly Belly we decided to swing by Spain for a couple of days, in particular the cities of Barcelona and Seville. Spain wasn't on our original itinerary but something about the the weather mad us want to continue our trajectory along the coast.

Barcelona is home of the Seussian architect Gaudi and is otherwise a fantastic town. We stayed in the Bari Gotic area near the cathedral and old ramparts..we wandered the town, we ate tapas and drank sangria. After a couple of days in B we decided to mosey over to Seville for a couple of days.

Barcelona Skyline

Bari Gotic

Gaudi - Familla Sagrada

Seville was a very cool place to visit. In addition to the fantastic architecture, the town is capital of Andalusia and of flamenco guitar and bull fighting. And, as it turns out our first night there whilst wandering the old town we stumbled across a crowd gathered outside an arena...the bullfights were on.

Sevilla Cathedral

Sevilla

Sevilla Riverside at night

We spent ~7 euro each for tickets, a surprisingly paltry price to watch 6 bulls fall, and sat about 10 rows back from action...and this is where I say that 1) i have never been a huge fan of the idea of bullfighting given the relentless cruelty suffered by these poor brutes..and 2) if you've never seen a live bullfight you should..

Sevilla Bullring

Bullfighting apparently comes in several styles..we were lucky to see the on-foot style (as opposed to the man on horse with spear versus bull style). The bullfight goes like this: 3 young matadors enter the arena. They are all in their teens and are all wearing fancy, brightly colored coats embroidered with gold sequined, they wear tassels knickers, fancy flared hats and matching shoes and of course their deadly red capes.

They strike their pose near these double walled exits that they can duck behind when the bull charges. The brass band sitting in the far side of the arena plays a sketches-of-spain-esque flourish and with a snap of the latch the gate slams open and the bull bursts into the arena. With a short pause in its stride the bull spots one of the matadors across the floor and immediately bolts in his direction.the matador challenges the beast with a few flicks of the cape but as the bull nears the matador ducks behind the blind and bang! the bull rams into the wooden fence..almost immediately the bull spots spots the next matador and charges him..bang into the fence again and then onto the third matador..this cycle repeats several times until the bull starts to slow its pace a bit. Once tired the game changes and the matadors leave the safety of the blinds and enter the ring with their capes en garde..this time one however, one of the matadors is carrying two spears. The matadors take turns taunting the beast. The beast charges, matador pirouettes and slips the bull past his hip..the crowd cheers Ole!..after a couple of turns like this the stage is set for the first strike. The spear matador positions himself just past the cape of the matador fighting the bull, he holds his spears above the head and readies himself in a postures that recapitulates the horned bull himself. At the next turn the bull charges past the other matador's cape and finds himself flanked by the spear man..and with a lunge and a downward thrust the spears find their way into the back of the bulls shoulders..the now defenseless matador sprints back to the blind as the now bleeding bull is again distracted by the other matadors in the ring.. This cycle continues until there are six spears solidly planted into the bulls neck/shoulder area.. At this point the bull has six spears in his neck and has been fighting about three matadors nonstop for about twenty minutes..he is tired and barely fighting back..now the matadors leave and the main matador enters the stage alone. This is the quintessence of the bullfight, man versus beast one on one. This matador, like the ones before him teases the beast into his cape turn after turn. Several times in this dance the matador will turn his back to the vanquished bull and bow to the crowd in a show fearless mastery. After several more turns and Ole's the matador eventually slips his sword out its it holster and readies his blow. Now comes the finally..the matador approaches the bull only feet away from the horns, flips the cape, bull charges, matador drops the cape, sidesteps and drops the sword 2 feet in the base of the bulls neck straight into the heart. Again the brass band plays its flourish as the triumphant matador walks the edge of the arena, bowing to the crowd and receiving his applause. At the same time a several of what looks like janitors enter the ring to begin sweeping the bull's blood and feces..they are followed by a team of horses who are lassoed to the bull to drag it away. Or at least this is how its supposed to happen..and we did actually see one fight that ended with the matador performing this blow..it was completely morbid but beautiful at the same time..the matador must have struck the bull in its heart or aorta or something because almost immediately the bull stopped in its placed and began to lean sideways while blood shot from the bull's next in an arc that nearly reached the first row of seats..this won the matador a standing ovation followed by a full house of white kerchiefs being waved (which apparently means "you're the best"). Not all the fights went this smoothly however..several of the fight had the bull catching one of the matadors with his horns, flipping them onto the ground and the trampling and goring them with his horns..mostly the other fighters would comes to the matadors rescue and help him to his feet but one of these incidents actually ended with the matador being injured enough to be taken of the ring and be replaced. Other times the fights wouldn't end so cleanly. The bull would not be felled buy one blow and would require several and some times several several additional strikes to kill..this was depressing to watch; the mortally wounded would just cower in the corner attempting to get to its feet or turn to run as the matador was handed sword after sword to strike the bull with..the most depressing of these was the bull that required five swords. Basically this was the mark of the bad matador and the crowd would boo these guys. By the time the fights were over we had seen six bulls die..we left feeling strangely charged and yet dismayed at the same time..I think we were both glad that we were able to see the spectacle but I don't think either of us will be back to the fights anytime soon. on a lighter note..we loved Seville and will definitely go back, we also loved sangia and tapas..in fact we plan to have a tapas and sangria party when we get back..you're all of course invited.

A tale of two hostels.

So after Switzerland we managed to catch a boat to the south of France for some sun. We ended up in Marseilles for a couple of days. Marseilles is a bit different then the rest of France in that is has a strangely north African feel to it. Surrounded by barren, rocky hills it is comprised almost entirely of those blocky white-washed buildings that you always see getting blown up in the latest international footage on CNN. The town itself was alright..comparatively a little drab, but what we ended up liking most about Marseilles was the hostel we stayed in..La Cigale et la Fourmi.. this place was bonkers!!..but in a nice, cozy kinda way. It was run by a french man named Jean who was very friendly and invited us to the hostel he is building in the Philippines. But the real star of the show was this older french/greek man named Patrick (imagine a rambunctious, buzzed and very jovial Keith Richards, leather pants and all) Patrick loved his wine and spent the evenings telling stories of his five daughters with five different women, stories of his time in the isreali army and why he hates arabs (this caused quite a stir with the majority of the guests), how he loves `the asiatic girls` aka Helen, how he just scammed the gaggle of spanish kids staying in the building next door out of some hash, how he speaks seven languages, how he let me beat him at chess, and so on). We spent the bulk of our three days in Marseilles relaxing here, chatting up the others or sleeping the hot afternoons away in our tiny pumpkin coloured room with unabashed views of the neighboring rooftops.

(Notre Dame over Vieux Port in Marseilles)

(street of La Cigale and La Fourmi)

(Marseilles city-scape)

After Marseilles we paddled over to Nice for the weekend. Nice is nice..a sunny and affluent beach city where everyone is pretty and tanned..like a larger Santa Monica perhaps. Here we stayed in what Helen and I started calling "hookup hostel" (Villa St Exubery for those interested in hooking up).. this place was like a college dorm crossed with a Club Med. Helen and I were the oldest people there I think outside from the owners and maybe one of the maintenance guys.. The entire 200 bed place was filled with tall handsome lads and lasses from all over the globe..but mostly comprised of Yanks and Aussies.
Despite this it was actually a pretty cool venue..built out of a converted monastery..20 free computers in the common room, clean rooms, free breakfast and a nightly dinner service with 5 euro dinner specials and 1 euro beer. All in all a good venue. But at night it turned in to Club Hookup..after dinner the common room would be filled to capacity with these young pretties, guy and gals alike, all dressed in heels and hairdos while the music played louder and louder and the pyramids of beer cans stacked on various tables grew taller and taller. The revelry would continue until about 3 or 4 am and could be heard throughout the complex.

Being somewhat short of rest, as you might imagine, Helen and I spent our days trekking to overrated Monaco and the medieval art village of Eze or relaxing on the beach watching the local kids with their little nets catch a flock of jellyfish (in french: medusa) that had just drifted into the wadding shallows.

(nice beachs)

(this brave young medusa-hunter had just caught one; but like myself and so many other brave children of Perseus she too fell victum to the itchy stings less than three minutes after this photo was taken. In a bawl and tear, she fled the hunt and was rescued from the fray by her kind and brave mother.*)

*the medusa stings only really itched a little, no real pain or danger..

(Eze art town)

Having had our fill of sun and fun in the cote d'azur we let ourselves drift west towards Barcelona.

Swiss Family Pluess

Deciding to test Urs' assertion of the aesthetic supremacy of Swiss cows we made a dash for Lucerne Switzerland for the weekend to meet up with my Aunt Dawn, Uncle Urs and Cousins Karen and Nicole.

17 years!! or something like this is how long its been since I last saw them..that's half a lifetime ago for me. When we last saw each other it was at their ranch outside Brisbane Australia and I had long, 'I wanna be Jim Morrison' hair and was wearing a paisley, 'I wanna be Jim Morrison' vest with mirrored, 'I wanna be Jim Morrison' glasses. In retrospect, it seems that my attempts of capturing Morrison's unique brand of 1970's hippy-cool at the proud young age of 17 failed miserably as all Helen said when she saw the picture was "why are you dressed like Joey Laurence from Blossom?" ugh..sorry Jim, I know you're turning in your grave but she doesn't know..she doesn't mean it.

Anyway back to the family. Had a great time with my aunt and uncle. For many years Urs' job allowed them to travel and live in various parts of the world..and coupled with their native penchant and experience traveling for fun Helen and I spent many hours discussing the in and outs of much of the world. They are retired now and living on top of a hill outside Lucerne in a pyramid house that was apparently designed by an architect who was later abducted by a UFO. We stayed at the house for 3 days soaking up the sun and mouthfuls of refreshing mountain air.As it turns out cousin Karen and her beau Ray were already having a party Saturday night and this provided the perfect opportunity to catch up with them and my other cousin Nicole and her beau Faby. We ate, we talked we laughed..it was good to see the cousins again. :)
(At barn party, from left to right: Aunt Dawn, Cousins Karen and Nicole and Uncle Urs)

The next day we all went to Ballenberg which is an interesting open air museum of rescued historic homes from all over Switzerland. Apparently they rescue these old 200-800 year old cottages and mills etc and move them to this spot where they are preserved. Most interesting is that several of these old places are still working so you can get a chance to see how the 300 year old water powered wood mill works or how the meat smoke house works (i.e. with actual meat being smoked), and so on.

Monday rolled around and the cousins had to get back to their jobs and Helen and I needed to start heading west towards Morocco so we said our goodbyes and promised to not let another 17 slip by before seeing each other again.

J'aime Paris

What can be said about Paris that hasn't already been said? How about this: crappy architecture and the worst skyline yet. A bit harsh perhaps, but true. Unlike several of the other major cities we've hit and aside from several great structures (i.e. the Eiffel Tour; le Sacre Cour, Pompidou Center, the Orsay, etc.) downtown Paris is actually a nasty amalgam of 1970's block buildings. But this is fine, after all, this is not why you go to Paris..you go for the culture..or so thinks me.

So being the cultural aesthetes that we are, we booked ourselves into the Montemarte district...home of the Moulin Rouge amongst other things.. c'est magnifique!

It was at this point that time decided to hit me with yet another year. Merde. Wasn't so bad actually, spent the night in a bar with my belle and a Beatles / Doors cover band. We sing sung along with a pot pouri mix of garden variety Europeans: large drunk Russian ladies whose voice rattled like a plucked bandsaw, gay french men dressed as Elvis Costello growling away like an operatic Harvey Firestein, and several other stewy types. It was a good night.

Of course we took in the rest of the sights and even caught an Impressionist exhibit (read: Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Picasso et al) at the Orsay. Tres cool.

What else? tired of the relentless tourbook narrative? Here's some other color on the scene. Helen spent almost all of Paris sick with a cold, I got the runs from some bad Vietnamese food. Had a small confrontation with some Nigerian hustlers outside of the Sacre Cour..they convinced Helen to hold onto this piece of string momentarily and within a second they had braided this bracelet around her wrist and were now demanding 10 euro. We argued and insisted they take it back, that we didn't want it, they insisted and when several more joined the fray we tossed them 20 cents and walked away as their eyes burned into our backs. What else..oh yeah, tried absinthe..no big deal..tastes like a nasty watered down Sambuca..

As for our bodies and minds? aside from Helen's recent cold and the occasional spat of the splatters, we've been relatively healthy. Our foreheads and forearms are tanned from spending prolonger hours outside. Our legs are becomming very fit from all the walking/hiking/lugging of packs..I'm actually starting to grow some calf muscles which is a nice change from the chicken legs I'm used to step'n with. Our clothes are beginning to smell persistently despite our best attempts at washing (you try rotating between 3 pairs of socks and underwear for 2 months). We seem to be hitting less and less tourist sites and taking less photos..preferring instead to just relax and enjoy the scene..this at least seems to be working. ('this' being the saturation point that we were looking for, slowly we are shedding our tourist selves and are becoming travelers). Stress too has seemed to wane, I found myself sitting in a cafe the other day thinking of absolutely nothing and feeling more relaxed than I have in a long long time..this seems to be working too. Helen and I have begun to create our own language of hand signs and various head nods to communicate from across crowded trains or when we don't want our euro hosts to know our thoughts (remember all euros speak English..even if they pretend they don't).

Anyway, after several glorious days in ol' Paris we called up the Swiss family Pluess and planned our get away.