Mandalay Beach

Originally uploaded by peechie.

Traveling for work is A-Okay.

Honeymoon is over, still like being married.

I got a whopping 15 hours in Vancouver before flying out again, am now in Orlando, jetlagged to hell with the end trailings of a migrane. At least I’m the only girl on this trip, so I have a hotel room to myself!

I make it back to Vancouver on Wednesday afternoon, sleep in my own bed that night, head to Semiahmoo after work on Thursday for a night there, then back home on Friday, then fly to Vegas for a week on Saturday.

Assuming I survive into May, that’s when you can expect the honeymoon stories and pictures to appear!

Hasta Luego.

We made it to our beautiful villa in Spain, and not a moment too soon.

Morocco is a hard country to visit as a tourist. Totally worth it, but definitely more difficult than any trip I’ve taken before. I’ll get more into that in a post once we’re home.

Anyhow, just as we finally thought we’d at least figured out Marrakech and the Djeema El Fna, Morocco gave us one final fuck you.

Food poisoning.

That set in on the train at about 4:30am of the 12th of April and didn’t cease for the rest of the train ride to Tangier, or the trans-Mediterranean ferry to Algeciras, or the car ride into the Ronda Mountains to Gaucin, or indeed the rest of the day. And night.

Today, the 14th of April at lunch was our first real meal since the nefarious foodstuffs (not willing to try anything riskier than plain bread and weak tea). Needless to say, our simple homemade pasta primavera and salad (with all fresh, local produce, thankyouverymuch) was the best meal we’ve ever tasted.

In that fateful 36 hours, we’ve thrown up and pooped more times than I can count, in three kinds of transportation, across two continents. We have shared the kind of embarrassing bodily-function moments that guarantee we can never split up now for fear of the secrets getting out.

If we can make it through that, we can make it through anything!

Right?

Apparently I need to write this quickly, since Neil doesn’t want to pay for more than 30 minutes of Internet. Great, I got myself a cheap husband (kidding!) (mostly).

Thankfully, this particular internet cafe has the option available to change the keyboard from French to English layout, so typing will be much faster than last time.

Unfortunately, thanks to an influx of sand and bad wine (oh those Moroccans, so proud of their awful, AWFUL wine), my brain isn’t actually that fast, so I don’t have anything particularly poignant to say about the latter half of the Morocco part of the trip.

But I’ll share a short adventure tale:

After we left Fes (getting there from Marrakech via Casablanca and Rabat for those playing along at home) we made our way south to Merzouga to embark on our overnight camel trek.

Unfortunately we got a full-on Saharan sandstorm instead.

But the itinerary must be adhered to!

So picture this: complete beige-out conditions, we’ve got about 3m visibility in any given direction, and sand is blowing into the vehicle through any possible entry-point (air vents, window cracks, door jambs, etc.). Mini-dunes are building up on the road behind any available obstacles: rocks, trees, uneven pavement, abandoned vehicles - the mini-dunes are anywhere from a couple inches to a full two feet high. Palm trees and concrete power poles are toppling in the powerful winds.

And we’re carreening through this, over the tiny dunes, around the fallen trees, past frightened camels.

At 100km/h.

To say we were relieved to finally reach the resorts at the dunes is perhaps the biggest understatement I’ve ever made.

Needless to say we did not embark on the camels that evening.

The tour company did pull through though, and arranged for a suite in one of the nicest kasbahs in the area to wait out the storm. Typically they (the storms, not the Kasbahs) die out overnight and don’t start up again until the next afternoon.

So we whiled away the hours hiding from the sand and drinking Moroccan beer (marginally better than Heineken, but MUCH better than the wine) before we fell asleep.

And the desert sands lived up to the promise: the wind was gone at 5:00am and we headed out to catch the sun rising over Algeria from the Dunes of Erg Chebbi.

It was exactly as impressive as you’d think.

Unfortunately, I can’t share a picture right now, because USB connections, card readers or cd burning seem pretty nonexistent in this neck of the woods. But trust me, it was pretty awesome.

(Oh god - the person across the aisle in this internet cafe is blasting Fergie: must finish quick and run far, far away.)

After Merzouga we went to Ouarzazate, then back to Marrakech (our favourite city in Morocco so far). Tomorrow night we take the night train (Marrakech Express) to Tangier, then a ferry to Algeciras, rent a car and drive for a couple hours into the middle of nowhere (Gaucin) and just chill out for a week.

Hopefully the internet situation in Spain is a bit more favourable.

Hasta Luego!

Greetings from Fès!

Hqve you ever touch)typed on q FrenchùQrqbic keyboqrd§ It co,es out so,ething like this:::

(Have you ever touch-typed on a French/Arabic keyboard? It comes out something like this…)

Anyhow, Morocco is amazing so far. It was really hard to feel comfortable at first, and we’re still pushed heavily toward tourist traps most of the time, but we’re slowly getting the hang of the country.

Average temperatures have been 28-32 degrees celsius, which is perfect (though still damn hot when wandering around outside). There’s no AC, but the stone and plaster architecture keeps it very comfortable indoors or in the narrow streets of the medinas.

Interesting tidbits:

The country is COVERED in cats. Seriously. It’s because Arabs consider them to be very clean as far as animals go, and they keep the mice down (there’s really a lot of garbage everywhere - seems this ancient society still hasn’t figured out what to do with their water bottles and snickers wrappers). But yes, cats everywhere.

The food is amazing. There only seem to be three major dishes: tajines, pastilles, and couscous. All three come in beef, chicken, lamb, seafood or vegetarian. And thanks to very strong traditions of Moroccan hospitality, we’re fed a LOT of all three at nearly every meal. When we come home 20kg heavier, you’ll know why.

Driving is an adventure and lines & signs on the road are merely suggestions. Throw in kamikaze scooters, fearless pedestrians, countless horse-, donkey- and hand-carts (not to mention an abundance of random herds of sheep, goats and cattle), well we’re just very glad we have a driver, instead of attempting to navigate the roads ourselves. Inshallah (God willing) we’ll make it home safe and sound.

There is no experience in the West quite like the traditional Moroccan hammam. If you had any modesty or inhibitions (or nipples) before this process, you won’t by the time you’re done.

Anyhow, internet has been spotty to say the least, but we’ll try another update in a week or so and report on the desert and our camel camping trip. And of course we’re journalling the rest of the trip to share (with photos) when we’re home.

Bon Soir!