Amber Travels Locally

I've apparently become terrible at updating on my travels when internet connection is limited. Sincere apologies to anybody who wanted to hear about my trips in the last 2 years. Due to multiple commitments and restraints at this point, I've been confined to local travel. However, I'm still taking a much needed adventure.

At 9pm tonight, I'm headed North. Where to? I'm not sure yet, but I have a hunch there is some hiking in my future. I'll hopefully be updating with some beautiful pictures by this time tomorrow.

September 25-26: Sharm to Cairo

After rinsing off the salt water - I had to check out, and was trying to leave my bag at the reception when a friend of the hotel guy came over and offered me a ride with his friends on a glass-bottomed boat. It was amazing. Gorgeous corals, beautiful fish, blue water, and a nice breeze.

I had gotten to know the host and his friend pretty well, and I didn't really feel like paying for a ride to the train station, so I agreed to go see old Sharm by night. Also, my train wasn't leaving until 3am, so it worked out. We went and toured the markets, saw some beautiful waterfalls, visited a shisha place, etc. It was nice to get out of the tourist area for a bit. However, there are pros and cons. At the restaurant, they wanted to treat a lady right, so they hosed down (literally) the bathroom so that I could use it. As I was leaving, I noticed the wall only went 3/4 of the way up, and above it, was a gorgeous clear view of the Sinai mountains. :)

The bus was good - comfortable - and of course with some funny experiences. ex: there was an adorable little 2 year old ahead of me who would not stop crying. His parents popped him up over the seat and he stopped crying, and started looking at me googly like I was an alien.... All in all, the bus ride was about 7 or 8 hours... putting me in Cairo about 8 hours before I had planned to be there because I couldn't find a guide and so couldn't climb Sinai. C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?

I was dropped at the side of the road in Cairo. Those of you who have seen Italy or Morocco with me? Nothing compared to Cairo. Finally, I found a nice couple who spoke some English and could point me in the right direction. Eventually, I found the metro, rode it to my stop... and realized that I needed to call my host, but was in a smaller part of town (think suburb) where public phones are harder to find. One of the controls at the metro came over to help me though, and eventually my ride came to meet me.

In the meantime, I got to people-watch for a while. Everyone is very excited to meet an American... especially one who knows a solid 5 words in Arabic. :) The general mode of transportation here is the microbus which is basically a 15 person taxi that leaves once it is full - or overfull. Sometimes, they have no doors, so you'll see people just standing on the running boards holding on. These cost on average 12 U.S. cents per ride... or maybe 40 cents if you have to go to the other side of town. Also, the people are incredibly friendly. Some have other motives, but for the most part, everyone wants to practice their English, help me, or get to know what's going on. It's been quite overwhelming due to the size of the city, the slight language barrier, the heat (ha), and the very different culture... BUT, it has been wonderful. :)

The thing I'm having the hardest thing getting used to? There aren't many public trash bins, and I can't for the life of me just throw my stuff on the ground (They have people who come and sweep it up and take it away every day) so I may or may not have a bag full of trash that I'm just waiting to find a place for. Silly American.

September 25 - Sharm-El-Sheikh: I'm sweaty.... but lovin' it.

I've landed in Egypt, and boy, is it hot in the middle of the day. It's already 100 degrees (and I just found where I'm going next is going to be about 110).

Getting here was interesting enough. We landed, I bought my visa at the airport (it's a very pretty sticker), and proceeded on to try to find my luggage. Somehow, my sleepsack managed to disappear during the flight. Strange. Everything went fine except that in my hurry to avoid the attention of the border patrol, I forgot to get some cash.

Enter: mini-adventure. :) I asked a security guard where I could get cash, and apparently there is no place once you've left arrivals, but he hooked me up with a taxi driver. The driver SAID he knew where my hotel was, but turns out... he didn't. That just meant I got an awesome tour of Sharm while we looked for a cash machine (One we stopped at - the bank owner told me it was empty and to go elsewhere) and the hotel. Eventually, after 3 or 4 security crossing and a few phone calls, we made it.

As it turns out, I got a really sweeet deal. I payed 18 euro instead of 50, and so I didn't expect a private room with fancy towels, and a gorgeous balcony... with rooftop terrace, private restaurant, catered breakfast - you get the idea. It's pretty cushy here. It's kind of funny though to see goofy old (OLD) British guys walking around in Speedos though... "where can I play crick-ket?"

I was pretty exhausted so I just took a quick walk around to see all of the live music and Sufi dancing before hitting the hay for the night. This morning, I took the opportunity to go wading in the sea. It is so clear that I can see all of the beautiful rainbow fish just swimming around my feet. It was unbelievable! Like, surreal. Nemo's alive! (And so am I!)

Truckin' along...

So, after 7 hours on a bus, 5 hours in Chicago, 1 hour on a train, 3 hours waiting, 8 hours by plane, 1 hour waiting, and finally 1 hour by bus, I'm just now waiting to board my flight to Egypt.

Those of you who have read the blog or travelled with me before will understand when I say this trip is off to a good start. To begin, it was pouring on Wednesday night when I went to catch the bus. People had warned me about the people on the megabus (they weren't that bad), but nobody warned me that the emergency latch would break on my window. Keep in mind that essentially all the walls on these buses are window. Every time we'd drive by a semi or anything else that created the slightest bit of a wind tunnel, my window wall would fly open... you know... for easy escape or something. This is when I knew for sure this would be a good trip. :) They couldn't fix it, so about halfway through (in order to keep the kid in front of me from falling from a second story window, I sortof figured out a way to keep it shut most of the time.

We arrived early in Chicago, but thank God for bakeries. I found one that opened its doors at 6, and sat down for a couple hours to wait for the sun to rise and plan a few last details. Then it was off for a nap in the sun at Millenium park before catching the L out to the airport.

The rest went pretty smoothly, until this morning when we landed pretty early in London. I did a little begging and the driver of my transfer bus was nice enough to let me on without paying to change my ticket, so I'm a happy camper. :) England, outside of downtown London, is beauuutiful. Rolling hills, mossy roofs on adorable brick buildings and streams all over the place. I may just have to consider coming back here sometime, but now - Off to Egypt!

Once in a lifetime?

So, life has taken another U-Turn, and I'm about to be on the road (tracks, water, air) again. I'll be leaving on Wednesday, September 22 for a tour of Egypt, Jordan, and Israel for a few weeks. Yes, I am aware that some unpleasant things have been happening in that area since I bought my tickets, but I'll do my best to be safe! I am pretty excited to see the "Holy Land", practice some language, and hopefully make some new friends along the way.

I know that I somehow managed to miss blogging all of Turkey on my last trip, but hopefully I can do better on this one! If any of you have any suggestions, recommendations, warnings, must-sees, etc., PLEASE feel free to share them. There's a lot that I have yet to learn!

The land of Adrenaline: Switzerland May 12 and 13

We took the flight from Nice to Basel, Switzerland and arrived around midnight at the train station. We tried to wander around and find some dinner, but quickly realized that Basel was not exactly full of night life, so we settled on ice cream at mcdonalds. Blech. We had to accept it though because this was going to be our home for the evening. We curled up next to some bums on the benches and tried to get some sleep even though it was pretty stinkin' cold. It was definitely a big change from the temps in the French Riviera.

We took the first train we could catch into Interlaken and tried to get a little more sleep on the train. We arrived at the station and tried our best to follow our directions to the hostel, but it turns out they are absolutely awful and we walked about 3 miles in the wrong direction with our bags. Whoops. Finally, we made it to the hostel (and were greeted by the guard: a huge saint bernard), but along the way, we passed hundreds of punks teens and preteens carrying cases upon cases of beer. We were so confused until we realized there was a HUGE punk rock festival going on the weekend we were there. Luckily, we really had no problems with them the whole time... it was just counter-stereotypical of Switzerland for me.

Even though we had only managed about 4 hours of sleep each, Megan suggested we go canyoning on this first day since we couldn't check into the hostel yet anyways. We were able to sign up and ended up only being in a group with 2 other people. After climbing into 2 layers of wetsuits, wetsuit socks, shoes, and cap (we were going to jump down glacial waterfalls), as well as a helmet and harnass, we were ready to go. We took a van up to the top of this amazing gorge and started our trek. We did everything from jumping off cliffs and waterfalls, wiggling down caves and rock waterslides, and rappelling down mountainsides all while seeing views that very few people will ever get to experience. It was amazing, if not a bit terrifying. They always had one of the guides jump first to make sure we wouldn't be impaled on a rock or something. If they got injured, they would climb back up and try to find a different way to jump so that we would be safe. Really... it was a HUGE rush.

They gave us some munchies and stuff afterwards and Megan and I ditched out to get some famous swiss cheese fondue at a cute local restaurant. Then, it was time to pass out.

In the morning, we found a cheap scooter rental - and even though neither of us had ever ridden - we decided to check them out for 3 hours with intentions to picnic high up in the mountains. Well, we got on and followed a suggested path into a valley that was supposed to be filled with waterfalls, and we got what we expected.... probably a dozen waterfalls over a hundred feet high just feeding into glacial rivers on both sides of the road. It was amazing. Megan and I decided we could wait to eat and instead took a new path up into the mountains and saw the super stereotypical swiss mountain villages with the cute wooden houses at the base of the mountain with fresh water and blue skies all around. We made one final little trek down to the big lakes in hopes to take some cool reflection pics, but there was too much wind so we just got a bit of scenery.

Then, it was back to the hostel for lunch, killing some time walking around the area, and heading back to the train station so we could catch our flight to Turkey. While I think Morocco has some of the best people in the world, I think Switzerland may have taken the trophy for the most beautiful scenery. :o)

Monte who? Monaco: June 11

So we hit up Monte Carlo and here's the quick and dirty of the trip. We missed our train and played cribbage on the ground outside the train station for about an hour waiting for the next one. Not a good way to start the trip.

Monaco has tons of underground tunnels and I never knew where I was going to come out.

There are lots of huge buildings built into the cliffs along the water, and you can pretty much see the entire "country" from the beach.

Hiked up the many stairs to the palace which turned out to be pretty mediocre, but there were some good views from that high in the city.

The Monte Carlo casino is not nearly as large as I had expected, but super super fancy. No flashing lights and all high roller tables. Plus, you have to pay a fee just to enter so we hit up the slot machines near the entrance just to say we gambled a bit.

We made it back to Nice and chatted with Simo a bit before catching a bus to the airport where I found out my bag has grown to 19.4 kilos... or about 45 pounds. Oops.

Still breathing!

Hey guys, just an update to let you know I am alive. :-D I've just been pretty much without internet since I arrived in Turkey a week ago. I will give a real update on the trip as soon as possible! (Monaco, Switzerland, Istanbul, small village, etc.)

Watch out for the waves! Nice: June 9 and 10

We got up early to try to catch a faster train back to Nice in the morning - it turns out there is no such thing. So - we ended up on the train for about 6 hours again. On the plus side, while we were buying a couple things in Ventimiglia, Italy on the way back, a cute little fruit vendor thought I was French, we chatted a little bit, and he gave me my peach for free. :)

When we finally arrived in Nice, we hadn't booked a hotel. We were wandering up and down the streets checking for availability when a little man asked us what we were looking for. It's super common for people to offer non-legit rooms to people on the streets so I told him we didn't have much money and wouldn't be able to stay in his rooms. As it turned out, he was the manager of a few hotels. He was impressed with my French too - woohoo. Anyway, he brought us to one of the hotels and instructed the concierge to only charge us half price, take care of us, and give us good advice of what to do around town. We checked in, and all was well. :)

We wandered down the streets looking for dinner since it was around 7 pm already, but most of the shops were closing. We ended up ducking into a little sandwich shop and the owners happened to be from where? You guessed it - Morocco! We talked a bit, and Mohammed invited us out to the bars with him. We told him we didn't want to drink, but would meet him later if he wanted. We just wandered around for a while and then the three of us met up to go grab some fresh squeezed orange juice and again hear another perspective on the social problems in France. He walked us back to our neighborhood and sent us on our way.

In the morning, we decided to just hang around Nice and relax. First we had a little picnic lunch in the city. Then, we searched out the Russian church, which was pretty, and ended up really just taking a nap in the grass nearby for a while. Then, we went to go find the chateau. It was on the other side of town, so we ended up walking by the beach for quite a bit. The waves were huge and the colors were amazing. Finally, we made it to the 358 (yes, I counted) stairs up to the chateau in the mountains. We had a great view of the city from up there. Then, it was off to find some dinner, and going to bed eeeearly so we can go to Monaco tomorrow morning. :)

Rio who? Cinque Terre: May 7 and 8

We got up early to catch one of the first trains from Marseille to Nice. No problems there - it only took a couple hours. Then, we had to transfer for a train to the border of Italy: Ventimiglia. That also wasn't so bad... maybe an hour and a half. Great. Then, we had to take the regional train to Cinque Terre.... for 5 hours. I think I'll be content to avoid mass amounts of public transportation for a while after this trip. So anyway, we arrived in Riomaggiore around 5pm, checked into our hostel, and went off in search of dinner since we hadn't eaten all day on the train. We found a cute little restaurant and got some gnocchi with traditional Ligurian pesto. It was DELICIOUS! :)

We spent a couple hours just exploring the city after that.. hiked up a random trail and found some waterfalls, turned down an alleyway to find an old church and apothecary, and came across little old ladies hanging their laundry out to dry in the sea breeze on our way back. Even though we were in an 11 bed room on our trip, we turned in early because we hadn't slept much and knew we would need energy for the next day.

Intermission to the dreams: some of the roommates come in at 3am, loud as ever, after drinking wine on the beach all night. They talked about nothing in particular for a good hour or so before finally passing out. On the bright side, they pointed out the fireflies in our room. That was the first time I'd ever seen them. :)

In the morning, Megan and I woke up pretty early to hike the trails. We started in Riomaggiore and quickly made it along to Manarola where we bought a little bit of Focaccia for breakfast while we started the hike on to Corniglia (including the 380 stairs up to the city). We explored each city a little bit along the way. I had stayed in Corniglia last time I was here, so I knew of a good deli where we bought some salami, bread, and fruit to have a picnic lunch along the way. The hike from Corniglia to Vernazza is my favorite with gorgeous views of the cliffs, plants, and crashing waves. We stopped in a little secluded place to put on more sunscreen ( didn't want to take any chances after Marseille) and eat our lunch. Then, it was onto the beasty hike to Monterosso. There were SO many stairs on this trail... at least a few hundred up and down the side of the mountains. After 12km, and going up and down about 600 feet from sea level at least 4 or 5 times, we made it to the beach in the last city. We drank some water, ditched our stuff on the beach and hopped into the Mediterannean! It was so cold at first, but felt amazing after our long hike.

We finally headed back to Rio to shower, grab some pesto pizza for dinner, and just hang out with some of the roommates for a few hours before going to bed. In the morning, we'd have to get up early again to catch a train back to France.

Did we ever leave Africa?: Marseille June 5 and 6

So, we had a relatively expensive hotel reserved outside of Marseille because it was all we could find online. Well, we took the train from the airport into the city center, had no idea where we were and decided we'd go find internet to see if we could figure out how to get there. We ended up wandering down to the city and found a shady hotel near the train station. We figured "why not?" and found out they had some rooms for only 35 euro per night. Soo... I cancelled our other reservation and we've been staying in the old part of town. It's mostly north african immigrants and moroccan and tunisian restaurants in the area... which makes me miss morocco a little less. (Just a little though - I love that country!)

Well, we spent the afternoon being good tourists and wandering around to see all of the landmarks like St. Victor's Abbey (there happened to be a funeral so we couldn't actually go in.), the cathedral, the old port, etc. We also stopped to try the baked specialty of Marseille at a bakery that is like 220 years old. They are called Navettes and kind of taste like a really hard lemon cookie. Ehh.. it was an experience anyway.

We decided to get some food but everything was pretty expensive around the old port so we settled on a little venezia pizzeria. It ended up being a good choice as we spent the evening chatting with the owner about everything from the joys of traveling to the social problems in France. He didn't want us to leave yet, so he gave us a bottle of Limoncello to start drinking... Never mind that we had already shared a bottle of Vin de Provence. We were also talking with his friend Kamel who apparently owned a bakery in the suburbs and told us that if we came back the next day, he would bring us a special dessert. Why not, right? Well, we wandered the city by night for a little bit to check out all of the monuments all lit up and then went to crash at the hotel.

In the morning, we decided to take a bus early out to the Calanques and the bay of Cassis. Unfortunately, our hotel owner recommended we not go that direction since a woman had just been kidnapped while she was hiking there and it wouldn't be safe for 2 girls to go alone. Instead, we went to the Calanques in the south of Marseille. They are these crazy rock formations from when glaciers were cutting through the area. Anyway, when trying to get there, we got on the wrong bus about 4 times, but eventually made it there. Basically we ended up hiking through the mountain-like things. It was ok, but not fabulous... until we got to the top of one of the big ones and found the sea. It was an amazing view of the Mediterranean, little islands off the coast, and the little fishing village where the bus dropped us off. I kept telling Megan how surreal it was - like something out of a movie.

Finally, we hiked back down and decided to take the bus to one of the beaches... I forgot they had topless beaches in France. Whoops. Anyways, we napped there for a while and got horribly sunburnt, and then went home. It went much smoother on the way back. :)

We decided to go back to the city, and ended up trying to grab dinner at the pizzeria again. We were greeted with bises and warm welcomes. Kamel wasn't there yet, but I ended up chatting with a guy who works for the oil industry in Algeria and owns a hotel... so after talking for a while, he told us he would get us a tour guide and a place to stay if we just come to visit. Really, the people are so generous! Kamel never came and we decided to leave, but Christian (the Italian owner) told us he might be by later. Megan and I went to go grab some ice cream for dessert and came back. Kamel still hadn't been by, so Christian insisted we call him... so I had to explain over the phone to this person I had just met the day before that it was okay that he had too much work and couldn't make it out for dinner... as if we'd been friends for like 10 years. Well, Christian felt bad, so he gave us.. more Limoncello. Finally, we took a couple of pictures, exchanged email addresses, and went home to our shady hotel.

Would you like a massage? Fes: June 3 and 4

Wednesday morning, I woke up early and just spent a while chatting with Yassine until everyone else woke up. Eventually Sandra (Farid's flatmate) invited me to run to the market to get some food for breakfast while Farid made some more fresh mint tea. It was so quiet and calm there in the morning while everyone was still cleaning out their shops. The only downside was that I almost slipped in a puddles about a half dozen times.

Well, Megan and I took a fancy, air-conditioned, fast train to Fes, and arrived around 3pm. We wandered around for a while, asking for directions, and finally found our hotel. We explored to find some lunch, and then decided we'd ask about finding the old Medina since we were definitely living in the new part of town. The concierge told us it would all be closed, but I wanted to adventure out there anyways. As it turned out, it was nowhere near closed. After walking down probably a good mile of boulevard with a fountain every 10 feet, we could hear the Medina. We wandered around inside for quite a while trying not to get lost or harassed too much and found ice cream and other snacks for dinner for anywhere from 10 cents to a dollar each. Saweet. :) Megan's family requested that she bring back some Saffron, so we asked about it and were led into this labrynth of spices behind a shop front. Really, it was just walls and walls of spices piled up to the ceiling. We wandered a bit more and found a beautiful door in the Medina. I decided to take a picture. Bad idea. As it turns out, it was the royal palace and the police came over and scolded me and made me erase it. Oops. Anyway, it was getting late, so we headed back to the hotel.

In the morning of the 4th, Megan and I decided we would be brave and to to a Hamam. Since the people here usually have only cold water to shower with, they go to this spa kind of thing once a week or so. We did not know what we were getting ourselves into. The guy at the counter told us it was one euro to enter and 4 euro for a massage: would we like a massage? We said sure, paid, and walked into the women's side of the Hamam. You go all the way back to a steam room for a while and then they bring out tons of pails of steaming hot water in the second room where you can scrub up. We looked like idiots wandering around since we had no idea what was going on, but it was interesting anyways. Then came the surprise "massage". An old Moroccan woman comes up with like a loofah mit and scrubs the hell out of you. It was not what we expected, far from relaxing, and hilarious to laugh about afterwards... once we had our silky soft skin. Ayayya.

Finally, we realized we were running a bit low on cash if we were going to take a taxi in the morning, but luckily, we found a sandwich shop selling what seemed like falafel sandwiches for 4 Dirham... which is equal to about 50 cents in the US. Thank you Morocco! Tonight, I think the plan is maybe to relax by the pool for a bit, head up to the old Medina to check out the music festival, and call it a night so we can catch a taxi to the airport early in the morning. Ahh, c'est la vie!

UPDATE: So we did end up going to the Medina and since it is really our first city in Morocco without male escorts, there were some positive and negative aspects. For the negative, there were a tremendous amount of stares and catcalls in every language you could imagine. For the positive, I was out of money so one of the vendors called me over and just gave me a pair of traditional slippers for visiting Morocco. I guess I can't complain too much! :)

The twin cities: Rabat-Sale June 1-2

Tarik made us a quick breakfast in the morning and drove us to the train station before he had to go to work. We took second class from Casa to Rabat and it was a bad idea since it was really stuffy, hot, and crowded. By the time we got off the train in Rabat, we felt DISGUSTING.

We didn't see our friend waiting for us, and we weren't positive if we were even at the right station in the city, so we tried to use the phone. Luckily for us, our friend showed up right behind us as we were calling them. Yassine had brought Farid and another friend with him, and since Yassine was busy getting ready for his first screening of his documentary, he sent us in a taxi to Farid's house. It was in the old part of the city, at the crossing of Rabat's river and the ocean. It was founded by pirates - basically all of the Muslims who were kicked out of Spain came and claimed the area. Anyway, the house was amazing. It was pretty big and had a gorgeous terrace with an overshelming view of the ocean and Rabat's twin city: Sale.

Megan and I went to wander along the river for a while to try to get a feel for the city. The shopowners are much less pushy here. Well, we grabbed some delicious crepes for dinner and headed back to meet Farid so we could all go see Yassine's documentary. People started taking pictures of us right as we walked in. Apparently, it was a big deal with lots of press... and we were slimy, un-showered, and casually dressed. Unfortunately, they wanted "an international perspective" and interviewed us to be aired on the news in Morocco. So, if you see a pasty white girl talking about the disparities between the tourists and the local people in the town of Ifrain, you'll know how I spent my time in Rabat. Ha. ;)

Anyway, we met a bunch of Yassine's friends and all decided to go to Rachid's house where we ended up just chatting quite a bit and having 13 people eating veggie tagine (cooked by the men of course) around a small table. We talked a bit more, and then Yassine, Eunice, Hamza, Rachid, Abdel, Farid, and another friend all walked us back across town to Farid's house where we ended up staying that night.

In the morning, we slept in pretty late, but Farid still bought us some traditional bread from the market and made us some yummy mint tea for breakfast. Then, we went out to visit the Mozoleum, the big Mosque; and the roman ruins at Chellah. The ruins were crazy - this huge labrynth of old bricks, beautiful flowers, and almost a jungle-like atmosphere. It seemed even more so because they had these huge nests full of nasty giant birds cackling away the whole time. After walking all over town, Megan and I decided to take a taxi back to Farid's in the old part of town. That was an adventure and a half to explain to the driver who only spoke arabic and broken french since it is so far north it is not on the map.

We returned, hung out on the terrace, talked with Farid's flatmates a bit, and then found out Yassine would finally be coming to meet us. When he arrived, the guys proposed that we go see some local dance performance. No big deal, right? Well, we forgot Yassine was a photographer and Farid was a journalist. So, we had to sign in as the press, walk down a red carpet (again dressed like bums) and hear questions like "pardon me, but have you met the ambassador?" Apparently it wasn't just some small dance show, it was symbolising some kind of partnership between Europe and Morocco, with the president, ambassador, etc. Whoops. The guys snapped some pics after mingling a bit and decided they would rather take naps than watch traditional European dance, so we ducked out the back door.

The guys wanted us to make them dinner, but we didn't know what we'd be able to find there, so they agreed to make dinner and we would make them traditional american dessert: cookies. :) We spent quite a while walking through the market picking up everything we would need and eventually made it home to start cooking. We spent maybe an hour preparing, and then the whole group of like 7 of us decided to have dinner by candlelight on the terrace since the view of the lights reflecting on the ocean was just amazing. I think it was after midnight by the time we finished eating and cleaning, so we all went to bed pretty soon after.

Casablanca: May 31

Yesterday in Marrakech, I got an email saying that our host in Casablanca would also not be able to meet us because of work. I tried to figure something out, but didn't have much luck and didn't want to impose for another night in Marrakech, so we just hopped on the train and hoped for the best. We arrived to realize that Casa is MUCH larger than we imagined and most things were closed because it was a sunday. Finally, after asking many times, we found internet. Tarik had sent me an email saying he would leave work to meet us, so we called him right away.

He picked us up and brought us to his place to relax. Since he is Muslim, he had to leave right away because it was time to pray and we didn't know when he'd be back, so I just hopped in for a much needed shower. When he arrived, he took us on a tour of the city - especially spending a lot of time at the Hassan II Mosque - the 2nd largest in the world. It was breathtaking. We're still really the only white people we've seen around here, so we were a bit of a spectacle by ourselves. Later, we grabbed a sandwich and wandered the old Medina for a while before trying to go meet one of Tarik's friends. Unfortunately, Tarik had some trouble with the directions, and we never found the friend.

Instead, we met up with his friend Ali, went to the boardwalk and sat at a cafe to sipping orange juice and watching the sunset. It was a nice night. Then, we all decided we'd like to dance, but apparently clubs don't open until later there, so we had some time to kill. We ended up walking again through the old medina and the boys convinced us to try moroccan spiced snails. That was an experience to say the least. Finally, though, we ended up at a nice bar and ended up just drinking some wine and chatting all night since the place wasn't really full enough to merit dancing that night. All in all, a good night in Casa.

"Where is your husband?": Essaouira May 30

Said brought us to the bus station early in the morning so we could get to Ess pretty early. After 3 hours, we arrived and asked for directions to Hamouda's (the guy we were to be staying with) riad. We found it, but they said he wouldn't be back that night. We tried to call him, and he didn't answer. We also managed to find out that we couldn't continue our trip from Ess like we thought, and the only way to get to Casa is to go back through Marrakech.

So, we left the riad and decided to enjoy as much of the city as we could. Ess is on the coast, so there was a beautiful beach filled with swimmers and kites, etc. We also spent some time walking through the markets looking at souvenirs, but since this was our first time walking around without a male friend to guide us (AND we were stuck carrying around out big old bags screaming tourist) there was a lot of heckling, cat calls, etc. We eventually settled down for a great tagine (fish because we were by the coast) in a good restaurant along the market streets.

We decided since we had no place to stay and would have to go back to Marrakech anyway, we would call our friends there. Luckily, they were available to meet us, but the car was not working, so we attempted to navigate the public transportation. It would have been fine, but the police spent a while trying to subdue and kick a drunk man off the bus, so we were paused for a while. By the time we got back to the flat, I was so tired I just went to bed.

Desert trip continued: May 29

So I slept in the desert tent, but apparently my area had a hole in one of the rugs, so I woke up covered in sand... everywhere. I also woke up about 2 hours before everyone so I took some time to sit outside and watch the wind storm reform the dunes. It was unreal - like the scenery was being created while I watched. Eventually everyone woke up and we had a little breakfast and hopped back on the camels to get back to a road at the edge of the desert.

We stopped in Ouzazarte for lunch and a little shopping. I went into one of the shops and was talking to a man who showed me how to tie the traditional berber headscarf and he ended up selling it to me for 50 Dirham instead of 200 after I sat down and talked to him a bit. Anyway, we hopped on the minibus and drove the rest of the way back to Marrakech only stopping for tea a couple times along the way. We were dropped off and our friend Said was supposed to meet us, but apparently we weren't dropped off back at the agency, so we spent some time wandering in the Medina trying to find our meeting spot.

When we made it back to our friend's flat, we finally got to shower off some sand. We met up with the other guys, the showed us some of the pictures of their families' village, a few friends stopped by and we spent another evening just chatting, talking politics, etc. until the early morning. We all exchanged info. and said goodbye before going to bed because Megan and I would be leaving Marrakech in the morning for Essaouira.

To the Dunes! : Desert tour May 28

We woke up around 6 to get to the agency in the city center by 7. We were a little late and there was nobody there, but it turns out everyone was just late. We paid for our tour and got on the minibus when it arrived. There were about 15 people on the tour from all over the world. It was crazy how we all managed to get along with so many languages floating around the car.

We fell asleep for a while and woke up in the middle of the Atlas mountains - the Tichka. It was beautiful! We took a little break to take pics and get a snack and it was just crazy how much different scenery we saw. There was everything from desert/cactus to waterfalls, snowy mountains, palm trees, and mini forests. We drove on and took another break at a real bathroom and happened to run into Isham who was leading a different tour to the desert that day.

We drove quite a bit and stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant and giant Kasbah (old city center like a giant sand castle). A guy was charging entrance but we told him we didn't know if we wanted to go in so he let us in for free since we were "nice girls". We eventually went back to pay him after wandering around for a while, but he was doing his afternoon prayers.

Then, we continued on to meet the camels on the edge of the real desert. We had 3 camel trains for all of us and 3 berber guides to go with. Megan and I named our camels Elfie and Gertrude. Let me just say it's a weird experience when a camel stands up for the first time. They do the back legs first so you feel like you're going to be thrown off the front. Yikes! We rode a few hours into the desert to meet our camp - a big Berber tent where they would make us dinner over a fire and teach us traditional drumming and dancing. Unfortunately, the bathroom tent had blown away in a desert storm the previous week. This wasn't so bad at night because you could just wander away from camp and find a sand dune, but in the morning, it got a bit awkward. I spent some time with the camp leader - Mohammed, who told me all about the values and principles of living in the desert. He also gave us new names. I am Fatima and Megan is Latifah and we've been called that by everyone ever since. Anyway, after a chicken tagine, tea, and vegetables, we all sat around talking before the Berber men started drumming and we all talked and danced in the desert until the early hours of the morning.

Bienvenue en Afrique: Marrakech May 27

We took the early train to the airport in Paris, and of course our flight was delayed. We arrived at the Marrakech airport a couple hours late, greeted by Arabic writing on sand colored buildings. This was NOT Europe. :) We walked in and attempted to go through customs but first had to check in to make sure we didn't have the swine flu. When we finally made it to the arrivals area - about 2 hours late - Said and Isham were waiting for us. We got into their Range Rover and headed over to their flat where we met the people they lived with: Ahmet, Rafik, Abdo, and his brother.

We hadn't really eaten all day so I was really grateful when they showed us how to make a Tagine (traditional Moroccan food with meat and vegetables cooked over fire) almost as soon as we arrived. The boys were some great cooks. Also, they showed us how to eat "like Berbers" with just bread and our hands, all together from the same plate. All of us just sat around getting to know each other for a while in the kitchen which consisted of some small leather chairs, a sink, cabinet, and a low table to sit at.

My next shocker was the bathroom. I was somewhat prepared, but still a little surprised. It had one of those toilets that is pretty much just a porcelain hole in the ground. The shower/sink/ toilet flushing mechanism consisted of a cold water spigot and a pail. It was definitely different, but it worked.

Anyway, we continued on to the old market which was craaazy amazing. We walked in and were greeted with snake charmers, pet monkeys, street vendors, beggars, everything you can imagine. The boys helped us get a good price on henna tattoos so Megan and I each got that done. Then they took us for some delicious fresh squeezed orange juice, special Moroccan bread, sweet tea, special chocolate dessert, and a tea made from probably 50 different spices. I almost exploded. :) Anyway, the men there were real gentlemen and wouldn't let us girls pay for anything... kind of a nice change from America. Ha! Well, we finally went into the Souks and I was overwhelmed by the size. There were literally thousands and thousands of scarves, slippers, leather bags, silver jewelry - shop after shop.

We got a bit tired and decided to head home since we would be heading to the desert in the morning, but realized we didn't know where to meet in the morning. Luckily Said knew quite a bit about tourism in the city and he ran around and found our agency for us. Then, it was back to the flat, but the traffic was crazy. Two lanes of traffic held 4 or 5, cutting people off is normal, and there seemed to be no speed limit. Donkeys, horse carriages, cars, motor bikes holding entire families, cabs with 7 people in them all shared the roads as well. Anyway, they boys planned a small party for what was supposed to be our only night in Marrakech and we all ended up dancing, talking, and having lots of fun until around 2 in the morning.

Pictures

Sorry for the lack of pictures everyone. Unfortunately, I have not had access to a computer with the capabilities to upload. I will post some as soon as I can! :)

Paris: May 25 and 26

Monday morning, we got up early to repack everything and get ready to catch the bus to Paris. We arrived so early that we were able to hop on a bus that left an hour earlier than planned. :) This was a good thing since it took almost 4 hours to get there. We arrived, hopped on the metro, got off on the wrong stop and walked probably .75 miles to find our hotel with all of our stuff. I was joking that we would end up at the top because I always did when we were in Paris. Well, we checked in and the man told us we were in room 31... on the 6th floor... up the spiral staircase... with no elevator. It was actually kind of funny as we each had about 40+ pounds of stuff to carry with us.

Anyway, we checked in, bought some groceries for lunch, took a few pictures at Notre Dame de Paris, and just wandered the area. Eventually, we hung out in an internet cafe for a while trying to figure out the details of the rest of our trip. We walked around, got a crepe for dinner, and walked around the Latin Quarter. We almost went home but decided to go into a bar along the road because they had Sangria on special. We made friends with all of the hosts and finally left a little after midnight. Unfortunately, it was raining and I didn't have and umbrella so I walked a couple miles or so in the rain... not pretty.

We hopped in bed and slep the morning away on Tuesday. After getting organized, we didn't make it out to the city until around 3, but we still managed to grab some pain au chocolat, head over to the Arc de Triomphe, walk over to the Eiffel Tower to take some pics and then take the metro to where we thought the Moulin Rouge was. It's really too bad nobody in Paris seems to actually know where it is. We asked about 5 people and after piecing everything together... we realized that we still had about a mile to walk. We finally made it there but just took some pictures since tickets for shows were running up to 180 euros. Too rich for me. I think the plan is now to head back to the Latin Quarter to find a nice dinner, head home, and then catch a flight to Morocco in the morning. :)