Kif in the Rif

Our last stop in Morocco was Chefchaouen. A town in the Rif mountains, which is supposedly the largest acreage of cannabis cultivation in the world.



We had thought that it would be a really chilled and laid back place, but you get hassled EVERYWHERE to buy hash or kif (marijuana leaf)! Even the waiters will ask you if you want tea, coffee, desert, or hash. Em went on a walk into the mountains and was asked to buy hash off a goat herder! Crazy! We did behave ourselves though, partly because Gwil had a terrible flu and Em was dosed up on immodium for the entire time we were there. "No thanks, we don´t need any hash. We don´t smoke" became our mantra. Over, and over, and over, and over again.

Chefchaouen is a really beautiful place though. The walls, doors and floors of town are painted blue - creating a very interesting streetscape.



From here we took the bus back to Tanger, and the ferry to Spain. We had a great two and a half weeks in Morocco... but don´t think we´d do it again during Ramadan.

Fez hats aren´t from Fes??!

We were pretty upset to find out that Fez hats aren´t even from Fes - they´re Turkish! We hadn´t realised that the names were spelt differently, and lots of people in Fes still wear them, so when a local told us that they weren´t Moroccan it was a bit of a disappointment... but we bought some anyway... tourists!



Everything else about Fes was great though. We love that you can bargain on everything in Morocco - even accomodation - meaning that we got to stay in a very nice guesthouse (riad), which was a lovely change from the budget pensions and hostels we´d been staying in.

Fes has a great medina, with lots of tiny spiralling passages that you can get lost in for hours. In these passages you´ll find stalls selling lamps, carpets, clothes, jewellery and even coca-cola - which is all delivered on the back of a donkey! The "coke donkeys" wander the streets of Fes, taking deliveries and collecting empty bottles.



Another big attraction of Fes are the tanneries. These have been around for hundreds of years, and leather is still tanned in the same way. Skins are delivered from the abbatoir, soaked in limestone vats, then in pigeon poo (really!), and are then dried or dyed or oiled. The tanneries stink, but are really interesting to see.

Play it, Sam

Casablanca.

No signs of Bogart or Bergman, but there is a Rick´s Bar (although no one who goes looking for it seems to be able to find it!)

Casablanca is not the romantic city that it´s reputation would have you believe. It was probably the only city in Morocco where we didn´t feel entirely safe at night. It also isn´t a large tourist destination, but more of a business city. This meant that because of Ramadan it was really hard to find food here - during the day everything was closed, and at night everywhere was full with people breaking their fast. We ate digestive biscuits for lunch and Halal McDonalds for dinner!!



The highlight of Casa for us was the Hassan II Mosque. It is the biggest religious monument in the world after Mecca, and can accomodate 25,000 worshippers inside the building. We were told that during Ramadan the mosque fills up every day! It has an enormous roof which splits in the centre to open up to the sky, and underground it has steam rooms which are open to all - both muslims and non-muslims. This mosque was the only one we found in Morocco which allowed non-Mulsims to enter.

From the desert to the sea

Leaving Marrakech, we headed out towards a fishing and beach town on the Atlantic coast of Morocco called Essaouira.

The town was really beautiful. Much cleaner and less touristy than Marrakech, and all the houses in the old town are painted white, with blue doors and shutters.



We stayed in a great little hotel right in the centre for less that 15 euro for the two of us! In the mornings we managed to sleep through the call to prayer (which goes off at about 4am), but were instead woken by donkeys at the much nicer time of 8 or 9am who clopped down our street each day.



We met a local guy, Suofian, here. Suofian works in one of the many leather shops in town, and wanted to practice his English on us. We chatted to him quite a bit, and he invited us to have local tagine with him one night. The tagines in Morocco have all been tasty, but have all had the same taste, so we were getting a bit bored of them. But the place that Suofian took us to didn´t have a menu - you had to bring your own ingredients and they cooked them for you! Suofian´s brother was a fisherman, so he had turned up to the restaurant with 2 fish. The restaurant cooked the fish with vegies and Moroccan spices to make one of the tastiest (and cheapest... 50 euro cents each!) tagines that we´ve eaten!


This is a tagine... but not the fish one we ate with Suofian

It has been interesting travelling through Morocco during Ramadan. In some of the places with less tourists, it is really hard to even find someone selling food during the day. We have also noticed some people getting cranky late in the afternoon (totally understandable after not eating for 14 hours!), and have seen a few fights break out over really small things. While we´ve tried to respect Ramadan as much as possible, and not eat in public if we have found food, we can´t do without water during the day. More than once we´ve had someone shake their head at us and say "That´s not allowed... it´s Ramadan" while we´ve been drinking from our water bottles.

Video from Djemma el Fna

This is a video we took of Gwil and the berber buskers in the main square of Marrakech.

These buskers will happily perform for anyone who is willing to give them a few seconds... but beware if they manage to get one of their hats on you! Once you've worn a hat, they'll chase you around the square until you give them some dirham!

Sights and sounds in Marrakech

In the centre of Marrakech is a huge marketplace called Djemma el-Fna, with the Souqs (covered market stalls) just behind the place. All day and night the area is full of some of the strangest stalls and entertainers that we've seen.

• Snake charmers
• Fresh OJ sellers
• Bedouin (tribe) men posing in traditional costume for photos
• Men selling human and animal teeth
• Men who dance while playing castanets and spinning tassles on their hats
• Fortune tellers
• Story tellers
• Musicians (some talented, some not so)
• Monkeys
• Some crazy people who will somersault then follow you for money (because they 'entertained' you)
• Food stalls with all sorts of bizarre things
• Live iguanas, camelons and turtles
• Pairs of men with eggs, animal skins, feathers and porcupine quills

The energy and colours in the market place is just amazing. It's impossible to capture it in a photo, or with a video. But, we've tried!

An Irishman, a Canadian and an Italian went into the desert...

On our first day in Marrakech, we met Cindy (from Canada), Phil (from Ireland, like), and Paolo (from Italy). We decided to head into the desert together, so we booked a trip and at 7am the next morning were sitting in a mini-bus along with Rob (from England), heading South-East towards the Sahara.

We started our adventure by crossing the Atlas mountains into Ait-Benhaddou - a tiny town with an ancient Kasbah, about 2 hours from Marrakech. The Kasbah here dates from the 6th century, and was used as the backdrop for scenes in Gladiator. The entire structure is made from mud and straw.



From there, we continued to Ouarzazate for lunch, and then to The Valley of Roses, through the Dades Gorge, and stopped in Boumain du Dades for the night. The hotel we stayed in was inside the gorge, on the edge of a river. There wasn't much else nearby, but the place was amazing.

The next day started with honey crepes (such a yummy breakfast!), and then a trip through the Oasis at Tinghir. The Oasis is used by locals from nearby villages to grow crops.



The afternoon of the second day took us towards the Sahara, through both a short rain shower (in the desert?!!!) and a genuine sandstorm! In Erg Chebbi, only 35kms from the border of Algeria, we met our Berber guides. They gave us our camels, and we rode for 2hrs into the Sahara desert to the campsite where we stayed the night, surrounded by nothing but sand dunes and stars.





It was an amazing trip, and a definite highlight of our whole adventure so far.

Breaking the fast during Ramadan

We caught the ferry to Tanger yesterday from Algeciras, and after realising that we had 8 hours to kill before our train to Marrakesh left, we happened to bump into a local, Miloud, who thought we looked a little bit lost.

Em, being ever the sceptic, thought a massive scam was on it's way as Miloud offered to take us personally to the kasbah, and all through the medina... but it turned out that he just had time to kill (during Ramadan they can't eat from sunrise to sunset, and many get a bit cranky if they're not kept busy!). So we spent an amazing afternoon with him - checking out all the local areas, including bakeries and mosques hidden down winding paths inside the kasbah, and learning all about life in Tanger and Ramadan.





The afternoon finished with him inviting us to have "breakfast" with him, the 6pm meal to break-the-fast of Ramadan. His wife cooked us a special Ramadan soup, made with pigeon (!!), and we ate with him as the sun set over the ocean, sitting by the walls of the kasbah!

Sunny Seville

Where oranges grow on the side of the street.

Where tapas bars are full all day and all night.

Where sangria comes by the litre and is soooo tasty.

Where the sun is shining, and it´s hot even in autumn.

Where all the shops close between 2 and 5 for lunch and siesta.



We could stay here for weeks if we didn´t have to come home eventually. Siestas are SUCH a great idea, and are suiting us just fine!

Next stop, Algeciras. We get the ferry from there to Morocco. We´ve just discovered that we´re arriving in the middle of Ramadan.....

Crazy for Swayze

We are very excited to tell you all that we got to see Patrick Swayze live on stage!



He is currently in the West End production of Guys and Dolls as Nathan Detroit, and he even pulled off a few Dirty Dancing moves at the end of the show! While he is looking a bit older than in his Dirty Dancing days, he was still as suave as ever. It was great!!!

















Next show on our list: Chicago, currently starring Ashlee Simpson!

Pussy cat pussy cat, where have you been?

We came to London to visit the queen... but she's closed her palace as summer is now over. While we couldn't get close enough to see if we could make the guards larf, we watched them marching around from outside the gates.

Guard at Buckingham Palace

Simon and Marie (who Em used to work with) were passing through London on a "work trip", and we had a fantastic night out with them at a great London pub in Notting Hill, before kicking on with their friend Rupert who owns Aura, a night club in West End (he is also the designer behind Buddhist Punk). The scene at Aura was like nothing we've ever experienced before. When you order one of their expensive bottles of champagne, a waitress attaches little sparkling flares to the neck of it, and carries it high above her head to your table... just so that everyone knows that YOU were the cashed up one!

Em and Gwil at Aura

Sun, swimming and seafood platters

Sun, swimming and seafood platters... These three are pretty high up on our list of things that we love, and we were so lucky to find them all in Dubrovnik.

A bar by the beach, Ploce

Jumping from the rocks, Dubrovnik Old Town

Huge seafood platter, Dubrovnik

Along with the beautiful old town and Croatian culture.

Dubrovnik Old Town Walls