Fes/Fez

After a sore camel ride back to reality, Marco, Francesca, Fernando, Kate and myself hired a taxi to take us to Fes, 7 hours away. The taxi was a 30 year old Merc and we had to sit 2 in the front seat. We all took turns of sitting up there and it was quite comical watching Fernando continually fall asleep on Kate's shoulder, then wake up, then fall asleep, then wake up.....

The journey was amazing, from desert as far as the eye can see, to high up in the Atlas mountains, to a spot that resembled Ireland complete with green meadows, stone walls and low lying fog.

After a long day we arrived in Fes, it was a battle to find our hostel but once we were settled and had a good sleep we took on Fes and loved it. Fes is a bit more laid back than Marrakech, less hassling and much cheaper.

We did a walking tour, saw (smelt) the tanneries, bought some leather goods, ate camel burgers, had a cut throat shave (the straight razor removed the mole on my chin), drank plenty of freshly squeezed oj, saw chickens being weighed and slayed and were offered hash at a ridiculously low price.

Eventually it all had to end though as we had to get back to London and prepare for our trip to the pensioner holiday capital of Italy.

Sand in my undies Pt 2

We joined our second bus and had another day of windy roads, stopping at photo points and roadside stalls. We quickly became friends with Chilean law student Fernando who's studying in the UK, Hwanki (Min) a South Korean uni film making lecturer (who had just been to a Swiss film festival which he was invited to attend to show his doco) and two Italian doctors Marco and Francesca.

We had yet another long day of driving on the bus, saw another kasbah that had been in the same movies as the previous one before we reached what we had been waiting 3 days for, the real desert.

Dunes, proper dunes, nothing but sand for as far as the eye can see. We were quickly assigned a camel (this one I called Fredrik which became Big Fred as he was way taller than any other camel) and headed off as we had a 90 minute ride ahead of us. We trudged between dunes deep into the Sahara until our butts were so sore most of us were riding sidesaddle when suddenly our guides said "Off Off" and we were made to dismount. They then pointed to a giant dune and an even taller one behind it and told us we'd find our camp behind them, and off they went.

To climb the dunes was a struggele, the sand was so loose and soft somethimes it was like walking up a descending escalator. But when we got to the top it was majestic. But from up there it all went downhill. We arrived at camp at 6pm and were famished as we hadn't eaten since 12, only to be told they forgot our food and we wouldn't recieve it until after 10pm, our tents were made of hessian and weren't sandproof (in a windy desert why would you want that?), the mattresses were old straw filled ones that were full of sand and I'm pretty sure the pillows were bricks wrapped in canvas.

But we loved every minute of it and forged some strong friendships because of it.

Photos added are (not necessarily in this order as the uploading has a mind of it's own)
my gourmet cheese omelette, one of the massive dunes we climbed, Kate riding a camel , shadows and Fernando saying goodbye to his camel (they became quite attached)

Sand in my undies Pt 1

So we chose to go with the cheaper desert tour. This decision was based solely on the fact that we would save $22. It wasn't until we were on the bus that we began to realise we had no idea where we were going.

The mini bus picked up a heap of French speaking people and set off. It wasn't until about an hour into the trip we realised these Frenchies were all Canadians, which was great as our French is pretty rusty. At the first of many, many stops to be shown trinkets on the roadside we got chatting to find everybody on the bus was doing a 1 night tour, whilst we had booked 3. We asked the driver and he said it was fine as the next day we'd join another bus to see "the real desert". It was Anzac Day and spookily there were poppies growing on the side of the road so I still got to have my minute of silence with a poppy.

After a long day if winding, winding, winding our way up and down the Atlas Mountains, stopping at a Kasbah (fortressed city) that apparently was used in Indiana Jones 3, Lawrence of Arabia and Game of Thrones among others, we made it to the desert, not really the Sahara, it's less sandier, rockier little brother. We rode camels (I called mine Winston) for 40mins until we got to a tent camp near one dune, yes just one sand dune. We stayed in gourmet tents that even had power and had a bathroom tent with showers and flushing toilets. We had a traditional dinner and watched some Berbers play drums and sing before bed.

Saddle sore the next day we hopped back on Winston and the gang and headed back to the bus and part 2 our our desert tour

The photos are of the poppy on Anzac Day, Kate on her camel, me, the dune, our camp, Winston (either he had rabies or had just brushed his teeth) and Rob the Canadian who was talked into buying something from every stall holder he passed

Marrakech. The capital of organised chaos!

April 22nd we arrive in Marrakech, Morocco.
We managed to bypass the numerous men trying to talk us into getting into their taxi and caught the bus to the Medina in the old part of town. Now I had expected it to be busy with people trying to spruik their goods (ie. tissues, cigarettes, toys), but what I don't think I fully expected was for the assault on all my senses. I wasn't quite sure where to look, whether the smells drifting across the square were good or bad or indifferent.
We walked around and around looking for our riad (hotel), but with the world so reliant on the internet and us having none it proved to be quite the challenge until a teenage boy offered to show us the way.
He walked us round and round and round all the time saying "four minutes yeah? four minutes". When we did finally arrive he asked for 50 duriham to which Ned gave him 20 and told him to be on his way!
As we were later to find out, we'd been standing at the top of the street of our riad which was all of about 40 meters from the hotel when we first arrived!!
We put on our game face and headed for the good stalls of the square where quotes such as "117 takes you to heaven, 114 has no door" (none of them did!), but the winner by far was the dude who in an cockney English accent wooed us in with this one line pearler "it's f$&king good"! That was good enough for us!!
For the next three days where we meandered through the alleyways, shop after shop trying to sell you anything and everything you did and didn't need, all of course at a "good" price. We politely declined and managed to not buy a thing.
Quote of the day went to a teenage dude with "excuse me, you have very nice girl!" That's right Ned you DO have very nice girl!!
The square was also a perfect spot to grab a freshly squeezed OJ and people watch. We witnessed a man trying to dress a monkey and when the monkey objected the man punched it in the face. Easy decision to NOT give them any money. We watched as they scouted for any white person walking in their direction and then bounced by putting the monkeys on their shoulder for a photo and then the two parties fought over how much each thought the experience was worth. Generally the tourist thought nothing and the monkey men a lot! Generally the monkey people prevailed!
The other amusing thing to watch was groups of Moroccan men with cobras, what we think were rattle snakes and some other kind of snake trying to put them around people's neck. Apparently, if they touch your head with the snakes it's good luck! I was not going anywhere near them. One because I didn't want to give them money and two because God knows what the snakes were.
Watching petrified tourist screaming as these men hunted them with their snakes was pretty funny. One lady even started crying ;(
At night the monkey and snake men packed and were replaced with story tellers, food stalls and an even more ridiculous number of mopeds, taxis, pedestrians and horse and carts all jostling for a piece of the road, this was an organised chaos to be admired. It's crazy how it just seems to work.

Choose your own adventure

Remember those choose your adventure books we all loved reading in grade 4 and 5? The ones where you got to the end of a page and had to make a life changing decision and whether to go through the door and turn to page 43 or run away screaming and turn to page 61. Well that was like choosing our desert tour.

We spoke at length to a tour operator in Marrakech about his 4 day 3 night tour to the Sahara Desert, saw the route maps, photos, included options, the works. And then got the price, 200dm (like $22) more than our hostel host's friend Ali offered.

We had only spoken to Ali on the phone, had no idea where his tour went, what it entailed, nothing. All we knew was it was 4 days, 3 nights and $22 cheaper.

So what do you do?

Go through the door, or run away screaming?