After two nights in Fes, we got an early start down towards Er Rachidia, a one night stopover towards the sand dunes in M'hamid -- our final destination. Er Rachidia is a small town with fast Moroccans: as we first pulled the car over in the city, a Moroccan wearing an Armani shirt had already caught our scent and was attaching himself to the side of our car. After lying to us about the hotel we were hoping to find -- on the other side of town, we left him and drove off in a more or less straight path. Upon arrival to the hotel, our ninja friend had already rounded up some shady characters and appeared to help us park -- more pointing.
The next morning we took for M'hamid, which is part of the great southern oasis routes (according to our trusty guidebook). The drive is quite relaxing until Zagora, where the road halves in width -- but is still two lane. Most people drive down the middle at the usual speed and slam the brakes, when they see a car -- oh wait, that was just us. This drive also takes place through the mountains. Our favorite are the signs: (1) no passing in the opposite lane (???) (2) watch out for puddles (???) (3) Berber bull crossings (??). Each sign was preceded by a warning sign to inform you of an upcoming sign. On the topic of signs, another favorite of ours was the speed limit signs approaching cities in Morocco, which would change the limit within 5 meters -- we would see a sign to slow down to 80 immediately followed by another to reduce to 60 (truly making the first one pointless). Contrary to what you might think, Nachi was a stellar driver throughout!
Saturday, 31 March 2007
The color of Fes is blue!
After some crazy crazy driving around Fes (one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco), we found a hotel and decided to get a tour guide for the following day. His name was Amit although Dan refused to accept that and called him Mohammed all the time (he thinks Amit might be short for Mohammed). Anyway, we might not know his name well but he taught his one very important fact and reminded us about every five minutes all day: the color of Fes is blue! We think he thought we were stupid, and we wished there was a quiz at the end. Sometimes he would point to ceramic wall that was obviously not blue and would point to a small tile that was blue -- explaining that it was blue since that is the color of Fes! We had an amazing lunch which was pretty expensive but we could hardly walk afterwards so it was a victory.
Nachi fell in love with a Berber pharmacy even though (or because?) the shady pharmacist destroys your nasal passages with cloves ("it will cure the headache in your head, the headache in your stomach.."). On a roll that day, Nachi also gave a weaving girl a hand at work. We learned that the Medina (the old Arab town, with the windy streets), which is amazing, has 180,000 shops, 9,000 alleyways and a population of 500,000 people. One of the funnier things was the massive overuse of pointing to empty spots in parking lots, a big offender here being a parking assistant at the hotel. Two days in Fes were rounded off with a visit to a dodgy bar.
Nachi fell in love with a Berber pharmacy even though (or because?) the shady pharmacist destroys your nasal passages with cloves ("it will cure the headache in your head, the headache in your stomach.."). On a roll that day, Nachi also gave a weaving girl a hand at work. We learned that the Medina (the old Arab town, with the windy streets), which is amazing, has 180,000 shops, 9,000 alleyways and a population of 500,000 people. One of the funnier things was the massive overuse of pointing to empty spots in parking lots, a big offender here being a parking assistant at the hotel. Two days in Fes were rounded off with a visit to a dodgy bar.
Friday, 30 March 2007
Chefchaouen - Fes
We got back 2 days ago -- couldn't log into the blog for most of the trip so we've decided to split this up into a few separate blog entries.
The drive from Chefchaouen was definitely one of the highlights of the trip as it defined the concept of "Berber of the North". The road is a horror show because the entire way is peppered with drug dealers who try to get you to stop the car so they can sell you hash. These are not normal hash dealers: they'll tailgate the car and swerve into oncoming traffic to try to get you to stop and they work in teams! You'd think that by the 14th hash dealer they would have worked out that you either (1) don't want hash or (2) have already bought it from one of the previous 13 guys, but no. Dan took a hard left and lost control of the car, which fishtailed 180 degrees between a mountain and a cliff.
The guidebook said that the drive used to be dangerous but it wasn't anymore, but they were so wrong. Ketama, the midpoint of the drive, is packed to the brim with Berbers of the North. The guy at the petrol station was of course selling hash which didn't work, but we did buy 3 different kinds of power drinks there. Crazy Horse is cool, Unicorn-something is crap and sticky and Wild Dragon was super..
The drive from Ketama to Fes is 3 and a half hours and is very pretty. All the Berbers will tell you that you can cover the Chefchaouen - Fes distance in 2 hours ("easy.. buy the hash, the road will go faster..") but that's because the 2 hours is in Berber time. The drive takes all day. Watch out for the drug dealers. We reported one to the police. It wouldn't come as any surprise if the guy was selling hash to the cops (or rugs) as they were arresting him.
The drive from Chefchaouen was definitely one of the highlights of the trip as it defined the concept of "Berber of the North". The road is a horror show because the entire way is peppered with drug dealers who try to get you to stop the car so they can sell you hash. These are not normal hash dealers: they'll tailgate the car and swerve into oncoming traffic to try to get you to stop and they work in teams! You'd think that by the 14th hash dealer they would have worked out that you either (1) don't want hash or (2) have already bought it from one of the previous 13 guys, but no. Dan took a hard left and lost control of the car, which fishtailed 180 degrees between a mountain and a cliff.
The guidebook said that the drive used to be dangerous but it wasn't anymore, but they were so wrong. Ketama, the midpoint of the drive, is packed to the brim with Berbers of the North. The guy at the petrol station was of course selling hash which didn't work, but we did buy 3 different kinds of power drinks there. Crazy Horse is cool, Unicorn-something is crap and sticky and Wild Dragon was super..
The drive from Ketama to Fes is 3 and a half hours and is very pretty. All the Berbers will tell you that you can cover the Chefchaouen - Fes distance in 2 hours ("easy.. buy the hash, the road will go faster..") but that's because the 2 hours is in Berber time. The drive takes all day. Watch out for the drug dealers. We reported one to the police. It wouldn't come as any surprise if the guy was selling hash to the cops (or rugs) as they were arresting him.
Saturday, 17 March 2007
With love from Chefchaouen
.. arrived in Tangiers last night.. after having had to walk another 11.5 km and getting our shortest hitch of all - 3 km to the ferry terminal - caught by another hitcher. It was very cramped and someone had to sit on someone's lap but the details are not important.
Tangiers is a little bit seedy in an old-port kind of way. The driving is crazy crazy. We ate a pizza and had a cigar stolen. In the morning we rented a car that only starts if the temperature is exactly 29 degrees Celsius. Anything below requires a choke stint, prayer and a lot of tenderness. Dan can't stick to the right - banged the side view mirror in the first 12 seconds - and Nachi struggles with the low gears on the manual. Together - almost a man, technically.
Now we are in Chefchaouen which is a very beautiful village with nice shops and friendly people, most of whom already know everyone, including us. And there is a cute girl. We're gonna go find her..
Tangiers is a little bit seedy in an old-port kind of way. The driving is crazy crazy. We ate a pizza and had a cigar stolen. In the morning we rented a car that only starts if the temperature is exactly 29 degrees Celsius. Anything below requires a choke stint, prayer and a lot of tenderness. Dan can't stick to the right - banged the side view mirror in the first 12 seconds - and Nachi struggles with the low gears on the manual. Together - almost a man, technically.
Now we are in Chefchaouen which is a very beautiful village with nice shops and friendly people, most of whom already know everyone, including us. And there is a cute girl. We're gonna go find her..
Friday, 16 March 2007
We´re alive.. southern tip of Spain!
Because we´re sure that everyone is constantly checking our blog to see how we´re doing, we feel we have to apologise for not having had internet access this whole time. Here´s the story so far...
After getting a lift from ´Nice Guy´Steve to Southampton, we got picked up by a cool businessman type guy who took us to Portsmouth. That´s the only ride we´ve had in a flashy car, by the way. Then we chilled out there for a day and repeatedly bought electronic equipment. We won some lighters from a casino. At night we took the ferry to Le Havre in France.
Just getting off the ferry we found an English guy, Perry, who has a house near Limoges and who drove us 300 miles to a small town near there. This town was killer.. not a lot of action. We had a couple of beers and were just packing up to head over to a nearby hotel, when we hit it big with Hadrian and Lise. These guys were awesome! They picked us up about 8pm, gave us a beer in the car, and drove us 10km to a house party. We had a wild and crazy night partying it up with the crazy hippy cats from the Limoges area and passed out in the room of Maria, the ¨La Reine des Mouches¨(The queen of the flies) -- talk about kind hearted people!!
Naturally, we woke up the next morning with a massive hangover (Nachi more than Dan). They dropped us off at 9am at a little spot on the side of the street. We decided to try the sleep and hitch tactic, where we sleep with our thumbs out roadside. Nachi downed 3 quiches and a pastry to prepare. After what seemed like forever and a lot of roadside dancing (we felt better after the first 4 hours), we got picked up by a girl (solo!) who did something with kids; she took us to a gas station 43km away on the WRONG side of the road, where we got less than nothing. It was our new home.. At nightfall we hiked up this big ass hill to a little village where we found a fairytale tower with a fairytale little hotel. First shower in 3 and a half days.
The next day, we were determined to get the fuck out of this rest stop and decided to take any ride going anywhere! We got a ride going from an apprentice ski instructor hitting the slopes in Claremont-Ferrard -- not exactly south! We took it 2 hours east and got dropped off in the C-F. A guy who did chemistry in uni but randomly decided tree-cutting was more his calling took us a few km to Issoire, a very happening place. There, after standing roadside till it was dark and cold and lonely, we hit it big by finding two English truckers (who had come from Oxfordshire, doh!) at the hotel we crashed at, who, the next day, took us a couple of hours south (in the back of their truck) to Montpellier. It was very illegal! They locked us in and within the first hour of the trip we were having slight bladder issues. Fortunately, they pulled over to check, as the English guys said, that we hadn't died from a gas leak or anything. We grabbed a couple of beers and popped back into the locked back of the truck.
They dropped us off in Montpelier -- yet another shit show. We were at a roundabout with 5 exits -- about 3 of which could potentially be right or wrong. So an old guy pulled over and took us to a better spot on the highway with only one exit. Eventually after dancing some more and Dan checking out what was under every rock, a French guy took us to Pezenas. Lo and behold, roundabout heaven! Everyone we talked to said we should wait on different exits of the roundabout -- literally. We walked a bit and had some food and decided to wait on the exit where the least number of people would honk at us and tell us we were facing the wrong way. We hate roundabouts. Today was a big day, we hit 5 lifts. People were waving at us a lot which felt good. A funny peasant guy took us to the toll point on the freeway to Spain, where if we got a ride, we would be golden. But it was quite late and we had to consider a hotel, the closest one being 10km and a cabride away!! Just as we were contemplating packing up, we hit it big big big with Fanny. She was a cute photographer driving solo in a van. She was studying in French Polynesia, but back home on a break. She drove us to Narbonne, but more importantly sorted out the next chunk of our hitch: her dad is a truckie who drives to Barcelona and back every day! Cha-ching!
So her hard ass old man picked us up at the toll point at 6.30 the next day and drove us to just south of Barcelona. He told us lots of funny stories along the way. They were mostly about the wars in the region and the kids' medical histories, which was a bit weird. He had 6 kids -- his expression was "we made two, we adopted two and we're guarding two". Fanny, he said, was made. What a legend. Finally, in Spain! We were on hold with that prayer for a while.
At the trucker's stop in Barcelona, we met 3 German guys who had hitch-hiked from Berlin to Spain. They had left the same day as us and somehow managed to get down there faster than us, and took some breaks along the way. Basically this truck stop was our break to the big time as we met a team of Portugese superheroes who would take us down, in one monster 1300 km ride, to south of Seville, the worst place in the world (seriously). One of them didn't talk, at all. In Portugese or in English. Sergio, the Batman of the outfit, was an old school legend and risked his job (and Robin's) to take us in the truck.
South Spain.. Wow!! We spent 27 hours in one spot. The longest wait yet. We walked bags and all 8km around the area. The people were all very cool, but no one wanted to take us anywhere. We spent the night in a villa for 25 euros. Cheap and huge, but no hot water. The next day, we got out. A man in his thirties and his mother drove us 30km south to the highway exit for Las Cabezas. Then we hit it really big again with a 22-year old student, Murcia. He went out of his way a bit and drove us down to Barbate. He drove us around the beaches and so naturally we bought him a lunch.
Things started to turn sour a bit here. We got another short lift out of Barbate -- debatably a mistake. We stood roadside into the nightfall again, however there were no hotels anywhere. No one would take us no matter how desperate we looked. We walked 4 km to the nearest sign of civilization, Tahiville -- also home of more mean Spanish people. We thought there was a hotel there but it was closed. Everyone was VERY friendly and kindly pointed us in the direction of the 8 hour walk to Tarifa. One cool piece of information was that there was a hotel 10 km down the road, where we are now, writing to all of you with love. Along the way, carrying our 45 kg bags, we saw some bulls in the night, walking alongside us, within 10 metres. Almost the whole time we were walking through an enormous field of windmills, which was very X-Files-ish.
Dan's a bit worried about hitting the ferry in time so we're off -- probably walking the next 15 km. I love Southern Spain. We contemplated calling a taxi last night and taking a bus this morning but we don't want to give these deep-throat talking, random hand-waving psycho lunatics the satisfaction, so we're walking. It's very pretty here.
After getting a lift from ´Nice Guy´Steve to Southampton, we got picked up by a cool businessman type guy who took us to Portsmouth. That´s the only ride we´ve had in a flashy car, by the way. Then we chilled out there for a day and repeatedly bought electronic equipment. We won some lighters from a casino. At night we took the ferry to Le Havre in France.
Just getting off the ferry we found an English guy, Perry, who has a house near Limoges and who drove us 300 miles to a small town near there. This town was killer.. not a lot of action. We had a couple of beers and were just packing up to head over to a nearby hotel, when we hit it big with Hadrian and Lise. These guys were awesome! They picked us up about 8pm, gave us a beer in the car, and drove us 10km to a house party. We had a wild and crazy night partying it up with the crazy hippy cats from the Limoges area and passed out in the room of Maria, the ¨La Reine des Mouches¨(The queen of the flies) -- talk about kind hearted people!!
Naturally, we woke up the next morning with a massive hangover (Nachi more than Dan). They dropped us off at 9am at a little spot on the side of the street. We decided to try the sleep and hitch tactic, where we sleep with our thumbs out roadside. Nachi downed 3 quiches and a pastry to prepare. After what seemed like forever and a lot of roadside dancing (we felt better after the first 4 hours), we got picked up by a girl (solo!) who did something with kids; she took us to a gas station 43km away on the WRONG side of the road, where we got less than nothing. It was our new home.. At nightfall we hiked up this big ass hill to a little village where we found a fairytale tower with a fairytale little hotel. First shower in 3 and a half days.
The next day, we were determined to get the fuck out of this rest stop and decided to take any ride going anywhere! We got a ride going from an apprentice ski instructor hitting the slopes in Claremont-Ferrard -- not exactly south! We took it 2 hours east and got dropped off in the C-F. A guy who did chemistry in uni but randomly decided tree-cutting was more his calling took us a few km to Issoire, a very happening place. There, after standing roadside till it was dark and cold and lonely, we hit it big by finding two English truckers (who had come from Oxfordshire, doh!) at the hotel we crashed at, who, the next day, took us a couple of hours south (in the back of their truck) to Montpellier. It was very illegal! They locked us in and within the first hour of the trip we were having slight bladder issues. Fortunately, they pulled over to check, as the English guys said, that we hadn't died from a gas leak or anything. We grabbed a couple of beers and popped back into the locked back of the truck.
They dropped us off in Montpelier -- yet another shit show. We were at a roundabout with 5 exits -- about 3 of which could potentially be right or wrong. So an old guy pulled over and took us to a better spot on the highway with only one exit. Eventually after dancing some more and Dan checking out what was under every rock, a French guy took us to Pezenas. Lo and behold, roundabout heaven! Everyone we talked to said we should wait on different exits of the roundabout -- literally. We walked a bit and had some food and decided to wait on the exit where the least number of people would honk at us and tell us we were facing the wrong way. We hate roundabouts. Today was a big day, we hit 5 lifts. People were waving at us a lot which felt good. A funny peasant guy took us to the toll point on the freeway to Spain, where if we got a ride, we would be golden. But it was quite late and we had to consider a hotel, the closest one being 10km and a cabride away!! Just as we were contemplating packing up, we hit it big big big with Fanny. She was a cute photographer driving solo in a van. She was studying in French Polynesia, but back home on a break. She drove us to Narbonne, but more importantly sorted out the next chunk of our hitch: her dad is a truckie who drives to Barcelona and back every day! Cha-ching!
So her hard ass old man picked us up at the toll point at 6.30 the next day and drove us to just south of Barcelona. He told us lots of funny stories along the way. They were mostly about the wars in the region and the kids' medical histories, which was a bit weird. He had 6 kids -- his expression was "we made two, we adopted two and we're guarding two". Fanny, he said, was made. What a legend. Finally, in Spain! We were on hold with that prayer for a while.
At the trucker's stop in Barcelona, we met 3 German guys who had hitch-hiked from Berlin to Spain. They had left the same day as us and somehow managed to get down there faster than us, and took some breaks along the way. Basically this truck stop was our break to the big time as we met a team of Portugese superheroes who would take us down, in one monster 1300 km ride, to south of Seville, the worst place in the world (seriously). One of them didn't talk, at all. In Portugese or in English. Sergio, the Batman of the outfit, was an old school legend and risked his job (and Robin's) to take us in the truck.
South Spain.. Wow!! We spent 27 hours in one spot. The longest wait yet. We walked bags and all 8km around the area. The people were all very cool, but no one wanted to take us anywhere. We spent the night in a villa for 25 euros. Cheap and huge, but no hot water. The next day, we got out. A man in his thirties and his mother drove us 30km south to the highway exit for Las Cabezas. Then we hit it really big again with a 22-year old student, Murcia. He went out of his way a bit and drove us down to Barbate. He drove us around the beaches and so naturally we bought him a lunch.
Things started to turn sour a bit here. We got another short lift out of Barbate -- debatably a mistake. We stood roadside into the nightfall again, however there were no hotels anywhere. No one would take us no matter how desperate we looked. We walked 4 km to the nearest sign of civilization, Tahiville -- also home of more mean Spanish people. We thought there was a hotel there but it was closed. Everyone was VERY friendly and kindly pointed us in the direction of the 8 hour walk to Tarifa. One cool piece of information was that there was a hotel 10 km down the road, where we are now, writing to all of you with love. Along the way, carrying our 45 kg bags, we saw some bulls in the night, walking alongside us, within 10 metres. Almost the whole time we were walking through an enormous field of windmills, which was very X-Files-ish.
Dan's a bit worried about hitting the ferry in time so we're off -- probably walking the next 15 km. I love Southern Spain. We contemplated calling a taxi last night and taking a bus this morning but we don't want to give these deep-throat talking, random hand-waving psycho lunatics the satisfaction, so we're walking. It's very pretty here.
Thursday, 8 March 2007
Wednesday, 7 March 2007
30 hours and counting...
... freaking out a bit. Where are the thick socks I had? Do we need a first aid kit? I want to take a bottle of hard liquor for the best and the worst of time -- is that gonna be too heavy? What if a camel eats Nachi? Am I a girl for doing this post? Ok, that last one is easy.
Friday, 2 March 2007
We hit 1000!!!!
Yesterday afternoon, we hit our goal of raising 1000 pounds (all done in about one month)! The final donation of 22.77 coming from Nick Gould, a fellow at my college, Exeter, and also in my research group.
Initially, Dan and I definitely had our hesitations about setting the target to 1000 (more me than Dan), but you all have shown us through the kindness of your hearts hat we do have your support. Thanks to all who have donated.
Of our various attempts to raise money, one of the first was a trip to a London Bar in Covent Garden. Our plan was to just spread the word about the charity and see if people might be interested in donating. Feeling a bit weird about the whole thing once there, Dan went up to two guys and said something along the lines of: "Hey, you guys don't have to donate, but I just want to practice on you guys," to which he naturally got a response along the lines of "who the fuck are you and why are you talking to us?" Well Dan went forth, they gave us 90p. It seemed worth it then and it seems worth it now. About 30 minutes later, we gave in the towel for the night after raising about 5 quid. It wasn't the most effective strategy. Getting donations for charity is actually much harder than we thought.
To finish this entry off, thanks for supporting us in our first steps on our journey. We are leaving in less than a week (next Thursday). We'll try to keep posts coming regularly whenever we find internet -- telling of our latest adventures - so be sure to check back..
p.s. you can still donate
p.s.s. its still a great cause
Initially, Dan and I definitely had our hesitations about setting the target to 1000 (more me than Dan), but you all have shown us through the kindness of your hearts hat we do have your support. Thanks to all who have donated.
Of our various attempts to raise money, one of the first was a trip to a London Bar in Covent Garden. Our plan was to just spread the word about the charity and see if people might be interested in donating. Feeling a bit weird about the whole thing once there, Dan went up to two guys and said something along the lines of: "Hey, you guys don't have to donate, but I just want to practice on you guys," to which he naturally got a response along the lines of "who the fuck are you and why are you talking to us?" Well Dan went forth, they gave us 90p. It seemed worth it then and it seems worth it now. About 30 minutes later, we gave in the towel for the night after raising about 5 quid. It wasn't the most effective strategy. Getting donations for charity is actually much harder than we thought.
To finish this entry off, thanks for supporting us in our first steps on our journey. We are leaving in less than a week (next Thursday). We'll try to keep posts coming regularly whenever we find internet -- telling of our latest adventures - so be sure to check back..
p.s. you can still donate
p.s.s. its still a great cause
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