From John:
Dobar dan!
I'm just recovering from the shock of losing an hour's typing because the server in Sarajevo has crashed. Is this symbolic of the shaky hold Bosnia has on the Western World? I had been waxing ( waning?) lyrical on the joys of studying the Balkans for my History mock O level and how a close friend, who shall remain nameless, had obtained a sneak preview of this particular question. And so it was that the map of the nations before the First World War was subjected to intense scrutiny. However, following this latest war, the borders and boundaries seem even more confusing for Bosnia in particular. After close anlysis of the dotted lines we can see that Bosnia and Hercegovina is divided up into two parts: the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, which is mainly Muslim and Croat, and the Republic of Srpska, which is mainly Serb. The dividing line runs through the suburbs of Sarajevo, but before the war the dividing lines were not so clear cut. In the centre there are mosques and Catholic and Orthodox churches, and a synagogue, but it is a predominantly Muslim city and reminds Gayle of Istanbul...............
We had left Korcula on the Marko Polo ferry to Dubrovnik, where we took a room at Mirjana's villa. It was a lovely old house and whilst Mirjana, a devout Catholic, went to Mass each evening, we would religiously cook pasta and sample the local vino in her leafy back garden. The old town there is a well-preserved tourist honey-pot of a UNESCO World Heritage site. As a compulsory stop for Mediterranean cruise ships, and all Croatian tour buses, we had to elbow aside plenty of the grey and wrinkly types just to get an ice cream. As for the superlatives, here goes: the best preserved medieval city walls (a good 3 hour walk with great views over the red-tiled roofs), the second oldest synagogue in Europe and the third oldest pharmacy (run by Franciscan monks). There was also an exhibition about the Serbian bombing of the city during the war.
Despite Mirjana's warning that Kotor, in Montenegro, was little more than a miniature version of Dubrovnik, we still went on an overnight trip. The bus took us the long and picturesque route around to the head of the deepest fjord in southern Europe. At the bus station we were greeted by lots of locals offering rooms. After looking at one sad place we were persuaded by an old woman in Widow's Weeds to take the fold-down beds offered in her living room. I guess we should have been more discerning, but were attracted by the green terrace at the front of the house. When we closed the windows we realised why they'd been open - smokey and beery, what did she get up to each night? - and it was a shock to find the only sink to be in the front garden. The contrast in living standards with Croatia could not have been greater. Mirjana was right, Kotor did feel like a mini-Dubrovnik, right down to the trendy cafes and bars full of Beautiful People. On a warm overcast day we climbed steps to the Fort of Sveti Ivan (Saint John) on the hill above the town. It was a sveti John that reached the top to get impressive views over the mountains and along the fjord. We descended down to a small chapel where I disturbed a sunbathing snake. After 30 seconds of hysterics and running with my hands in the air I was able to compose myself and accompany Gayle the rest of the way back.
After returning to Dubrovnik and spending one last day by the sea, we said goodbye to it and bussed it inland to Mostar. The bus fell quiet as we drove into the town along what had been the frontline of the war, when the Croats and Muslims turned on each other. There are plenty of bombed-out and shot-up buildings that still stand in this part, either as reminders or lack of money to replace, we're not sure. However, there are signs of recovery - the souvenir tourist stalls that clog the cobbled streets of the old town, and the rebuilt Old Bridge teeming with tourists (it was May Day Holidays) watching members of Mostar Diving Club jumping into the river below. The bridge, between the east and west banks of the river running through Mostar, is a symbol of the join of East and West, and now of Croat and Muslim. From what we understand this labelling of people only occurred with the war and did not exist before. Walking around you come across small crowded cemeteries with headstones bearing the same date, and you can see a larger cemetery stretching up the hillside above the town, the headstones all new and white. It is terribly sad.
Inspired by a local tourist brochure that was poorly translated, we decided to set out into the countryside and discover some of the "unavoidable touristic potential domain", in particularly with the hope of meeting "the traditional hostility of the rural people". We visited the Turkish village of Blagaj. Turkish? Well, of course, for it was those purveyors of fine settees, the Ottoman Turks, that brought Islam up through the Balkans. There were plenty of nationals visiting - it felt like Edale on a Bank Holiday - and a busload of young German Turks. There were a couple of traditional houses to visit, a large river emerging straight out of the limestone hillside, and several restaurants where you could quench your thirst and appetite and seek shade under an awning. We escaped the milling throng and climbed up to the old fort guarding the village and then hung around with lots of other locals who seemed to be as unsure as us when the return bus would come. Eventually it did, and it soon filled up. A blind Roma woman and her son got on and sat down behind two boys. Their father told them to move. Then a group of teenagers got on, the boys crowding the aisle. We soon realised that they had started to make comments to the Roma - the little boy was answering back - and there was a lot of laughter with a bullying undertone. We sat in silence. Everyone could hear it and others turned around to look, but no-one told the lads to stop. The Roma woman and boy got off at our stop, and as we stood to get off there was lots of shouting after them, and then once, in English, for our benefit "Dirty stinking gypsies!" At this we both turned in anger and Gayle shouted back at them. The teenagers seemed surprised we didn't share the joke, and it depressed us to think that after all the fighting and ethnic cleansing of the war, the youth here are growing up with the same prejudices as their parents - and we assume the Roma are the lowest in the Pecking Order.
The train ride to Sarajevo was spectacular - following a river through green snow-capped mountains and eventually through a series of switchbacks and tunnels, climbing over a high pass, and on to the capital. The city is spread out east to west along a valley with a "new town" of communist apartment blocks at one end and the old centre with it's narrow streets spreading up the hillside. The restoration after the war seems to have progressed further here, although the grand National Library building still stands boarded up and gutted beside the river. We found the bridge where old Archduke Franz Ferdinand (and his wife, Gayle reminds me) was shot by an anarchist (was he from the Black Hand Gang or the Red Hand Gang? I get it mixed up with a children's TV programme.....), thus triggering the events that led to the First World War. It's not so touristy here, but there were a few backpackers passing through. We declined to go on an Olympics Tour or a War Tour ("THREE wars in ONE century!"). Instead, we sampled the typical Bosnian food, including Burek, which to me has the taste and texture of Scotch pies. Now, I have a poor history with Scotch pies, so I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised when I fell ill. While I lay in bed groaning and running back and forth to the toilet, Gayle explored the town and the possibility of walking in the countryside. ( In the end we didn't - you are advised to take a guide to make sure you don't wander into landmines......). As with all capital cities, accommodation is expensive here, and we struggled to find somewhere half-decent, so we took a quarter-decent room in a house instead. Again, there is a sharp contrast with the economic success of neighbouring Croatia - little wonder the Croats were keen to strike out for independence.
Once I was fully recovered - a state of mind, in Gayle's opinion - we bought our train ticket north to Pecs in Hungary. Armed with our Eastern European phrasebook and currency ready reckoner we venture into pastures new ( or széfely nagy cõrk as they say in Hungary ..........)
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Through the keyhole.....
From John:
Dobar dan!
Greetings from the sunny Republic of Hrvatska! Never heard of it? Neither had we until we got here. Check out Google Earth or your Times World Atlas now. Or take a look through the keyhole with John & Gayle:
It's a lovely country, with a rocky tree-covered coastline ,hundreds of islands and limestone mountains. Many of the natives speak Italian as well as their own language, and their neighbours speak exactly the same language but use Cyrillic script and give it a different name. Marco Polo allegedly was born on one of the islands. It's a popular tourist spot for Germans and Italians and anyone who wants to go on a sailing holiday, and in April the average weather conditions are sunny with an average temperature of 20°C. They are so good at football that they make up half the Australian national team too. Well, okay, not so great, but they're better than England. Er....oh well, you know what I mean. Have you guessed where we are yet? If so, please put your answers on a postcard and send it to us Poste Restante, Dubrovnik, Croatia.
I can't believe it's over a month since I last wrote. We were waiting for cheaper internet rates, but it costs 4 ice creams an hour here (in Italy the rate was 2 ice creams an hour). In one place the rate was 12 ice creams. As you will appreciate the life of the World Traveller is often full of compromises, decisions about whether to travel lavishly for a short time or economically for a longer time, so when it came to ice creams or internet the old World Wide Web got the heave ho. We have come across a strange paradox here in that we can keep within our notional budget, provided we don't actually travel anywhere - buses are as pricey as England. What to do? We sat on the beach and thought about that one for a few days.
I last wrote in Florence from where we visited the Tuscan towns of Lucca, Siena and, our favourite, San Gimignano. Our attempts to see some of Florence's world famous renaissance artworks were thwarted by long queues of Italian schoolchildren, Americans, and Japanese. However, I did go to a Cezanne exhibition, and we both visited a joint exhibition of Chagall and Miró. We camped at a peaceful campsite overlooking Florence and enjoyed good weather until it snowed. The snow dusted the surrounding hills and left us a little damp, but didn't prevent the daily trip to the Gelateria. We found a wonderful ice cream shop frequented by locals - 36 flavours to choose from and the stuff paddled into the cornet as it should be. Also met an English couple campervanning who wined us and dined us in their mobile home - all rather pleasant and civilised. Not many tents around - mostly campervans from Germany, Netherlands and France plus the odd Briton.
From Florence we headed out to Ravenna on the coast south of Venice. Ravenna was at some point part of the Byzantine empire, after the Romans fumbled the ball and lost out to the Barbarians. Their lasting legacy is a series of church buildings full of wonderful mosaics - apparently the best byzantium mosaics outside of Istanbul. All very impressive, but we had to compete again with bus loads of bored-looking schoolchildren. Don't they ever stay in the classroom? We couldn't get into the one cheap hotel and had to move up market - which meant cooking our tea in the room with the TV on (`Chi vuore millianario? ' was on, as always.....). Ahh, the thrills, and when I'm cooking, the spills!
Italy still has a comprehensive rail network, and despite being taught the words for delayed and cancelled by our friend in Monza, the trains were very reliable. We took a 3-train journey all the way around the coast to Trieste, which sits on the border with Slovenia. It's not really an Italian town - it was Austria's main port for 3 centuries or more up until the end of the First World War, when Italy were given control. After WWII the Allies hung around until 1954 and gave it back to Italy simply so that communist Yugoslavia couldn't have it. The city is full of tall Austrian buildings, beer halls and brockwurst, and when we arrived it also had an Austrian climate. The Bora was in full flow. We stayed here with Roberto, an Italian we contacted through The Hospitality Club. The club exists to encourage people to meet others by hosting them or showing them around. Roberto did both, at short notice, and was extremely kind.
From here we took a little bus to The Sunny Republic of Hrvatska, and the Istrian peninsular. We arrived at the end of the day and had to slog our way out to a great campsite on the edge of Rovinj, a small pretty town. The campsite was virtually empty, the weather was wonderful, the azure water cristal clear, and to our relief everyone understood our pidgeon Croatian. In fact, although all the locals speak Italian and German, they also speak English well - of course, their main business is tourism. Because it was early April the tourist season is only beginning to crank up and this suits us fine. Everywhere there are renovations and building work going on in anticipation of the crowds in July. Croatia's tourist industry is well-developed and the standard of services is very high. The weather has been perfect and we are beginning to doubt that it could ever rain here. We have slowly worked our way down the coast, taking the ferries whenever possible, and limited our stops to a few places in order to cut down on the travelling costs - it took us a week in Rovinj to work that one out. In the end, this has made it more relaxing for us, and we've had to be selective about where we stay.
From Rovinj we went to the island of Cres where we camped at another large green and peaceful site with wonderful facilities right on the coast, along from Cres town. We've enjoyed great sunsets and a full moonrise that looked like a giant cheesecake floating in the night sky. Our stargazing has also brought us two shooting stars. The campsites are shaded with tall pines and stunted olive and fig trees and they're full of birds. The only drawback is the ground is rock hard!
Over Easter we visited Valun, a small fishing port three hour's walk from Cres. We walked through the dusty dry olive terraces on a scorching hot day, and were tempted off the high path by a signpost to a tiny swimming cove. After a long break we climbed back up and continued along the track. The sun took it's toll and I struggled to keep up with Gayle. I only manged to move quickly when we heard a lizard beside the path and both turned to see it was in fact a metre long snake. From then on I flinched everytime there was a rustle along the way. The afternoon wore on and we seemed no nearer to Valun, I felt weary and parched and we had almost run out of water. A group of boys flew past us on mountain bikes oblivious to the heat. And just as my vision was getting hazy, and my steps were faltering there appeared the Miracle of the Water. There, in the middle of the track was a Coke bottle filled with water, refracting the sunlight and glinting like a precious stone. I laughed aloud and fell upon it like a crazed man. The water was cold! We drank it in two gulps and finally reached Valun, a five hour walk from Cres, at the day's end.
We took a room in a house, which is one of the cheapest way to stay in Croatia. The owners let us cook on the terrace with our camping stove, and here we met an Austrian couple - a jolly friendly man whom we nicknamed Frasier (for it was he) and his miserable and silent girlfriend. The room was very comfortable and the bed was so soft. We showered and rested and listened to the mass held in the village church next door. It was Good Friday, and during the service the congregation left the church and followed the priest, singing, as he bore the cross around the small harbour front. It was dark, but the whole front was lit with flares - a wonderful sight. The next day Frasier showed us a great walk down old country lanes to another village, Lubiniče, built high on cliffs. Below it was a picturesque shale beach where we spent the day before walking back in the twilight. This was a perfect day and afterwards we realised we had taken as many photographs on this day as we had during our stay in Venice.
The ambience of these villages reminds us of Scotland's islands, but with great weather - I guess like most Mediterranean islands. There are boats everywhere, men pottering about with them, repairing, fishing, pootling about at all times of day and night.We sailed from Mali Lošinj on the tip of Cres to the port of Zadar, our first big town. Two nights was enough before we took the coastal bus down to Trogir, a small town outside Split, where we took a room. Trogir and Split old town are both UNESCO World Heritage sites, and fairly touristy as a result. They both form atmospheric and decorative backdrops to stylish and trendy bars and cafes, and are essential stops for the tour buses. But come evening, Trogir was a quiet sleepy little place. We took another ferry from Split to Korčula island and camped on the mainland opposite for a few days before taking a room here in Korčula old town. The town is an old walled town on a hilly peninsular and the locals claim that Marco Polo was born here before he went to Venice. Of course there is no proof for this, although the town was under Venetian control for years, but it's a great story for us dilly-dallying before we embark on the Silk Road. By chance, the room we are staying in backs on to the alleged house of Polo, which is currently being renovated as a museum. Perfect. Today we sail for Dubrovnik, our last stop in Croatia before we head north though Bosnia to Hungary. We're both looking forward to meeting Isabell and Bill in Budapest in 3 weeks time, and looking forward to eating something other than the ubiquitous pizza and pasta. However, we are going to miss the sea................
Bog! (as they say here)
Dobar dan!
Greetings from the sunny Republic of Hrvatska! Never heard of it? Neither had we until we got here. Check out Google Earth or your Times World Atlas now. Or take a look through the keyhole with John & Gayle:
It's a lovely country, with a rocky tree-covered coastline ,hundreds of islands and limestone mountains. Many of the natives speak Italian as well as their own language, and their neighbours speak exactly the same language but use Cyrillic script and give it a different name. Marco Polo allegedly was born on one of the islands. It's a popular tourist spot for Germans and Italians and anyone who wants to go on a sailing holiday, and in April the average weather conditions are sunny with an average temperature of 20°C. They are so good at football that they make up half the Australian national team too. Well, okay, not so great, but they're better than England. Er....oh well, you know what I mean. Have you guessed where we are yet? If so, please put your answers on a postcard and send it to us Poste Restante, Dubrovnik, Croatia.
I can't believe it's over a month since I last wrote. We were waiting for cheaper internet rates, but it costs 4 ice creams an hour here (in Italy the rate was 2 ice creams an hour). In one place the rate was 12 ice creams. As you will appreciate the life of the World Traveller is often full of compromises, decisions about whether to travel lavishly for a short time or economically for a longer time, so when it came to ice creams or internet the old World Wide Web got the heave ho. We have come across a strange paradox here in that we can keep within our notional budget, provided we don't actually travel anywhere - buses are as pricey as England. What to do? We sat on the beach and thought about that one for a few days.
I last wrote in Florence from where we visited the Tuscan towns of Lucca, Siena and, our favourite, San Gimignano. Our attempts to see some of Florence's world famous renaissance artworks were thwarted by long queues of Italian schoolchildren, Americans, and Japanese. However, I did go to a Cezanne exhibition, and we both visited a joint exhibition of Chagall and Miró. We camped at a peaceful campsite overlooking Florence and enjoyed good weather until it snowed. The snow dusted the surrounding hills and left us a little damp, but didn't prevent the daily trip to the Gelateria. We found a wonderful ice cream shop frequented by locals - 36 flavours to choose from and the stuff paddled into the cornet as it should be. Also met an English couple campervanning who wined us and dined us in their mobile home - all rather pleasant and civilised. Not many tents around - mostly campervans from Germany, Netherlands and France plus the odd Briton.
From Florence we headed out to Ravenna on the coast south of Venice. Ravenna was at some point part of the Byzantine empire, after the Romans fumbled the ball and lost out to the Barbarians. Their lasting legacy is a series of church buildings full of wonderful mosaics - apparently the best byzantium mosaics outside of Istanbul. All very impressive, but we had to compete again with bus loads of bored-looking schoolchildren. Don't they ever stay in the classroom? We couldn't get into the one cheap hotel and had to move up market - which meant cooking our tea in the room with the TV on (`Chi vuore millianario? ' was on, as always.....). Ahh, the thrills, and when I'm cooking, the spills!
Italy still has a comprehensive rail network, and despite being taught the words for delayed and cancelled by our friend in Monza, the trains were very reliable. We took a 3-train journey all the way around the coast to Trieste, which sits on the border with Slovenia. It's not really an Italian town - it was Austria's main port for 3 centuries or more up until the end of the First World War, when Italy were given control. After WWII the Allies hung around until 1954 and gave it back to Italy simply so that communist Yugoslavia couldn't have it. The city is full of tall Austrian buildings, beer halls and brockwurst, and when we arrived it also had an Austrian climate. The Bora was in full flow. We stayed here with Roberto, an Italian we contacted through The Hospitality Club. The club exists to encourage people to meet others by hosting them or showing them around. Roberto did both, at short notice, and was extremely kind.
From here we took a little bus to The Sunny Republic of Hrvatska, and the Istrian peninsular. We arrived at the end of the day and had to slog our way out to a great campsite on the edge of Rovinj, a small pretty town. The campsite was virtually empty, the weather was wonderful, the azure water cristal clear, and to our relief everyone understood our pidgeon Croatian. In fact, although all the locals speak Italian and German, they also speak English well - of course, their main business is tourism. Because it was early April the tourist season is only beginning to crank up and this suits us fine. Everywhere there are renovations and building work going on in anticipation of the crowds in July. Croatia's tourist industry is well-developed and the standard of services is very high. The weather has been perfect and we are beginning to doubt that it could ever rain here. We have slowly worked our way down the coast, taking the ferries whenever possible, and limited our stops to a few places in order to cut down on the travelling costs - it took us a week in Rovinj to work that one out. In the end, this has made it more relaxing for us, and we've had to be selective about where we stay.
From Rovinj we went to the island of Cres where we camped at another large green and peaceful site with wonderful facilities right on the coast, along from Cres town. We've enjoyed great sunsets and a full moonrise that looked like a giant cheesecake floating in the night sky. Our stargazing has also brought us two shooting stars. The campsites are shaded with tall pines and stunted olive and fig trees and they're full of birds. The only drawback is the ground is rock hard!
Over Easter we visited Valun, a small fishing port three hour's walk from Cres. We walked through the dusty dry olive terraces on a scorching hot day, and were tempted off the high path by a signpost to a tiny swimming cove. After a long break we climbed back up and continued along the track. The sun took it's toll and I struggled to keep up with Gayle. I only manged to move quickly when we heard a lizard beside the path and both turned to see it was in fact a metre long snake. From then on I flinched everytime there was a rustle along the way. The afternoon wore on and we seemed no nearer to Valun, I felt weary and parched and we had almost run out of water. A group of boys flew past us on mountain bikes oblivious to the heat. And just as my vision was getting hazy, and my steps were faltering there appeared the Miracle of the Water. There, in the middle of the track was a Coke bottle filled with water, refracting the sunlight and glinting like a precious stone. I laughed aloud and fell upon it like a crazed man. The water was cold! We drank it in two gulps and finally reached Valun, a five hour walk from Cres, at the day's end.
We took a room in a house, which is one of the cheapest way to stay in Croatia. The owners let us cook on the terrace with our camping stove, and here we met an Austrian couple - a jolly friendly man whom we nicknamed Frasier (for it was he) and his miserable and silent girlfriend. The room was very comfortable and the bed was so soft. We showered and rested and listened to the mass held in the village church next door. It was Good Friday, and during the service the congregation left the church and followed the priest, singing, as he bore the cross around the small harbour front. It was dark, but the whole front was lit with flares - a wonderful sight. The next day Frasier showed us a great walk down old country lanes to another village, Lubiniče, built high on cliffs. Below it was a picturesque shale beach where we spent the day before walking back in the twilight. This was a perfect day and afterwards we realised we had taken as many photographs on this day as we had during our stay in Venice.
The ambience of these villages reminds us of Scotland's islands, but with great weather - I guess like most Mediterranean islands. There are boats everywhere, men pottering about with them, repairing, fishing, pootling about at all times of day and night.We sailed from Mali Lošinj on the tip of Cres to the port of Zadar, our first big town. Two nights was enough before we took the coastal bus down to Trogir, a small town outside Split, where we took a room. Trogir and Split old town are both UNESCO World Heritage sites, and fairly touristy as a result. They both form atmospheric and decorative backdrops to stylish and trendy bars and cafes, and are essential stops for the tour buses. But come evening, Trogir was a quiet sleepy little place. We took another ferry from Split to Korčula island and camped on the mainland opposite for a few days before taking a room here in Korčula old town. The town is an old walled town on a hilly peninsular and the locals claim that Marco Polo was born here before he went to Venice. Of course there is no proof for this, although the town was under Venetian control for years, but it's a great story for us dilly-dallying before we embark on the Silk Road. By chance, the room we are staying in backs on to the alleged house of Polo, which is currently being renovated as a museum. Perfect. Today we sail for Dubrovnik, our last stop in Croatia before we head north though Bosnia to Hungary. We're both looking forward to meeting Isabell and Bill in Budapest in 3 weeks time, and looking forward to eating something other than the ubiquitous pizza and pasta. However, we are going to miss the sea................
Bog! (as they say here)
Monday, March 19, 2007
From FresCo's to frescoes
from John:
Buon Giorgno,
Greetings from Florence, where we have dragged ourselves away from our sunny and leafy hillside campsite to get some food, catch up on e-mails and, er, oh yes, see some of the sights. We're not quite in Room With A View mode yet. Gayle wants to take me to some offices (Uffizi in Italian - I'm learning fast) later to look at the painting by some local geezers, although why she thinks I want to look at some 13th century painting and decorating I'm not quite sure. One of the reasons I'm here is to escape offices...........
So where did it all go wrong? There we were in Granada, on schedule to visit Valencia, Tarragona, Girona, Cadaqués and Barcelona before taking the boat to Genova. So far so very good. We had lovely weather, and liked each place except for touristy Barcelona. Much taken by Valencia, which felt green and spacious and pleasant to walk around. We also found the little cinema showing films subtitled in Spanish and managed to catch The Last King of Scotland, The Queen and Woody Allen's Scoop, all with references to Blighty that were probably lost on the locals. And it seems sometimes you just can't translate Woody Allen. It was here we also discovered FresCo's - a chain of vegetarian eat-all-you-can buffet restaurants brimming with fresh salads, pasta and fruit and all the espresso coffee you can guzzle.
Tarragona has a selection of Roman remains and a very quiet beach at this time of year. I have to confess that although the ruins are on the UNESCO World Heritage list, they are slightly disappointing to the ruin-weary international traveller. Girona features an outsized cathedral and well-preserved medieval streets and city walls, and one of the best travel bookshops we've ever seen - to compete with a Catalan one in Barcelona. And we will have happy memories of Cadaqués and its rocky coastline and tiny coves. All in all, we felt rather spoilt and flabby after our three weeks in Spain.
So, we took an overnight ferry with a thousand Italian teenagers to Genova - our seats were on level 9 - it felt like a floating and out of season hotel (the casino was shut and the swimming pool dry) but there was some excitement in the Piano Bar (no pianist) as Valencia versus Inter Milan turned into a punch-up. Some of the Italian truck drivers started to look a bit rowdy, but calmed down when Dukes Of Hazard came on afterwards. There were only a handful of us in the Rossini suite, riding the 18 hour journey out in the cheap seats. We talked to an old Italian man who spoke Spanish, and chatted a while. The next morning Enrico invited us to stay at his house in Monza, near Milan. We accepted. He seemed a charming and witty man. It was only later when I chatted with him on deck that I discovered he was a naturist and had just spent 3 weeks at a nudist colony in Spain. I broke it gently to Gayle, and she took it well. He seemed a kind and helpful man, and we decided to still go with him.
It was raining in Genova. Enrico, as economical as us, was happy to walk and we straggled along to the train station. We arrived in Monza at about 8pm, tired and hungry. But there was a problem. The bus ticket office was closed and Enrico only had one ticket. You can't buy them on the bus. What to do? We walked to the bus stop and Enrico engaged in conversation with everyone gathered there. The last bus was at 9pm. Everyone said to get on without a ticket. So we did. Enrico validated his ticket in the machine on the bus. No-one else bothered. It was then that we realised no-one else had a ticket either.
The house was cold and dusty, very dusty and the kitchen smelt of wood smoke, it breathed wood smoke. Enrico pointed to bunk beds next to the kitchen table and asked us if we'd be happy sleeping there. Too polite to say no, we said yes. We could hardly touch anything for dust, and slept fitfully. Gayle had developed a cough on the boat and gave it a thorough run out in the night. I dreamt of barking seals. It was with relief to see Enrico fully-clothed in the morning - we had not been sure what his home habits were. I went for a wash and sat in the bath under the shower because there was no shower curtain. Enrico appeared in the bathroom twice to check if I needed a razor or shampoo. Is this what is meant when one is advised not to speak to strangers? Watch out or you too could find yourself at a disadvantage whilst bathing in said stranger's bathroom.......... Afterwards Gayle laughed merrily about this.
Enrico fed us and showed us the sights of Monza and Milan. We walked miles and Gayle was suffering by the end of the day. The highlight might have been seeing the Italian crown on display in Monza's cathedral. Fairly small and unassuming, gold and some chunky stones, it features in the story of Napoleon's coronation as Emperor of Italy, in Milan's cathedral. Without waiting for the crown to be placed on his head, he took it up and put it on himself. We admired the fairy-cake church façades and colourful frescoes inside, we marvelled at Monza's park - the largest walled park in Europe, and laughed as Enrico explained that there is always something under restoration in Italy. In fact that day, he took us to three buildings covered in scaffolding. The joke has since continued. Everywhere we go in Italy there is scaffolding, scaffolding.
Venice was a delight to visit. Just to wander around not dodging traffic was a relief, but combined with the labyrinth of streets, bridges and canals, and the hushed voices of everyone as they looked around, made it a real pleasure. We revelled in the luxury of our hotel, and amazed ourselves at finding it at the end of the day. We laughed at the scaffolding, cried at the menu prices, and enjoyed the modern art in the Guggenheim collection. Gayle coughed day and night. We met up with Gayle's old friend Vikki and her husband, Steve. Gayle and Vikki had been here 20 years earlier. Vikki wondered if we were going to visit any other places in Italy. And then we found an abandoned guidebook to Italy. We said goodbye to Vikki and Steve, and then goodbye to Venice. And hello to Florence.........
Time to check out the painting and decorating.
Ciao
Buon Giorgno,
Greetings from Florence, where we have dragged ourselves away from our sunny and leafy hillside campsite to get some food, catch up on e-mails and, er, oh yes, see some of the sights. We're not quite in Room With A View mode yet. Gayle wants to take me to some offices (Uffizi in Italian - I'm learning fast) later to look at the painting by some local geezers, although why she thinks I want to look at some 13th century painting and decorating I'm not quite sure. One of the reasons I'm here is to escape offices...........
So where did it all go wrong? There we were in Granada, on schedule to visit Valencia, Tarragona, Girona, Cadaqués and Barcelona before taking the boat to Genova. So far so very good. We had lovely weather, and liked each place except for touristy Barcelona. Much taken by Valencia, which felt green and spacious and pleasant to walk around. We also found the little cinema showing films subtitled in Spanish and managed to catch The Last King of Scotland, The Queen and Woody Allen's Scoop, all with references to Blighty that were probably lost on the locals. And it seems sometimes you just can't translate Woody Allen. It was here we also discovered FresCo's - a chain of vegetarian eat-all-you-can buffet restaurants brimming with fresh salads, pasta and fruit and all the espresso coffee you can guzzle.
Tarragona has a selection of Roman remains and a very quiet beach at this time of year. I have to confess that although the ruins are on the UNESCO World Heritage list, they are slightly disappointing to the ruin-weary international traveller. Girona features an outsized cathedral and well-preserved medieval streets and city walls, and one of the best travel bookshops we've ever seen - to compete with a Catalan one in Barcelona. And we will have happy memories of Cadaqués and its rocky coastline and tiny coves. All in all, we felt rather spoilt and flabby after our three weeks in Spain.
So, we took an overnight ferry with a thousand Italian teenagers to Genova - our seats were on level 9 - it felt like a floating and out of season hotel (the casino was shut and the swimming pool dry) but there was some excitement in the Piano Bar (no pianist) as Valencia versus Inter Milan turned into a punch-up. Some of the Italian truck drivers started to look a bit rowdy, but calmed down when Dukes Of Hazard came on afterwards. There were only a handful of us in the Rossini suite, riding the 18 hour journey out in the cheap seats. We talked to an old Italian man who spoke Spanish, and chatted a while. The next morning Enrico invited us to stay at his house in Monza, near Milan. We accepted. He seemed a charming and witty man. It was only later when I chatted with him on deck that I discovered he was a naturist and had just spent 3 weeks at a nudist colony in Spain. I broke it gently to Gayle, and she took it well. He seemed a kind and helpful man, and we decided to still go with him.
It was raining in Genova. Enrico, as economical as us, was happy to walk and we straggled along to the train station. We arrived in Monza at about 8pm, tired and hungry. But there was a problem. The bus ticket office was closed and Enrico only had one ticket. You can't buy them on the bus. What to do? We walked to the bus stop and Enrico engaged in conversation with everyone gathered there. The last bus was at 9pm. Everyone said to get on without a ticket. So we did. Enrico validated his ticket in the machine on the bus. No-one else bothered. It was then that we realised no-one else had a ticket either.
The house was cold and dusty, very dusty and the kitchen smelt of wood smoke, it breathed wood smoke. Enrico pointed to bunk beds next to the kitchen table and asked us if we'd be happy sleeping there. Too polite to say no, we said yes. We could hardly touch anything for dust, and slept fitfully. Gayle had developed a cough on the boat and gave it a thorough run out in the night. I dreamt of barking seals. It was with relief to see Enrico fully-clothed in the morning - we had not been sure what his home habits were. I went for a wash and sat in the bath under the shower because there was no shower curtain. Enrico appeared in the bathroom twice to check if I needed a razor or shampoo. Is this what is meant when one is advised not to speak to strangers? Watch out or you too could find yourself at a disadvantage whilst bathing in said stranger's bathroom.......... Afterwards Gayle laughed merrily about this.
Enrico fed us and showed us the sights of Monza and Milan. We walked miles and Gayle was suffering by the end of the day. The highlight might have been seeing the Italian crown on display in Monza's cathedral. Fairly small and unassuming, gold and some chunky stones, it features in the story of Napoleon's coronation as Emperor of Italy, in Milan's cathedral. Without waiting for the crown to be placed on his head, he took it up and put it on himself. We admired the fairy-cake church façades and colourful frescoes inside, we marvelled at Monza's park - the largest walled park in Europe, and laughed as Enrico explained that there is always something under restoration in Italy. In fact that day, he took us to three buildings covered in scaffolding. The joke has since continued. Everywhere we go in Italy there is scaffolding, scaffolding.
Venice was a delight to visit. Just to wander around not dodging traffic was a relief, but combined with the labyrinth of streets, bridges and canals, and the hushed voices of everyone as they looked around, made it a real pleasure. We revelled in the luxury of our hotel, and amazed ourselves at finding it at the end of the day. We laughed at the scaffolding, cried at the menu prices, and enjoyed the modern art in the Guggenheim collection. Gayle coughed day and night. We met up with Gayle's old friend Vikki and her husband, Steve. Gayle and Vikki had been here 20 years earlier. Vikki wondered if we were going to visit any other places in Italy. And then we found an abandoned guidebook to Italy. We said goodbye to Vikki and Steve, and then goodbye to Venice. And hello to Florence.........
Time to check out the painting and decorating.
Ciao
Monday, March 5, 2007
in which we attempt a winter ascent of Mulhacen
from John:
¡Holá! Buenos dias,
We are currently making the most of being almost fluent in the local language - delighting in the joys of shopping at the market, finding the toilets at the bus station, joking with the drunks in the park, and discussing post-modernist architecture and its effect on Spanish society over a copa or two in a crowded smoky student bar with earnest intellectual types that talk through their beards and over the loud thrash metal music. Well, sort of.................
After some warm-up walks up and down the heavily-graffitied streets of Granada (it must be a degree course here), and stoking up on chocolate, we headed off to Las Alpujarras - the southern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The mountains form a picturesque backdrop to the Big Al in Granada at this time of year. There´s a dusting of snow across the tops and we´d read that there´s lots of good walking to be had in the foothills at this time of year. So off we trotted.
The bus journey led us through many small towns and villages. An Englishman, Chris Stewart, has written a couple of books about coming to live here as a sheepfarmer ("Driving Over Parrots", I think is the better known.) In rather an ironic way, several English have followed sheep-like to the area to live. On the journey I got to thinking of the British who died in these mountains last year in the snow. A little while later Gayle mentioned it. We camped in Trevelez, at around 1400m, the second-highest village in Spain, and immediately got chatting to the campsite owner. She asked if we were going to go up the mountains - perfect weather, not too much snow etc. We asked about the British family that were caught out by the weather. Her and her husband were friends - they had left the campsite and gone for 5 days. Unfortunately only the son got down alive after a white-out in a sudden snowstorm. Despite this, and perhaps because of the forecast of sunshine and blue skies, we decided that instead of some low-level walks between villages, that we´d go upwards instead.
The very next day we took a path up to The Seven Lakes, just below Mulhacén, which is the highest mountain in mainland Spain. It was a lovely walk following a well-made farmers´path and then climbing up to and following an aquifer running across the hillside. This area is famous for its Berber-style villages and irrigation and terraces built by the Moors before they were finally ejected from Spain. Much of it remains, and the aquifers run for miles the length of the valleys to distribute water across as much cultivable land as possible. Eventually, we climbed through some stunted pines to reach a high pasture, now snow-covered. We followed someone´s footprints across the snow. They had been wearing crampons and eventually we reached a point where the path crossed a steep valley side covered in snow and ice. On the other side, the snow had melted, but frustratingly, we couldn´t reach it and nor could we cross the side we were on. After a bit of toing and froing and plenty of tentative steps we gave up and could only follow the footprints with our eyes up to the top of the ridge. We enjoyed the return walk.
The next day we awoke to snow. "Just like a schoolteacher", Gayle said, when I shook my head and predicted it wouldn´t stick. The day stayed cloudy and cold and we rested our weary legs and chatted to the only other camper - a fella from Bath who had just walked the Cotswold Way, and who was preparing to walk the Pyrenees. Richard had walked to the campsite through some of the lower villages, and camped wild a couple of nights. He´d been gazing at stars the second night and not spotted the fox wander into his tent. The fox´s scream was louder. Richard was travelling on the cheap - made us look like Alan Whicker and Judith Chalmers - and was full of plans for his fortnight in the hills. He too had been caught up in the possibilities of climbing some of the bigger mountains and talked about all the options. Meanwhile, I had come down with a cold and spent the day snivelling and coughing in a self-pitying manner. There was good reason for this - as Gayle had no sympathy for me whatsoever. Rigorously determined not to have plans deferred by my hyperchondriac tendencies, she suggested we still go ahead with our idea of climbing up with our tent to a 2700 metre ridge to "see what it´s like for camping" the next day. I agreed, between racking coughs, but only because there is a refuge 200 metres lower on the other side of the ridge. If all went well, we might even try to bob up to the top. Richard wanted to come too - keen to try several of the peaks.
The next day was sunny, bright and cold as we struck camp. We waited a while to see if the sun would melt the ice on the tent. It didn´t. The path climbed steeply and for a while there wasn´t a zig or a zag to be found. Super-fit Richard led the way and we puffed up behind him. It took us a couple of hours to get near the top of the ridge and then we hit a frozen snowfield which none of us wanted to cross. We decided to backtrack and walk through the rough. The wind was strong and cold. We had put on our rain jackets and gloves, and it was with some relief that we found some shelter for lunch, just below the top of the ridge. We could see the sea, and those with good eyes the ships too. After a quick lunch, and feeling like soldiers climbing out of a trench into the unknown, we set off. The wind had got stronger and we were having to walk into it. We reached the broad exposed ridge and a wide track running along it and disappearing under snow. Ahead of us lay Mulhacén and a long rocky ridge to Veleta. But the wind was too strong for us to stop and admire the scene, despite the sunshine and blue sky. Sometimes it felt we were going to be blown over with our packs. We staggered, crab-like, unable to speak to one another, the snot freezing on my face and my fingers turning numb, wooden and useless almost immediately. We spread out, and stumbled onwards, thoughts turning to finding the refuge that we knew was not far over the other side. We passed a bus stop. A bus stop? Ricardo at the campsite had told us that in the summer tourists could take the "Mulhacén Express" to this point, 2700 metres (about twice the height of Ben Nevis) and walk to the top in their espadrilles. He dismissed it with a sorry shake of the head "It´s not walking". This passed through my mind as we walked - feeling like an astronaut in an alien world - along with plenty of other thoughts: we're dressed for a summer´s day in the Lake District; I have a kilo of dried figs in my rucksack; is this what it feels like on the South Col?; Richard seems a long way away; why can´t we see the refuge?; glad I´ve got my wind-proof underpants on; does the bus never come up here in the winter?; I should have had another biscuit at lunch;my fingers don´t work - I´ve got frostbite; is this what Gayle means by a "walk in the foothills"?; don´t fancy cooking pasta in this wind................We had begun to descend along a broad track, but couldn´t see the refuge until we climbed over a small ridge. For a minute we were sheltered and could speak again. The red roof of the refuge drew nearer, and after an hour walking in the strongest wind I´ve ever known, we finally arrived. The place was almost empty, and it felt almost colder inside then out, but a log was burning in the dining room and the sun shone directly into the entrance porch which was completely still. Everything was quiet and normal again. My fingers stung as they thawed. Richard contemplated carrying on to a higher refuge, but changed his mind. We shared our tea with him and had hot drinks and sat by the fire with three uncommunicative Spanish walkers who were all planning to ascend Mulhacén the next day. Richard was going to follow them, whilst we decided the sensible option for us was to descend another valley to one of the other villages. After toasting ourselves by the fire we slept well that night.The morning was peaceful and sunny and the refuge surrounded by ibex. With some relief, mixed with a little disappointment, we took a path that descended down another valley with lovely views of the mountains behind us. The day was far more relaxing than the one before. From another white village we caught a bus returning to Granada. The next couple of days we could hardly see the mountains for the weather, and we left wondering how Richard had got on.
¡Holá! Buenos dias,
We are currently making the most of being almost fluent in the local language - delighting in the joys of shopping at the market, finding the toilets at the bus station, joking with the drunks in the park, and discussing post-modernist architecture and its effect on Spanish society over a copa or two in a crowded smoky student bar with earnest intellectual types that talk through their beards and over the loud thrash metal music. Well, sort of.................
After some warm-up walks up and down the heavily-graffitied streets of Granada (it must be a degree course here), and stoking up on chocolate, we headed off to Las Alpujarras - the southern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The mountains form a picturesque backdrop to the Big Al in Granada at this time of year. There´s a dusting of snow across the tops and we´d read that there´s lots of good walking to be had in the foothills at this time of year. So off we trotted.
The bus journey led us through many small towns and villages. An Englishman, Chris Stewart, has written a couple of books about coming to live here as a sheepfarmer ("Driving Over Parrots", I think is the better known.) In rather an ironic way, several English have followed sheep-like to the area to live. On the journey I got to thinking of the British who died in these mountains last year in the snow. A little while later Gayle mentioned it. We camped in Trevelez, at around 1400m, the second-highest village in Spain, and immediately got chatting to the campsite owner. She asked if we were going to go up the mountains - perfect weather, not too much snow etc. We asked about the British family that were caught out by the weather. Her and her husband were friends - they had left the campsite and gone for 5 days. Unfortunately only the son got down alive after a white-out in a sudden snowstorm. Despite this, and perhaps because of the forecast of sunshine and blue skies, we decided that instead of some low-level walks between villages, that we´d go upwards instead.
The very next day we took a path up to The Seven Lakes, just below Mulhacén, which is the highest mountain in mainland Spain. It was a lovely walk following a well-made farmers´path and then climbing up to and following an aquifer running across the hillside. This area is famous for its Berber-style villages and irrigation and terraces built by the Moors before they were finally ejected from Spain. Much of it remains, and the aquifers run for miles the length of the valleys to distribute water across as much cultivable land as possible. Eventually, we climbed through some stunted pines to reach a high pasture, now snow-covered. We followed someone´s footprints across the snow. They had been wearing crampons and eventually we reached a point where the path crossed a steep valley side covered in snow and ice. On the other side, the snow had melted, but frustratingly, we couldn´t reach it and nor could we cross the side we were on. After a bit of toing and froing and plenty of tentative steps we gave up and could only follow the footprints with our eyes up to the top of the ridge. We enjoyed the return walk.
The next day we awoke to snow. "Just like a schoolteacher", Gayle said, when I shook my head and predicted it wouldn´t stick. The day stayed cloudy and cold and we rested our weary legs and chatted to the only other camper - a fella from Bath who had just walked the Cotswold Way, and who was preparing to walk the Pyrenees. Richard had walked to the campsite through some of the lower villages, and camped wild a couple of nights. He´d been gazing at stars the second night and not spotted the fox wander into his tent. The fox´s scream was louder. Richard was travelling on the cheap - made us look like Alan Whicker and Judith Chalmers - and was full of plans for his fortnight in the hills. He too had been caught up in the possibilities of climbing some of the bigger mountains and talked about all the options. Meanwhile, I had come down with a cold and spent the day snivelling and coughing in a self-pitying manner. There was good reason for this - as Gayle had no sympathy for me whatsoever. Rigorously determined not to have plans deferred by my hyperchondriac tendencies, she suggested we still go ahead with our idea of climbing up with our tent to a 2700 metre ridge to "see what it´s like for camping" the next day. I agreed, between racking coughs, but only because there is a refuge 200 metres lower on the other side of the ridge. If all went well, we might even try to bob up to the top. Richard wanted to come too - keen to try several of the peaks.
The next day was sunny, bright and cold as we struck camp. We waited a while to see if the sun would melt the ice on the tent. It didn´t. The path climbed steeply and for a while there wasn´t a zig or a zag to be found. Super-fit Richard led the way and we puffed up behind him. It took us a couple of hours to get near the top of the ridge and then we hit a frozen snowfield which none of us wanted to cross. We decided to backtrack and walk through the rough. The wind was strong and cold. We had put on our rain jackets and gloves, and it was with some relief that we found some shelter for lunch, just below the top of the ridge. We could see the sea, and those with good eyes the ships too. After a quick lunch, and feeling like soldiers climbing out of a trench into the unknown, we set off. The wind had got stronger and we were having to walk into it. We reached the broad exposed ridge and a wide track running along it and disappearing under snow. Ahead of us lay Mulhacén and a long rocky ridge to Veleta. But the wind was too strong for us to stop and admire the scene, despite the sunshine and blue sky. Sometimes it felt we were going to be blown over with our packs. We staggered, crab-like, unable to speak to one another, the snot freezing on my face and my fingers turning numb, wooden and useless almost immediately. We spread out, and stumbled onwards, thoughts turning to finding the refuge that we knew was not far over the other side. We passed a bus stop. A bus stop? Ricardo at the campsite had told us that in the summer tourists could take the "Mulhacén Express" to this point, 2700 metres (about twice the height of Ben Nevis) and walk to the top in their espadrilles. He dismissed it with a sorry shake of the head "It´s not walking". This passed through my mind as we walked - feeling like an astronaut in an alien world - along with plenty of other thoughts: we're dressed for a summer´s day in the Lake District; I have a kilo of dried figs in my rucksack; is this what it feels like on the South Col?; Richard seems a long way away; why can´t we see the refuge?; glad I´ve got my wind-proof underpants on; does the bus never come up here in the winter?; I should have had another biscuit at lunch;my fingers don´t work - I´ve got frostbite; is this what Gayle means by a "walk in the foothills"?; don´t fancy cooking pasta in this wind................We had begun to descend along a broad track, but couldn´t see the refuge until we climbed over a small ridge. For a minute we were sheltered and could speak again. The red roof of the refuge drew nearer, and after an hour walking in the strongest wind I´ve ever known, we finally arrived. The place was almost empty, and it felt almost colder inside then out, but a log was burning in the dining room and the sun shone directly into the entrance porch which was completely still. Everything was quiet and normal again. My fingers stung as they thawed. Richard contemplated carrying on to a higher refuge, but changed his mind. We shared our tea with him and had hot drinks and sat by the fire with three uncommunicative Spanish walkers who were all planning to ascend Mulhacén the next day. Richard was going to follow them, whilst we decided the sensible option for us was to descend another valley to one of the other villages. After toasting ourselves by the fire we slept well that night.The morning was peaceful and sunny and the refuge surrounded by ibex. With some relief, mixed with a little disappointment, we took a path that descended down another valley with lovely views of the mountains behind us. The day was far more relaxing than the one before. From another white village we caught a bus returning to Granada. The next couple of days we could hardly see the mountains for the weather, and we left wondering how Richard had got on.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
in which we visit famous film settings in Morocco and then cross to Spain
from John:
Bonsoir, or should I say Buenas Tardes, as I write from Granada, freshly bathed and laundered, fed and watered. We arrived here on Monday afternoon after a "fast boat" across the Straits of Gibraltar and a comfortable bus ride from Algeçiras. Not wishing to break from all things Moroccan, we thought we´d check out their legacy here in Spain. However, we draw a line at Tagine.
From Marrakesh we had headed west to Essaouira on the coast - a small fishing port with old Portuguese fort walls and now a quiet touristy little town. Orson Welle´s Othello opens with a scene shot on the ramparts here, and a small square has been named in his honour. We were pursued into the old town from the bus station by two touts - one an older woman who had a room in her nice house, and the other a young fella in a bright red hoodie who had a room in his nice house. We blanked them completely, but they took it in turns to accompany us on the long walk until they finally turned on each other. We left them having a screaming match in the souk. Having so bravely fought them off, we then got hooked by a smooth talking boogaloo who took us to his cheap hotel, which turned out to be a room in someone else´s nice house. There is an art to touting, and you´ve either got it or you haven´t.
After a restful few days walking the windy beach and windy plazas and windy streets we went north to El-Jadida, another old Portuguese port which now serves as a snazzy resort to Casablancans. When I say snazzy, I mean by Moroccan standards. The old walled town still has great ramparts and a wonderful vaulted cistern for water storage, which also features in Welles´ Othello. The rest of it looked like a slum, full of children playing. In the evening we promenaded with everyone else, ate and shopped in the large souk. In the meat section we came across two cow´s heads perched at the foot of a counter, their tongues lolling out of the corner of their mouths. Above them hung their feet. We watched someone buy a chicken: she picked it out as it scratched around the floor of the shop. The man weighed it, took it to the back to kill it and dip it in scalding water to remove the feathers. Although we´ve had the odd ropey chicken (in one restaurant we could´ve tied them together and dropped them out of the window to make our escape), most of the time they´ve been remarkably good - now we know how fresh they are.
Casablanca was described to us by an enthusiastic Moroccan as something akin to New York. There is lots of traffic, true, and neither of us have visited New York, so he gets the benefit of our often applied doubt. We didn´t stay. It is famous for having one tourist attraction - the enormous and splendid Hassan II Mosque. It is the 3rd largest in the world, built by 25,000 craftsmen working 24 hours non-stop in 6 years, with a capacity of 40,000. Or was it the 6th largest built by 24 craftsmen working 3 hours in 40,000 years with ........? To be honest I didn´t really listen to the tour guide, since I spent most of the time wandering around face upwards admiring the tilework, stucco, marble and woodcarving. It is quite remarkable from the outside alone - sat on a slum clearance site at the sea´s edge, away from the sludge of the city. Moroccans had to contribute to the construction of this stunning building/ despot´s folly (depending on your point of view), and I am quite sure our guide didn´t actually say how much it cost to build. Having seen some of the poorer south, it did appear rather extravagant - reminded me of the great gold-encrusted cathedrals of South America.
The same day we moved on to Rabat - calmer and cleaner. The coastal plains here are covered in green fields - kinder on the eye and a relief after the dry south. The fields roll down to the beach and many are still farmed by hand, ploughed by cows or mules. It made us think of what Highland crofts might have looked like (on a sunny day). It´s our second time in the capital and we explored some of the familiar streets. Although it´s been two years, the same people are serving in the same restaurants or stalls, as in Marrakesh. We feel like time-travellers. We swap our guide book for two penguin classics. Who needs a guidebook second time around?
Onwards to Meknes, the country´s third Imperial City - built by a sultan who had to murder 83 half-brothers to safeguard his right to rule. He ransacked Marrakesh and Fes and the nearby Roman remains of Volubilis to build his new capital in the 17th century. Nice man, by all accounts. We popped in and said hello at his mausoleum. We also visited a huge granary - an arched warehouse basically, most of it now ruined - built to store the grain to feed his 12,000 horses. This apparently was used in The Last Temptation of Christ. And then onto Volubilis, out in the lovely green hills. Not much left of it, and UNESCO have labelled it a World Heritage Site, which doesn´t stop the ticket seller trying to short-change the excitable and inattentive tourist. It´s main feature is the large number of mosaic floors that have survived and remain in-situ. They filmed some of Carry On Cleopatra here. It was a lovely day out, by all accounts.
We had taken an en-suite room in a hotel that could not deliver hot water - it took us 36 hours to be told that hot water was only available after 9.30pm. We knew it had to exist because the foyer, lift shaft, corridors and rooms were constantly filled with the smell of woodsmoke. On occasion it billowed past our bedroom window. Sure enough at 9.30 prompt, the water was boiling.
From Meknes we took the comfortable train to sad Tanger and revisited a funky hotel near to the docks. We had the same room and I had the same sensation that I´d felt last time when we went to buy our ferry tickets - a combination of relief and faint regret. For despite all the wonderful sights, the film sets, the street scenes and kind people, there is the knowledge that all the other travelling hassles will not exist in Spain.........................
P.S. okay, I was kidding about Carry On Cleo
Bonsoir, or should I say Buenas Tardes, as I write from Granada, freshly bathed and laundered, fed and watered. We arrived here on Monday afternoon after a "fast boat" across the Straits of Gibraltar and a comfortable bus ride from Algeçiras. Not wishing to break from all things Moroccan, we thought we´d check out their legacy here in Spain. However, we draw a line at Tagine.
From Marrakesh we had headed west to Essaouira on the coast - a small fishing port with old Portuguese fort walls and now a quiet touristy little town. Orson Welle´s Othello opens with a scene shot on the ramparts here, and a small square has been named in his honour. We were pursued into the old town from the bus station by two touts - one an older woman who had a room in her nice house, and the other a young fella in a bright red hoodie who had a room in his nice house. We blanked them completely, but they took it in turns to accompany us on the long walk until they finally turned on each other. We left them having a screaming match in the souk. Having so bravely fought them off, we then got hooked by a smooth talking boogaloo who took us to his cheap hotel, which turned out to be a room in someone else´s nice house. There is an art to touting, and you´ve either got it or you haven´t.
After a restful few days walking the windy beach and windy plazas and windy streets we went north to El-Jadida, another old Portuguese port which now serves as a snazzy resort to Casablancans. When I say snazzy, I mean by Moroccan standards. The old walled town still has great ramparts and a wonderful vaulted cistern for water storage, which also features in Welles´ Othello. The rest of it looked like a slum, full of children playing. In the evening we promenaded with everyone else, ate and shopped in the large souk. In the meat section we came across two cow´s heads perched at the foot of a counter, their tongues lolling out of the corner of their mouths. Above them hung their feet. We watched someone buy a chicken: she picked it out as it scratched around the floor of the shop. The man weighed it, took it to the back to kill it and dip it in scalding water to remove the feathers. Although we´ve had the odd ropey chicken (in one restaurant we could´ve tied them together and dropped them out of the window to make our escape), most of the time they´ve been remarkably good - now we know how fresh they are.
Casablanca was described to us by an enthusiastic Moroccan as something akin to New York. There is lots of traffic, true, and neither of us have visited New York, so he gets the benefit of our often applied doubt. We didn´t stay. It is famous for having one tourist attraction - the enormous and splendid Hassan II Mosque. It is the 3rd largest in the world, built by 25,000 craftsmen working 24 hours non-stop in 6 years, with a capacity of 40,000. Or was it the 6th largest built by 24 craftsmen working 3 hours in 40,000 years with ........? To be honest I didn´t really listen to the tour guide, since I spent most of the time wandering around face upwards admiring the tilework, stucco, marble and woodcarving. It is quite remarkable from the outside alone - sat on a slum clearance site at the sea´s edge, away from the sludge of the city. Moroccans had to contribute to the construction of this stunning building/ despot´s folly (depending on your point of view), and I am quite sure our guide didn´t actually say how much it cost to build. Having seen some of the poorer south, it did appear rather extravagant - reminded me of the great gold-encrusted cathedrals of South America.
The same day we moved on to Rabat - calmer and cleaner. The coastal plains here are covered in green fields - kinder on the eye and a relief after the dry south. The fields roll down to the beach and many are still farmed by hand, ploughed by cows or mules. It made us think of what Highland crofts might have looked like (on a sunny day). It´s our second time in the capital and we explored some of the familiar streets. Although it´s been two years, the same people are serving in the same restaurants or stalls, as in Marrakesh. We feel like time-travellers. We swap our guide book for two penguin classics. Who needs a guidebook second time around?
Onwards to Meknes, the country´s third Imperial City - built by a sultan who had to murder 83 half-brothers to safeguard his right to rule. He ransacked Marrakesh and Fes and the nearby Roman remains of Volubilis to build his new capital in the 17th century. Nice man, by all accounts. We popped in and said hello at his mausoleum. We also visited a huge granary - an arched warehouse basically, most of it now ruined - built to store the grain to feed his 12,000 horses. This apparently was used in The Last Temptation of Christ. And then onto Volubilis, out in the lovely green hills. Not much left of it, and UNESCO have labelled it a World Heritage Site, which doesn´t stop the ticket seller trying to short-change the excitable and inattentive tourist. It´s main feature is the large number of mosaic floors that have survived and remain in-situ. They filmed some of Carry On Cleopatra here. It was a lovely day out, by all accounts.
We had taken an en-suite room in a hotel that could not deliver hot water - it took us 36 hours to be told that hot water was only available after 9.30pm. We knew it had to exist because the foyer, lift shaft, corridors and rooms were constantly filled with the smell of woodsmoke. On occasion it billowed past our bedroom window. Sure enough at 9.30 prompt, the water was boiling.
From Meknes we took the comfortable train to sad Tanger and revisited a funky hotel near to the docks. We had the same room and I had the same sensation that I´d felt last time when we went to buy our ferry tickets - a combination of relief and faint regret. For despite all the wonderful sights, the film sets, the street scenes and kind people, there is the knowledge that all the other travelling hassles will not exist in Spain.........................
P.S. okay, I was kidding about Carry On Cleo
Moroccan conversations - a Blue Peter post
from John:
Bonjour,
Gayle tells me my posts should be more pithy, which reminds me that the oranges here are just fabulous - sold with their stalks on, and dusty looking, but inside juicy and sweet and all for the bargain price of 25 pence a kilo. Anyway, here´s one I prepared earlier............
We've had an interesting few weeks here, but struggled daily with the good ol' Moroccan ways of over-charging or short-changing. There is no sign of crime here against tourists in the form of mugging, bag-snatching or pickpocketing, which is quite remarkable considering the huge differences in wealth within society and between the tourists and locals. There are many people begging: children, mothers with babies, old ladies and tramps - a country that should prepare us for the poverty of India, but quite shocking so close to home. As a visitor, we are frequently subjected to minor hustles, especially at the bus stations, but even in posh cafes. We have resorted to always checking the price of everything everywhere before purchase to avoid being scammed. However, for each time we have been over-charged or short-changed there are 5 or 6 instances where we have been indulged for our lousy french and treated kindly. We can't drop our guard though, which means that we treat anyone who approaches us as someone who is out to make money from us. As someone wrote - it's as if we are covered in dollar signs and have the word 'swag' emblazoned on our bags.
There have been a couple of times when we've been able to chat to locals without hassle. The first time was with the hotel owner and super bad cook, Hussein, from the Todra Gorge. After our evening meal, which was an effort in itself, we talked at length in French, leaving us quite exhausted. We asked lots of questions and he was eager to talk - the French satellite TV programmes made Channel Five look good. Hussein is Berber, as are about 70 per cent of the population, although many see it as a stigma - the Arabs have always looked down on Berbers as hillbillies, and their culture has been gradually eroded. Berber names were banned many years ago, and only arabic and french is used in schools. However, the current king is half-Berber, so things may change. Gayle asked Hussein about marriage across the two racial groups, what would he think if his daughter wanted to marry a Frenchman, and about women's rights. He loved these questions - said he had an arranged marriage, but these days things were different, people married for love, or occasionally money. He knew a young man who had married an old French woman, but returned to the area after a couple of years. He drifted on to the new consumerism that had his family in its grip - too many mobile phones, a TV, "la femme chez nous" (Her Indoors) no longer wanted to look after the cow and tend the fields, but wanted to buy jewellery and makeup and a washing machine. (Where were the cows? We hadn't seen a single on. Kept at the house apparently, so they wouldn't eat everything in the fields). Gayle also asked about the migrant workers working in Europe - did they prefer Europe or here? Hussein explained that he loved his simple life here, no pressures, a comfortable life in the country, not like the long hours in awful jobs that his neighbours had left to do.
However, on a bus journey to El-Jadida we met a Moroccan who was working in Spain, and had been for some years. He got chatting to Gayle at a stop in Spanish (he spoke little French), and when we got off at the same place (once again dumped at a roundabout) he suggested we share a taxi to the bus station. At first we were a little wary, but he seemed genuine. So we piled into a Peugeot 106 with our rucksacks perched on the roofrack, and the taxi screamed off..............and stopped about 150 metres down the road, rather embarrassingly. Said paid the fare and insisted we have a tea with him at the station café. But they had no tea, so I had a coffee and Gayle and he had lemon verbena, which is fairly common round here. We chatted in our rusty Spanish - Said was home for a month visiting family. Gayle got stuck in straight away and asked him how much he earned in Spain. "Mucho mas que aqui!" Much more than here! He worked in construction and said that the average daily income in Morocco was 5 euros. Did he like Spain? It was much better than here, here there was nothing for him but family. He pointed at the grotty street, the broken pavement, the porters with their wheelbarrows, the dirty buses belching exhaust - the usual city landscape - and told us it was better in Spain. But how were the Spanish with Moroccans? Ah, well, there was quite a bit of racism, from all but a few. He'd heard from a friend that Switzerland was a nice place to live, so that was his aim. He insisted on paying for the drinks and we bade him farewell and suerte.
Back in Marrakesh we had also been treated with unbidden hospitality by a stranger - a young woman whom we sat next to at a fish and chip stall in the main square one evening. Gayle got chatting to her (where does she get it from?) - she came from Rabat, where her baby was being looked after by her mum, whilst she worked in a good job at a posh hotel in Marrakesh. (We later looked it up in the guidebook - it was the author's choice!) Her husband worked in Ourzazate during high season. We munched our way through our food and then she offered to pay so that we didn't get overcharged. But when we left, she refused to take our money! We carried on talking and she took us to a posh cafe and we bought her a coffee in poor return. Ikram was wearing a headscarf so Gayle asked her what she thought of the women who didn't. She didn't care, and had only begun to wear hers after marriage, before that she didn't bother. One advantage was you didn't have to bother with your hair. She had grown up with French neighbours in Rabat, and her middle sister was completely westernised. She only went home on her "weekend" - she couldn't find such a good job in Rabat. (Most of the tourist money was being spent in Marrakesh we thought.)
We finished our drinks and I paid. The waiter not only tried to pass me a euro in my change, but also short-changed me. We had mentioned this to Ikram, so it was quite funny it actually happened. She said it happened to her too, but then she was a very kind woman. To our embarrassment she asked us how long our holiday was for - when would be home? That took a bit of explaining. She offered us accomodation if we ever visited again, and after swapping e-mail addresses we parted.
Afterwards we ambled around feeling very glad to have talked with her - this really makes the travelling more rewarding - and perhaps we felt a little more self-concious about ourselves and having the opportunity and wealth to do this. Perhaps we really are carrying that swag after all........
a tout a l´heure
Bonjour,
Gayle tells me my posts should be more pithy, which reminds me that the oranges here are just fabulous - sold with their stalks on, and dusty looking, but inside juicy and sweet and all for the bargain price of 25 pence a kilo. Anyway, here´s one I prepared earlier............
We've had an interesting few weeks here, but struggled daily with the good ol' Moroccan ways of over-charging or short-changing. There is no sign of crime here against tourists in the form of mugging, bag-snatching or pickpocketing, which is quite remarkable considering the huge differences in wealth within society and between the tourists and locals. There are many people begging: children, mothers with babies, old ladies and tramps - a country that should prepare us for the poverty of India, but quite shocking so close to home. As a visitor, we are frequently subjected to minor hustles, especially at the bus stations, but even in posh cafes. We have resorted to always checking the price of everything everywhere before purchase to avoid being scammed. However, for each time we have been over-charged or short-changed there are 5 or 6 instances where we have been indulged for our lousy french and treated kindly. We can't drop our guard though, which means that we treat anyone who approaches us as someone who is out to make money from us. As someone wrote - it's as if we are covered in dollar signs and have the word 'swag' emblazoned on our bags.
There have been a couple of times when we've been able to chat to locals without hassle. The first time was with the hotel owner and super bad cook, Hussein, from the Todra Gorge. After our evening meal, which was an effort in itself, we talked at length in French, leaving us quite exhausted. We asked lots of questions and he was eager to talk - the French satellite TV programmes made Channel Five look good. Hussein is Berber, as are about 70 per cent of the population, although many see it as a stigma - the Arabs have always looked down on Berbers as hillbillies, and their culture has been gradually eroded. Berber names were banned many years ago, and only arabic and french is used in schools. However, the current king is half-Berber, so things may change. Gayle asked Hussein about marriage across the two racial groups, what would he think if his daughter wanted to marry a Frenchman, and about women's rights. He loved these questions - said he had an arranged marriage, but these days things were different, people married for love, or occasionally money. He knew a young man who had married an old French woman, but returned to the area after a couple of years. He drifted on to the new consumerism that had his family in its grip - too many mobile phones, a TV, "la femme chez nous" (Her Indoors) no longer wanted to look after the cow and tend the fields, but wanted to buy jewellery and makeup and a washing machine. (Where were the cows? We hadn't seen a single on. Kept at the house apparently, so they wouldn't eat everything in the fields). Gayle also asked about the migrant workers working in Europe - did they prefer Europe or here? Hussein explained that he loved his simple life here, no pressures, a comfortable life in the country, not like the long hours in awful jobs that his neighbours had left to do.
However, on a bus journey to El-Jadida we met a Moroccan who was working in Spain, and had been for some years. He got chatting to Gayle at a stop in Spanish (he spoke little French), and when we got off at the same place (once again dumped at a roundabout) he suggested we share a taxi to the bus station. At first we were a little wary, but he seemed genuine. So we piled into a Peugeot 106 with our rucksacks perched on the roofrack, and the taxi screamed off..............and stopped about 150 metres down the road, rather embarrassingly. Said paid the fare and insisted we have a tea with him at the station café. But they had no tea, so I had a coffee and Gayle and he had lemon verbena, which is fairly common round here. We chatted in our rusty Spanish - Said was home for a month visiting family. Gayle got stuck in straight away and asked him how much he earned in Spain. "Mucho mas que aqui!" Much more than here! He worked in construction and said that the average daily income in Morocco was 5 euros. Did he like Spain? It was much better than here, here there was nothing for him but family. He pointed at the grotty street, the broken pavement, the porters with their wheelbarrows, the dirty buses belching exhaust - the usual city landscape - and told us it was better in Spain. But how were the Spanish with Moroccans? Ah, well, there was quite a bit of racism, from all but a few. He'd heard from a friend that Switzerland was a nice place to live, so that was his aim. He insisted on paying for the drinks and we bade him farewell and suerte.
Back in Marrakesh we had also been treated with unbidden hospitality by a stranger - a young woman whom we sat next to at a fish and chip stall in the main square one evening. Gayle got chatting to her (where does she get it from?) - she came from Rabat, where her baby was being looked after by her mum, whilst she worked in a good job at a posh hotel in Marrakesh. (We later looked it up in the guidebook - it was the author's choice!) Her husband worked in Ourzazate during high season. We munched our way through our food and then she offered to pay so that we didn't get overcharged. But when we left, she refused to take our money! We carried on talking and she took us to a posh cafe and we bought her a coffee in poor return. Ikram was wearing a headscarf so Gayle asked her what she thought of the women who didn't. She didn't care, and had only begun to wear hers after marriage, before that she didn't bother. One advantage was you didn't have to bother with your hair. She had grown up with French neighbours in Rabat, and her middle sister was completely westernised. She only went home on her "weekend" - she couldn't find such a good job in Rabat. (Most of the tourist money was being spent in Marrakesh we thought.)
We finished our drinks and I paid. The waiter not only tried to pass me a euro in my change, but also short-changed me. We had mentioned this to Ikram, so it was quite funny it actually happened. She said it happened to her too, but then she was a very kind woman. To our embarrassment she asked us how long our holiday was for - when would be home? That took a bit of explaining. She offered us accomodation if we ever visited again, and after swapping e-mail addresses we parted.
Afterwards we ambled around feeling very glad to have talked with her - this really makes the travelling more rewarding - and perhaps we felt a little more self-concious about ourselves and having the opportunity and wealth to do this. Perhaps we really are carrying that swag after all........
a tout a l´heure
Friday, February 2, 2007
in which we cross the High Atlas and return to Marrakech
from John:
Bonjour!
We had asked about buses from Taroudannt to Ourzazate the night before and were told 10am in the bus park at the city gates. Could we buy a ticket? Get it on the bus, came the reply. We duly arrived 15 minutes early and waited at the appointed spot. Various blokes wondered past, looked us up and down and asked "Ourzazate? Ten o'clock." Ten o'clock came. And went. We spotted two more gringos also loitering in the vicinity and looking equally abandoned. Groups of Moroccans sat waiting in the shade. No sign of any buses actually going anywhere. And then a creaky old bus pulled in sudddenly, belching blue fumes and dust, and some of the men hanging around burst into life, waving and shouting at us:"Ourzazate!Ourzazate!Ourzazate!" People struggled to get off the bus and beyond an eager clutch of porters with wheelbarrows, whilst we zoned in on the Bus Man, all the while tugged and pulled by these men screaming in our ears "Ourzazate!Ourzazate!Ourzazate!" We purchased our tickets from the Bus Man, as the touts who had attached themselves to us clamoured for their cut. Our rucksacks were slung onto the roof while Gayle shoved aboard to find two seats at the back. The Bus Boy responsible for baggage demanded money for the rucksacks. I pulled a face and gave him half the asking price and climbed aboard. A few more boarded, searched for seats, got off, got on again. Bus Man and Bus Boy walked down the bus, checked every seat was occupied, shouted to the driver and we roared off in a bigger cloud of fumes and dust. Bon voyage!
The road ran parallel with the distant mountains of the High Atlas through a dry flat valley, everything looking brown and dusty. The driver put on a tape of someone half-singing a recitation from the Koran. It suited the landscape.
Ourzazate is a fairly sprawling new town that has boomed with some government investment and money from the film studios that operate here. Numerous Hollywood films have been filmed here, from Lawrence of Arabia to Gladiator. Not much for the visitor to see, but a good place to break our journey. We carried on the next day to Tinehir, further east. It was cloudy and chilly and Tinehir had a shabby look about it. North of here lies a green fertile valley and the Todra gorge, formed by one of the rivers coming down from the mountains. We spent a quiet day pottering about the town, and finally headed up the green valley the following day. There were villages alongside both sides of a thick green band of palm trees and fields - a visual relief amongst the endless brown. We stopped at an empty hotel and then set off up the valley on foot through the palmery before lunch. It was sunny but not too hot, which was a good thing because our little walk turned into something of an epic.
The palmery was divided up into small plots of land, separated by irrigation channels. There were date palms on the edges and clover being grown in the fields. Higher up the valley it opened up a little and there were almond trees too. It reminded us of some of the valleys we had walked in Nepal - a very peaceful place. We passed through a couple of villages, threading a way through their labyrinthine streets until we came to the gorge, where the valley walls almost touched. They were maybe two hundred metres high and not much sun seemed to get in. Unfortunately it is spoiled by two hotels where coach tourist disembark for lunch. Stalls were set up selling all the usual Moroccan tourist goods. I think I preferred the palmery. We'd had an egg butty and then followed a brief description from our guide book for a two hour walk, climbing out of the main valley, looping back round over two high passes and returning to one of the villages we had passed. The description was a bit vague and once we'd reached the top, with great views across the rocky ridges all around, we dithered about the route down, but found a path that seemed well-trodden and stuck to that. We passed a couple of nomad tents, nestled high up in the crannies. These people were goat herds and had temporary shelters in quite high and very dry places. We finally reached a dividing point in the path and could see the descent down to the village. However, the other path was going in the direction of where we thought we would return to the main valley by our hotel, so we took that instead. The path had been marked with stones and there was evidence of mules i.e. mule shit, so we felt fairly confident. We descended a small valley for a while on a path above the dry riverbed, where we spotted some other gringos descending. Our path crossed the valley and climbed around a bend, finally reaching a pass appearing to go in the wrong direction. The path onwards seemed indistinct. We hummed and hawed. Down below us in the dry riverbed we could see the others, so we decided to drop down and follow them. We caught up with them trying to descend down a dry waterfall. There were two fellas and two women, and the women refused to climb down. I didn't even want to look! We talked, they looked tired and we were all conscious that the sun was dropping and we were running out of time. We suggested that we should climb back up to our path and have a look over the pass. The men were doubtful, but they hadn't even been on the path, so they weren't as confident as us. From the pass we looked down a steep drop to a wide flat dry riverbed. We did a quick reconnaisance, spotted the path continuing alongside the dry river and heading in the right direction so we took it. Eventually, after a long walk out, we emerged onto the road of the main valley right beside our hotel. It was six o'clock. The others had another three miles to walk to their village, but at least they were no longer lost.
Unfortunately out tagine that night did not do justice to the appetite we had built up. The chicken was one of those yellow rubbery comedy affairs. The hotel owner was a nice talkative man but in the morning we decided not to have breakfast and he looked as relieved as we felt at the decision. I guess cooking wasn't his thing.
We returned to Ourzazate where the grey clouds finally turned to rain. It rained for a whole day and night, and it left a layer of snow on the mountains to our north. After a day of pottering we then took the bus back to Marrakesh, on a road that wound its way up to a high pass through the snow covered valleys that looked beautiful in the morning sunshine. We then descended a busy and rather hairy stretch until the valley opened out onto a huge green basin. The bus finally reached the plain, and we trundled back into the big congested city. It felt lively and busy after all the small towns we had visited, but the familiar sights and sounds were also welcome. We returned to our little hotel on Cheap Hotel Alley, ready to recuperate.
Au revoir
Bonjour!
We had asked about buses from Taroudannt to Ourzazate the night before and were told 10am in the bus park at the city gates. Could we buy a ticket? Get it on the bus, came the reply. We duly arrived 15 minutes early and waited at the appointed spot. Various blokes wondered past, looked us up and down and asked "Ourzazate? Ten o'clock." Ten o'clock came. And went. We spotted two more gringos also loitering in the vicinity and looking equally abandoned. Groups of Moroccans sat waiting in the shade. No sign of any buses actually going anywhere. And then a creaky old bus pulled in sudddenly, belching blue fumes and dust, and some of the men hanging around burst into life, waving and shouting at us:"Ourzazate!Ourzazate!Ourzazate!" People struggled to get off the bus and beyond an eager clutch of porters with wheelbarrows, whilst we zoned in on the Bus Man, all the while tugged and pulled by these men screaming in our ears "Ourzazate!Ourzazate!Ourzazate!" We purchased our tickets from the Bus Man, as the touts who had attached themselves to us clamoured for their cut. Our rucksacks were slung onto the roof while Gayle shoved aboard to find two seats at the back. The Bus Boy responsible for baggage demanded money for the rucksacks. I pulled a face and gave him half the asking price and climbed aboard. A few more boarded, searched for seats, got off, got on again. Bus Man and Bus Boy walked down the bus, checked every seat was occupied, shouted to the driver and we roared off in a bigger cloud of fumes and dust. Bon voyage!
The road ran parallel with the distant mountains of the High Atlas through a dry flat valley, everything looking brown and dusty. The driver put on a tape of someone half-singing a recitation from the Koran. It suited the landscape.
Ourzazate is a fairly sprawling new town that has boomed with some government investment and money from the film studios that operate here. Numerous Hollywood films have been filmed here, from Lawrence of Arabia to Gladiator. Not much for the visitor to see, but a good place to break our journey. We carried on the next day to Tinehir, further east. It was cloudy and chilly and Tinehir had a shabby look about it. North of here lies a green fertile valley and the Todra gorge, formed by one of the rivers coming down from the mountains. We spent a quiet day pottering about the town, and finally headed up the green valley the following day. There were villages alongside both sides of a thick green band of palm trees and fields - a visual relief amongst the endless brown. We stopped at an empty hotel and then set off up the valley on foot through the palmery before lunch. It was sunny but not too hot, which was a good thing because our little walk turned into something of an epic.
The palmery was divided up into small plots of land, separated by irrigation channels. There were date palms on the edges and clover being grown in the fields. Higher up the valley it opened up a little and there were almond trees too. It reminded us of some of the valleys we had walked in Nepal - a very peaceful place. We passed through a couple of villages, threading a way through their labyrinthine streets until we came to the gorge, where the valley walls almost touched. They were maybe two hundred metres high and not much sun seemed to get in. Unfortunately it is spoiled by two hotels where coach tourist disembark for lunch. Stalls were set up selling all the usual Moroccan tourist goods. I think I preferred the palmery. We'd had an egg butty and then followed a brief description from our guide book for a two hour walk, climbing out of the main valley, looping back round over two high passes and returning to one of the villages we had passed. The description was a bit vague and once we'd reached the top, with great views across the rocky ridges all around, we dithered about the route down, but found a path that seemed well-trodden and stuck to that. We passed a couple of nomad tents, nestled high up in the crannies. These people were goat herds and had temporary shelters in quite high and very dry places. We finally reached a dividing point in the path and could see the descent down to the village. However, the other path was going in the direction of where we thought we would return to the main valley by our hotel, so we took that instead. The path had been marked with stones and there was evidence of mules i.e. mule shit, so we felt fairly confident. We descended a small valley for a while on a path above the dry riverbed, where we spotted some other gringos descending. Our path crossed the valley and climbed around a bend, finally reaching a pass appearing to go in the wrong direction. The path onwards seemed indistinct. We hummed and hawed. Down below us in the dry riverbed we could see the others, so we decided to drop down and follow them. We caught up with them trying to descend down a dry waterfall. There were two fellas and two women, and the women refused to climb down. I didn't even want to look! We talked, they looked tired and we were all conscious that the sun was dropping and we were running out of time. We suggested that we should climb back up to our path and have a look over the pass. The men were doubtful, but they hadn't even been on the path, so they weren't as confident as us. From the pass we looked down a steep drop to a wide flat dry riverbed. We did a quick reconnaisance, spotted the path continuing alongside the dry river and heading in the right direction so we took it. Eventually, after a long walk out, we emerged onto the road of the main valley right beside our hotel. It was six o'clock. The others had another three miles to walk to their village, but at least they were no longer lost.
Unfortunately out tagine that night did not do justice to the appetite we had built up. The chicken was one of those yellow rubbery comedy affairs. The hotel owner was a nice talkative man but in the morning we decided not to have breakfast and he looked as relieved as we felt at the decision. I guess cooking wasn't his thing.
We returned to Ourzazate where the grey clouds finally turned to rain. It rained for a whole day and night, and it left a layer of snow on the mountains to our north. After a day of pottering we then took the bus back to Marrakesh, on a road that wound its way up to a high pass through the snow covered valleys that looked beautiful in the morning sunshine. We then descended a busy and rather hairy stretch until the valley opened out onto a huge green basin. The bus finally reached the plain, and we trundled back into the big congested city. It felt lively and busy after all the small towns we had visited, but the familiar sights and sounds were also welcome. We returned to our little hotel on Cheap Hotel Alley, ready to recuperate.
Au revoir
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