Just arrived this afternoon in Valencia, Spain. I spent 3 nights in Lisbon, which is a pretty cool and interesting city. Though it lacks any truly amazing sights like other European cities, it is laid back and has fun nightlife. I spent one full day out at Sintra which is about 40 minutes by train towards the coast. Sintra is absolutely amazing with its castles, palaces, parks, and beautiful scenery. The Moorish castle on top of the hill had really incredible views. I got some great pics all the way to the ocean and the surrounding sights. Quinta da Regaleira is kind of like an adult outdoor fantasy land. It is covered with beautiful trees and trails on a hill. There are ponds, waterfalls, tunnels, labyrinth grottos, towers, a Roman well. I spent several hours exploring, it was well worth it.
I stayed at one of the best hostels I've ever been to in Lisbon! It was called Yes! Lisbon, it is brand new, a former restaurant with an industrial type kitchen and a cool bar. The common area is huge with couches, bean bag chairs, movies on a projector screen, and lots of fun people!
I am staying at an apartment here in Valencia with 6 other friends. It is really nice, and not too expensive because there are so many of us. Tomorrow we will explore the town and go to the wine festival down south. Looks like we are getting ready for bed now, gotta run.
I just posted several more albums on Picasa Web, check em out!
For my memory mostly, here's a quick recap of cities I have stayed in on my trip (in order): London, Dublin, Galway, Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Paris, Caen, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Tangier, Fez, Sahara Desert, Oarzazate, Marrakesh, Essaouira, Casablanca, Marrakesh, Seville, Albufeira, Lagos, Lisbon, Valencia...
August 24, 2009
August 20, 2009
Finally a Chance to Relax! In Lisbon...
Sorry to worry everyone for not posting for so long!! Wow, so much has happened since my last post. I have just been very busy and seem to constantly be doing something new. Tonight I am finally just hanging out at a hostel in Lisbon, so I have some time.
After Essaouira, my dad and I got on a bus to Casablanca. That was quite an ordeal. The bus broke down about an hour out of Casa. We stood there in the heat for nearly 3 hours with no explanation of what was wrong with the bus or whether we were getting picked up. We ended up hitchiking into town, which was much easier than I would have expected. I think that may actually be the first time I have ever hitchhiked. The guy drove like a crazed lunatic though, like most Morrocan drivers. We stayed a night in Casa which was more than you would even need. We saw Hassan II mosque which is the second or third largest (depending on who you ask) in the world. It was really impressive, though we didn't go inside. We checked out a couple other sights, including Rick's Cafe from the movie. That was pretty much a huge letdown, just a tourist trap as you can imagine. Headed on the bus back to Marrakesh the next day. Stayed the night in the new town, had a really good dinner, I think it was Lebanese food. My dad took off for the airport the next morning. I really enjoyed our trip together. I am very lucky because I would never have gotten to experience Morroco like that without him!
I headed back into the medina to find the supposed rooftop terrace where you could sleep for 30 durhims. Finally found it and made my way up. It was pretty amazing, just like a hostel on a roof! There were about 30 or 40 people staying up there on little mattress pads and sleeping bags. I met a bunch of cool people and spent two days roaming around town, haggling over my new haircut (had my head shaved for about $3), and smoking some hash up on the terrace (hey, it's Morroco, I had to give it a try). It was crazy hot during the day, hard to even do much until the evening. I made it out to the airport with some English friends on my last morning and had a surprisingly painless Ryanair flight to Seville in Spain.
I met an Aussie named Cameron on the tram into Seville from the airport. He had been on the same flight and actually stayed on the same roof terrace though we hadn't met. I brought him along to the hostel I had booked and we are actually still travelling together nearly two weeks later. The hostel was really really nice with lots of friendly people. We quickly got a whole crew together and went out to a flamenco bar. It was pretty cool, though it was a free place and I am sure 'real' flamenco is much better. Walked around Seville the next day, saw the amazing cathedral, cool views from the top of the tower. Saw the palace too, which was incredible. Could have spent all day just at the palace and the surrounding gardens. Rounded up more people back at the hostel, think there was about 15 of us, to head back to the flamenco bar. Cam and I were the only ones that had been there before I think, but we failed miserably in our attempts to navigate. That city is very confusing, not as bad as Morroco though I suppose. Had a lot of fun there again, headed out to another bar along the river, met a lot of interesting people. Really enjoyed the hostel in Seville, especially the hammocks on the rooftop terrace!
Cam and I both had planned separately on heading into Portugal after Seville, so we decided to basically travel together. We hopped on a bus toward Lagos, a beach party town in the Algarve (the southern part of Portugal). Halfway on the busride, he gets a text from a couple French friends he met in Dubai months ago. They were apparently staying at a villa in Albufeira, which is on the coast east of Lagos. Luckily the bus was making a stop there, so we hopped off and Vincent and Clemont picked us up in their car. Turns out there were 14 guys total, all from around Paris, who drove to the villa together for a two week holiday. We got to the villa and I was stunned. It was gigantic, had amazing views overlooking the town and the ocean, and had an incredible pool out back with a huge patio. I think they were only supposed to have 8 guys staying there, but all 16 of us (14 French guys plus Cam and I) fit there pretty comfortably. The next four days are kind of a blur. The guys just party constantly. They are all pretty crazy. We spent each day at the pool or drove down to the beach. At the house it was basically a fraternity. They assign two guys each day to do all the cooking and cleaning. We all ate every meal together, Cam and I pitched in when we could. A lot of French kids have holidays in that town apparently, because there were constantly girls hanging out at the villa that the guys knew from home. Most of them were staying in apartments in town, but spent most days at the villa by the pool. Some of them cooked for us too, which was really nice. The first night we went to a club in town, the second night we recruited girls from the beach back to the villa for a pool party, the third night we went to see a DJ play at a club on the beach, the fourth night we barhopped through town. The night of the beach club was crazy and fun. A typical day where we ate breakfast at 12, lunch at 6, then went out to dinner at midnight! We ate at a really fancy restaurant owned by the guy who owns the villa. It was the most expensive meal of my trip, 30 euros, but worth every cent! It was a set four course meal with amazing seafood, grilled pork, 5 different cakes for dessert, and all the white sangria we could drink. One of the better meals of my life, easily the best of this trip. We didn't get to the club till 3 AM, there was a line of several hundred people, we somehow cut to the front. Got in, the main DJ got on at 4 AM and we danced in the sand till sunrise. What a crazy party. The whole experience at the villa and Albufeira was like living in a dream. We also hardly paid a dime, I think we gave the French guys 25 euros for the whole 4 days to buy some food and beer with. We offered more but they said no. They were all really nice guys and most spoke a fair amount of English. I learned a ton of French while I was there, though it was impossible to keep up at dinner when 3 of them speak at the same time, all way too fast with lots of slang. It was fun to try and speak with them what I could. As nice as they are, most of them are absolutely crazy. They got drunk and chased each other around the villa naked and into the pool just about every day.
Cam and I finally pulled ourselves away from the villa and Albufeira after four days. It wasn't even by choice, it was because that was the final day for the guys, they were heading back to Paris. We got on a bus to Lagos, our original destination. Turns out Lagos is a lot like Albufeira, a crazy summer party town with even more people and wild nightlife. We showed up in town late in the evening with no plan and no hostel booked. Had to wander around the city for awhile until we met a couple of girls that showed us back to the place they were staying. It was a guesthouse, kind of like a hostel. It was actually attached to the most popular hostel in town so we met a lot of people staying there as well. We planned on two nights there, but everyone we met said everybody ends up staying in Lagos longer than they plan. The town gets pretty repetitive, so here is what I did on one day, all four days were almost identical: Wake up about noon, make breakfast at the guesthouse, complain about the heat, get down to the beach late in the afternoon, meet up with people from the previous night on the beach, go swimming and cliff jumping, back to the hostel to chill, finally shower and get ready to go out at 10, go to Casa Rosa or the Fat Monkey Bar, pay 10 euros to get a full meal of food plus a Power Hour: all you can drink beer for one hour, hop from bar to club to bar, hanging out with friends from the guesthouse or the hostel, hopefully make it home before sunrise. The town is just packed with tourists, and for whatever reason more than half the people there are from Australia. That is really not an exaggeration, I eventually walked up to some random people and asked them which suburb of Melbourne they were from. About 75% of the staff at the bars were Aussies too. I don't know how people could spend so long in that town, the beach/bar routine is pretty tiresome eventually.
After four crazy days in Lagos (which followed four crazy days in Albufeira), Cam and I got on a bus to Lisbon where we arrived tonight. This city seems really nice so far, I think I will go explore it tomorrow. We found an OK hostel here, but there is another one we like better which was full tonight, so we are going there tomorrow instead. So far, I have not been planning anything, just been showing up at the bus station, showing up at hostels, and it has worked out really well. I am getting very used to talking to strangers to get info. Yesterday though, Cam and I got the idea to go to La Tomatina next week, so we have been planning that. That is the tomato throwing festival near Valencia, Spain. Three of our friends from Lagos have booked an apartment in Valencia for three days, so we will head there to stay with them on Monday. I am planning on painting a bulls eye on my head or chest or back or something. It should be a lot of fun. After that, we might head out to Ibiza, it is an island off the coast of Spain famous for its nightlife, its really expensive and lots of celebrities go to the clubs there. Might be too expensive, not sure yet. I don't really have any plans beyond that. Cam is heading back to London at some point after that, I might head to Italy then. I will probably meet up with him again in a month at Octoberfest.
Well, I will try and upload pictures tomorrow. And I will try and post more often so I can give more details. It is tough to remember all of this stuff! Plus I have to type forever! I might do another post in the next day or two to fill in some details of the last two weeks which I have forgotten. I just have so many stories to tell! Time for bed, one of my first nights in a while I should get a decent night's sleep.
After Essaouira, my dad and I got on a bus to Casablanca. That was quite an ordeal. The bus broke down about an hour out of Casa. We stood there in the heat for nearly 3 hours with no explanation of what was wrong with the bus or whether we were getting picked up. We ended up hitchiking into town, which was much easier than I would have expected. I think that may actually be the first time I have ever hitchhiked. The guy drove like a crazed lunatic though, like most Morrocan drivers. We stayed a night in Casa which was more than you would even need. We saw Hassan II mosque which is the second or third largest (depending on who you ask) in the world. It was really impressive, though we didn't go inside. We checked out a couple other sights, including Rick's Cafe from the movie. That was pretty much a huge letdown, just a tourist trap as you can imagine. Headed on the bus back to Marrakesh the next day. Stayed the night in the new town, had a really good dinner, I think it was Lebanese food. My dad took off for the airport the next morning. I really enjoyed our trip together. I am very lucky because I would never have gotten to experience Morroco like that without him!
I headed back into the medina to find the supposed rooftop terrace where you could sleep for 30 durhims. Finally found it and made my way up. It was pretty amazing, just like a hostel on a roof! There were about 30 or 40 people staying up there on little mattress pads and sleeping bags. I met a bunch of cool people and spent two days roaming around town, haggling over my new haircut (had my head shaved for about $3), and smoking some hash up on the terrace (hey, it's Morroco, I had to give it a try). It was crazy hot during the day, hard to even do much until the evening. I made it out to the airport with some English friends on my last morning and had a surprisingly painless Ryanair flight to Seville in Spain.
I met an Aussie named Cameron on the tram into Seville from the airport. He had been on the same flight and actually stayed on the same roof terrace though we hadn't met. I brought him along to the hostel I had booked and we are actually still travelling together nearly two weeks later. The hostel was really really nice with lots of friendly people. We quickly got a whole crew together and went out to a flamenco bar. It was pretty cool, though it was a free place and I am sure 'real' flamenco is much better. Walked around Seville the next day, saw the amazing cathedral, cool views from the top of the tower. Saw the palace too, which was incredible. Could have spent all day just at the palace and the surrounding gardens. Rounded up more people back at the hostel, think there was about 15 of us, to head back to the flamenco bar. Cam and I were the only ones that had been there before I think, but we failed miserably in our attempts to navigate. That city is very confusing, not as bad as Morroco though I suppose. Had a lot of fun there again, headed out to another bar along the river, met a lot of interesting people. Really enjoyed the hostel in Seville, especially the hammocks on the rooftop terrace!
Cam and I both had planned separately on heading into Portugal after Seville, so we decided to basically travel together. We hopped on a bus toward Lagos, a beach party town in the Algarve (the southern part of Portugal). Halfway on the busride, he gets a text from a couple French friends he met in Dubai months ago. They were apparently staying at a villa in Albufeira, which is on the coast east of Lagos. Luckily the bus was making a stop there, so we hopped off and Vincent and Clemont picked us up in their car. Turns out there were 14 guys total, all from around Paris, who drove to the villa together for a two week holiday. We got to the villa and I was stunned. It was gigantic, had amazing views overlooking the town and the ocean, and had an incredible pool out back with a huge patio. I think they were only supposed to have 8 guys staying there, but all 16 of us (14 French guys plus Cam and I) fit there pretty comfortably. The next four days are kind of a blur. The guys just party constantly. They are all pretty crazy. We spent each day at the pool or drove down to the beach. At the house it was basically a fraternity. They assign two guys each day to do all the cooking and cleaning. We all ate every meal together, Cam and I pitched in when we could. A lot of French kids have holidays in that town apparently, because there were constantly girls hanging out at the villa that the guys knew from home. Most of them were staying in apartments in town, but spent most days at the villa by the pool. Some of them cooked for us too, which was really nice. The first night we went to a club in town, the second night we recruited girls from the beach back to the villa for a pool party, the third night we went to see a DJ play at a club on the beach, the fourth night we barhopped through town. The night of the beach club was crazy and fun. A typical day where we ate breakfast at 12, lunch at 6, then went out to dinner at midnight! We ate at a really fancy restaurant owned by the guy who owns the villa. It was the most expensive meal of my trip, 30 euros, but worth every cent! It was a set four course meal with amazing seafood, grilled pork, 5 different cakes for dessert, and all the white sangria we could drink. One of the better meals of my life, easily the best of this trip. We didn't get to the club till 3 AM, there was a line of several hundred people, we somehow cut to the front. Got in, the main DJ got on at 4 AM and we danced in the sand till sunrise. What a crazy party. The whole experience at the villa and Albufeira was like living in a dream. We also hardly paid a dime, I think we gave the French guys 25 euros for the whole 4 days to buy some food and beer with. We offered more but they said no. They were all really nice guys and most spoke a fair amount of English. I learned a ton of French while I was there, though it was impossible to keep up at dinner when 3 of them speak at the same time, all way too fast with lots of slang. It was fun to try and speak with them what I could. As nice as they are, most of them are absolutely crazy. They got drunk and chased each other around the villa naked and into the pool just about every day.
Cam and I finally pulled ourselves away from the villa and Albufeira after four days. It wasn't even by choice, it was because that was the final day for the guys, they were heading back to Paris. We got on a bus to Lagos, our original destination. Turns out Lagos is a lot like Albufeira, a crazy summer party town with even more people and wild nightlife. We showed up in town late in the evening with no plan and no hostel booked. Had to wander around the city for awhile until we met a couple of girls that showed us back to the place they were staying. It was a guesthouse, kind of like a hostel. It was actually attached to the most popular hostel in town so we met a lot of people staying there as well. We planned on two nights there, but everyone we met said everybody ends up staying in Lagos longer than they plan. The town gets pretty repetitive, so here is what I did on one day, all four days were almost identical: Wake up about noon, make breakfast at the guesthouse, complain about the heat, get down to the beach late in the afternoon, meet up with people from the previous night on the beach, go swimming and cliff jumping, back to the hostel to chill, finally shower and get ready to go out at 10, go to Casa Rosa or the Fat Monkey Bar, pay 10 euros to get a full meal of food plus a Power Hour: all you can drink beer for one hour, hop from bar to club to bar, hanging out with friends from the guesthouse or the hostel, hopefully make it home before sunrise. The town is just packed with tourists, and for whatever reason more than half the people there are from Australia. That is really not an exaggeration, I eventually walked up to some random people and asked them which suburb of Melbourne they were from. About 75% of the staff at the bars were Aussies too. I don't know how people could spend so long in that town, the beach/bar routine is pretty tiresome eventually.
After four crazy days in Lagos (which followed four crazy days in Albufeira), Cam and I got on a bus to Lisbon where we arrived tonight. This city seems really nice so far, I think I will go explore it tomorrow. We found an OK hostel here, but there is another one we like better which was full tonight, so we are going there tomorrow instead. So far, I have not been planning anything, just been showing up at the bus station, showing up at hostels, and it has worked out really well. I am getting very used to talking to strangers to get info. Yesterday though, Cam and I got the idea to go to La Tomatina next week, so we have been planning that. That is the tomato throwing festival near Valencia, Spain. Three of our friends from Lagos have booked an apartment in Valencia for three days, so we will head there to stay with them on Monday. I am planning on painting a bulls eye on my head or chest or back or something. It should be a lot of fun. After that, we might head out to Ibiza, it is an island off the coast of Spain famous for its nightlife, its really expensive and lots of celebrities go to the clubs there. Might be too expensive, not sure yet. I don't really have any plans beyond that. Cam is heading back to London at some point after that, I might head to Italy then. I will probably meet up with him again in a month at Octoberfest.
Well, I will try and upload pictures tomorrow. And I will try and post more often so I can give more details. It is tough to remember all of this stuff! Plus I have to type forever! I might do another post in the next day or two to fill in some details of the last two weeks which I have forgotten. I just have so many stories to tell! Time for bed, one of my first nights in a while I should get a decent night's sleep.
August 5, 2009
Relaxing Moroccan Style on the Beach!
First, I figured out the whole picture ordeal. From now on, no pics on my blog. I will post ALL of them (instead of the 4 or 5 I have been posting) on my newly created Picasa Web Album, which is part of Google like Blogger. Not sure if you guys can just click a link to it from my profile, but I am posting the pics publicly. This link will hopefully work for you: http://picasaweb.google.com/SkiMania29
Let me know if any problems viewing pics, I have only posted Week 6 for now, will post previous photos when I get a chance! These are for non-Facebook users as I am posting the same ones on FB. Alright now the blog:
Let me know if any problems viewing pics, I have only posted Week 6 for now, will post previous photos when I get a chance! These are for non-Facebook users as I am posting the same ones on FB. Alright now the blog:
The Hammam was a very unusual experience, not like a Turkish bath as far as I know. We had our swimsuits on and entered a room with stone walls and a smooth stone floor. There were a few large basins for water of different temperatures and a bunch of pails. Then this old Arab guy who didn't speak a word of English came out and directed me to lie down flat on the floor. He poured hot water over me then proceeded to give me a sponge bath/massage/full body stretch routine. It was pretty bazaare and lasted an hour. He seemed to think it was all pretty hilarious, especially when I didn't know the stretching routine so he had to constantly reposition my arms and legs and direct me to flip over. He scrubbed me with three different soaps over the whole course of it. At the end, I have never felt so clean and relaxed! And it only cost about $9 for both my dad and I.
That evening, Amine took us to his sister and brother-and-law's house in the Medina for dinner. His friend Haj, who would be our driver for the next three days, was there as well. The house was really nice and the family was incredibly hospitable. It is kind of funny that they have a massive living room with 2 adjacent smaller living rooms, all very well decorated. Yet the kitchen was smaller than an average sized bathroom. Amine's sister (I forget her name and her husband's name!) cooked an amazing meal. We got to sit in the tiny kitchen and watch her cook for awhile, she seemed to really enjoy it. She made tajine, which is a very traditional and common Moroccan dish. It took her about 3 hours to make it! Then all the men ate while she and their two kids ate somewhere else. There were incredible appetizers and mint tea, the works. Oh, and Amine's sister's family is probably the happiest family I have ever seen in my life. The husband and wife were compulsive smilers and the kids were constantly laughing and playing. I really don't think it was an act because guests were there, I think they are like that all the time.
Unfortunately, my Dad and I ate fresh fruit for dessert, which we think is what made us horribly sick that night and the next day and a half. I was really miserable and thought we might have to cancel the road trip we had planned. In the end, I just gutted it out, we stopped at a pharmacy to pick up stomach meds. We think it was the fruit because we can't drink the tap water here (we were told our stomachs would hate us for it), and therefore we probably shouldn't have eaten huge chunks of melon that are probably filled with the local water where they are grown. From then on, we have stuck with cooked food only. The road trip consisted of a very nice, air conditioned, full size van driven by our personal tour guide Haj. We drove south from Fez and stopped at numerous small villages and saw beautiful scenery. We even stopped to let some Barbary Apes cross the road. We drove all day and ended up in the southeast of the country near the desert. We hopped in a 4x4 and headed out into the wasteland. Finally, we saw the Sahara.
We dropped our stuff off at the little resort hotel, grabbed the turbans we were given, and hopped on a couple camels! One was named Jimmy, the other Ma'ahm or something. Our camelman was Mohammad, he was 68 years old and walked in front holding a rope attached to the lead camel. We rode 2 hours out into the Sahara (near the border with Algeria according to my map). It was really fun and not as hot as I expected. They said we got lucky it was only 50 degrees or something, a week earlier it had been 55-60 degrees (130-140 F)!!! That would have been pretty awful. So we made it out to this oasis between a couple huge dunes. There were other groups out there too. We hopped off the camels and Mohammad cooked us up a tajine (I still have no idea how he got all that food out there). We slept outside on a mat with a couple sheets and a hard pillow. It was really nice, that is until about 1 AM when the wind started blowing. Prior to that, no wind at all. I woke up to sand spraying me in the face. And then the wind seemed to reverse directions every minute or two. I covered in the sheets, but way too late as there was now sand EVERYWHERE! Oh well, I still managed to sleep alright somehow. We woke before sunrise. I watched a guy hike up the nearest dune and ski down! Then this Arab girl hiked up with a snowboard, she was wearing a robe and full on head scarf. It was really surreal, total culture clash as she came flying down the dune on her board!
We camelled back that morning and hit the road again. Saw a lot of amazing places and ancient cities. A lot of rural people (Berbers) in tiny towns. A lot of nomadic people as well. We went to a gorge with huge cliffs and a nice stream running through. It is a resort for Moroccan tourists. Stayed the night in a town called Ouarzazate (tough to spell and pronounce). My stomach had finally returned to normal by this point. The following day, we finished up the drive by arriving in Marrakesh. It is another imperial city like Fez, yet quite as focused on religion and art. The Medina in Marrakesh is really amazing, and the shear number of people is astonishing. In the evenings it gets incredibly packed. The main square has tons of food stalls and orange juice vendors. You can get a large glass of fresh cold orange juice for 3 durhims, which is about 40 cents. The food in Marrakesh is really good, probably the best I've had so far. We stayed at a very nice place right off the main square. We spent most of our time walking around the city and taking in the sights. There are a lot of hustlers there, much like Fez and Tangier. Lots of people yelling, trying to get you to buy stuff, getting pissed off at each other, just a lot of action in general. After two nights in Marrakesh, it was time for a break!!
We took the bus to Essaouira, a seaside town that is small and laid back. It is a HUGE change from anywhere else we have been in Morocco. The atmosphere here (it is currently our second night here) is so relaxed and carefree. There are hardly any hustlers (only 3 guys who have tried to sell me hashish). The port is really cool and the beach is amazing. Yesterday we walked along the water and through the port. We went to the fresh fish stands. You look at a huge table full of seafood, then you talk to the guy, pick out what you want, and he weighs it for you. He tells you how much, you make changes or negotiate, and agree to the full price of your meal including salad, bread, and drink. Then you sit down and they filet your fish and grill it up right in front of you! It was absolutely delicious, so today we did the same thing for lunch! Not too expensive either, once you figure out which fish and shrimp are cheapest.
Today we spent pretty much the whole day on the beach. I got quite a bit of sun, only a little burn where I missed the sunscreen. The water was much colder than I expected, not sure why. The beach is very, very flat... so you can walk 50 meters out into the water and you are only waist deep. Hardly any waves because the harbor is fairly protected. There is a lot of wind, though, and windsurfers and kitesurfers are everywhere. Looks like a lot of fun! I really like this city and am glad we decided to stay two nights. It was a great place to relax during my trip. Tomorrow we are out of here, though we aren't sure whether we are going back to Marrakesh or up to Casablanca. We want to see Casa, but not spend much time there. Apparently it is not a tourist attraction, only an industrial, economic center. We might spend one night there. We need to be back to Marrakesh by Friday as my dad flies back to Madrid from there on Saturday morning. I will stay two more nights, then fly the dreaded Ryanair from Marrakesh to Seville, Spain. I was thinking about getting a hostel for those two nights, then I read some of the hotels (they are called riads here, basically a huge house) let you crash on a mattress on their rooftop terrace! It is only 4-5 dollars a night, that sounds too good to pass up!
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