A Week in Marrakesh

Tonight is sadly the last night of our trip as tomorrow night we leave from Casablanca just after midnight. We've been in Marrakesh, Morocco for about a week now relaxing, exploring, and, of course, shopping. It's a beautiful city and the hotels (or better the riads) are by far the best part. Last night and tonight we decided to go out with a bang and took out the big suite at Riad Akka. Though you couldn't tell from the number of tourists here, July and August are the low season apparently for riad accommodation so we got a bit of a deal. It's a really great place, only 5 rooms, and structured around a very charming courtyard complete with plunge pool. Last night we ate in and had a beautiful meal prepared for us. Far better than anything we ate in the supposedly nice restaurants (just tourist traps) around Djemaa El-Fna.

A quick story: As we're in a Muslim country, getting a glass of wine can be both a challenge and expensive (if you want something imported). We managed to find a liquor store with a few imported bottles of wine. After a little deliberation, we settled on a bottle from Argentina. Imagine our surprise when the strong red wine came out of the bottle a medium to dark brown and smelling rather like a port!

Djemaa El-Fna itself is a mind-boggling mix of people. At night it gets so packed that it is difficult to move. The orange juice vendors are experts at deception and quickly turn your 10 Dirham into 5 (minus 3 more for the OJ). Otherwise, the hightlights are definitely the food stalls with good, quick, cheap food and the date vendors selling dates of various quality. It's nice to be in a place that is a mixture of tourists and locals. It seems everyone in the city must venture out there each night.

I'll catch up on all the pictures from home in Boston and make a link here later. With no little sorrow I must say goodbye for now. Thanks for reading if you've made it this far!  Hopefully I'll see you soon back in the US!

Wormholed to the Sahara Desert

In keeping with my last post, I'm going to gloss over a few things for now (like uploading any pictures from Egypt for the time being) as I wanted to write a little about our last adventure: a 4x4 into the Sahara Desert.

We arrived in Ouarzazate two days ago looking to hire a 4x4 to self-drive into the desert near M'Hamid (no Wikipedia page). Apparently this is not something that happens often (driving without a guide) as it took near 5 hours and visits to around 10 agencies to find an available car with 4-wheel drive. Anyways, we got it done and showed up the next morning to collect our ride. 7 hours later and after driving straight to the end of the paved road in Morocco, we arrived in M'Hamid.

To describe the village it helps to keep in mind that it really is at the very, very end of the road, 250 kilometers from Ouarzazate (a town that most people have probably never heard of to begin with). If you accidentally drive off the paved road at the end of the town, well, you are in the Sahara Desert.

To help with visualization, here's a map (the big grey line is Algeria theoretically, the light yellow means that the road is just one lane total for both directions of traffic / playing lots of chicken):

Agrandir le plan

Now before you get all upset as to us driving out into the desert without a guide keep in mind that I'm writing this now so I'm obviously OK. Also, we really only intended to drive as far as M'Hamid and then pick up a guide there to take us the additional 60 kilometers out into the desert to Erg Chigaga, a massive sand dune field 40 kilometers long and up to 100 meters high. Cause really we didn't want to drive out into the desert alone anyways.

Now, most of the people that head out into the desert here have a guide (and a driver) and sleep in an organized camp. We decided to try and find a guide that would just sleep next to (or in) the car with us and buy our own food. Luckily it worked out that the first place we stopped at in M'Hamid guide shopping simply said we could forget the guide and just follow them as they drove out to their camp. A few minutes later and after agreeing to give the musicians a ride to the camp, we arranged to follow the car for free.

The camp was basically a circle of tents near the start of the dune field. After a couple of stops along the way, we arrived just at sunset. After a quick trot to the top of a dune, we slept a little ways away on the ground next to our car so as to be alone and also to not impose on the camp that the others had paid a substantial amount to stay in. Dinner consisted of canned corn and chickpeas, bread and strawberry jelly, processed cheese, and water. Lots of water...

It was all a really spectacular adventure. The driving, sleeping, and just being among massive dunes was a great experience. In my bliss, I've uploaded just a few quick pictures so you can have a look at the trip.

By the way, trying to sleep in the Sahara in August is like trying to sleep inside a hair dryer... That blows sand all over you...

Je Ne Blog Pas Maintenant

Bonjour from Morocco. We've done and seen quite a bit so far, and I hope to write all about it very shortly. For the eager: Fes and the Todra Gorge. One might be surprised how far my Franglais goes in this country of Arabic and French speakers.

So Close to Saudi Arabia

All done here in Dahab, Egypt.  I've spent our four days here diving with the nice people from Fantasea.  Here's a site if you're interested that lists some of the dives around here.  The best dive for me was the dive from "The Bells" to the "Blue Hole".  After going under water, you drop down a crack about 2-3 persons wide and descend to 30 meters or so.  Around there is a little arch you swim under.  Then it's around a corner to the right and you're along a huge 90 meter vertical wall of reef.  The deepest I'm able to go is 30 meters though, but we passed over a few technical divers quite a bit lower down.  I also dove "The Canyon" twice, once really early in the morning before any one else was even near the site as well as another dive near there simply called "Canyon Right."  "Um Sid" is also mentioned on that page above, and we did the "Golden Blocks" near that location as well.

I spent 3 dives on the training reef "Lighthouse" to get my advanced certification.  It's a little boring there, but one was a night dive.  Being down there when it's completely dark is amazing!  There are little plankton in the sea that glow in the dark when you wave your hands back and forth very much like a special effect.  It's really something to see when you shut off your flashlight and hard to believe it's not a cartoon.

Otherwise it was pretty crowded at the really popular sites, but the less well-known spots were nearly empty.  Of course, they're not as spectacular but neither are the popular sites when you can barely swim for fear of running into another diver.  Oh, and I also have to mention the "Canyon Right" dive...  After swimming out in water about 15 meters deep or so, you come to a reef cliff that you more or less launch yourself over and free descend to 30 meters.  That is definitely the closest thing to flying I've experienced.

And of course, we end each day watching the sun cast a red glow on the shore of Saudi Arabia, just 20 or so kilometers away.

Greetings from the Deep.

We're off to Morocco tomorrow!  First person to guess what this is (if you can even make it out) wins a prize.

The Sights and Sounds of Egypt

We've been here in Egypt for a little over a week now.  About half of our time was spent in Cairo and the other, slightly larger half here in Luxor.  The heat this time of the year is stupendous and some monuments we've visited are listed among the hottest places in the world!  Egypt itself has a very well developed tourist infrastructure.  In fact it's so well developed that it's hard to catch much else going on in the country other than in Cairo.  

The Pyramids of Giza are located just outside of Cairo, and it's hard to believe just how close the suburbs of the city have come.  It's also hard to believe that you're there when you're there, and they are truly amazing to see.  The other big stop in Cairo is the Egyptian Museum which is more of a stock pile of unlabeled and fascinating ancient artifacts.  The best thing to see there (and the only thing actually cared for) are the mummies.  Well worth the extra US$ 20.

Luxor is the ancient capital of Egypt (or at least for a while) and there are truly spectacular ruins and tombs to see here.  The Valley of the Kings is probably #1 on the travel site list but I found Deir el-Bahri to be nearly as amazing as the pyramids themselves.  Medinat Habu was another very interesting stop and our last on the West Bank here was the Colossi of Menmom (spelling?) that I can't seem to find the link to at the moment.

We were lucky to find a good taxi driver that took us to see the exact places we requested.  Of course, this wasn't without some hassle from a guide and a bunch of people claiming to be our driver's brother (also happened to be filling in for him).  Sure enough, our driver was always exactly where he said he would be.

Not much else to report other than I've made friends with the guys at the local internet cafe playing Fifa (a soccer video game).  Off to Sinai tonight to start some more diving tomorrow!  I'm hoping to complete an advanced course so I will be able to have guided dives to 30 meters (100 feet).  Hurray!

Adios.

Conflict Zone Flyover and Pictures

Greetings from Zurich! I can't believe I'm here either. En route to our 3 hour layover, we had a short tour of some of the worst conflict zones in Africa. As we departed Tanzania, we may have been able to see small Rwanda just on the left of the horizon. A little past that, and you're in the Congo. As we flew north, we entered (and stopped over in) Kenya which has had recent turbulence. Departing Nairobi carried us north just past the edge of bordering Somalia and into Sudan. Happy times!

In other news, I've taken the time here to upload pictures from India through Tanzania.