Morocco!!

God, where to start.

So, after a grand total of 2 nights in spain getting down to the south tip, we caught a short ferry into Tangier, at the very top of Morocco.

God, it was hot, and pretty intense. Seemed pretty tourist friendly, but most people struggled to speak much, if any English. Good thing I am almost fluent in French. Hugh disagrees.

So we got to tangier, and instantly made a few best friends who proceeded to follow us around for the next few hours trying to convince us that their hotel was the best in Morocco, etc. After a meal and a quick wander, we got to the station, to get tickets for our overnight train. A pretty pleasant experience, we got a bed, and as a souvenir we decided to steal the logo-embroidered pillow cases (so hardcore). The come about 8 in the morning, we got into Marrakech..

One of the few boxes I had yet to be ticked was the 'ripped off by a taxi driver', but Marrakech sorted that out, as the taxi driver originally said 40dh, but then at the end of the trip decided it was 40Dh EACH (for what we later discovered was really a 10Dh trip). Luckily with my staunch-ness and well developed bartering skills, I got it down to 60Dh for the two of us, only paying 6 times to much. Wonderful. The main square was amazing however, busy with markets and stalls all over, although very few restaurants. I'm sure you've figured out that the time of year we went was Ramadan, so all the Muslims (essentially all the locals) do not eat between sunrise and sunset. We had a wander, and managed to get spectacularly lost, which we could not understand until we realised the locals point you in the wrong direction on purpose, so then you have to get them to lead you out of the maze of winding alleyways that is the Medina, and give them a tip in reward. They've got scamming tourists down to a tee. Anyway, at night when they're allowed to eat, the whole place really comes alive. As well as the huge temporary market of restaurants, wandering through the masses of people in the square we saw a boxing match, stories, games, what Hugh believes to be a witch doctor, and a whole lot more. Ramadan is awesome.

We stayed at a pretty amazing place, very authentic, and that evening we met with Tash and Matt, a receptionist and assistant houseparent from the school I work at. We started playing cards, and decided we'd keep a tally for the entire 10 days and the winner takes a small trophy, loser a wooden spoon. Next morning we went by 7-hour train to Fez; a ridiculously hot train, with the temperature around 50 often outside, beads of sweat dripping. Fez was a very cool place, very authentic and huge Medina, the biggest traffic free city district in the world. Amongst getting completely lost, Hugh getting attacked by small african kids, seeing livestock markets and some very derelict ancient alleyways, the highlight was almost seeing a camels head on a butcher counter, just sitting there. No big deal. Eye's peacefully closed, complete, as if it were photoshopped. When the butcher realised we were taking photo's of it, he picked it up by its ear, and the sight of the skin all stretching as he picked it up is something I think will stay with me for way too long.

So after Fez, we decided to hit up Cassablanca. Although we'd been told its a pretty average city, we all wanted to be able to say we'd been there. We weren't lied to. By far the most western city in Morocco, it was nothing special, the only memorable part of the night we spent there being myself and Hugh's taxi ride from the restaurant strip to the hotel. We jumped in a taxi, and said the name of the hotel. 'oui, oui'. Idiot. He had no idea, and decided to drive around random hotels, just on the off chance he managed to find ours. With the meter running, we decided to bail, and get some directions from a nearby 5 star hotel. The apparently helpful guy at reception quickly 'googled' our hotel, wrote down the address in full, directions, and circled it on a map. What we later found out in our second taxi of the journey, was that the address he wrote, did not match the instructions. And neither matched the map. And all 3 were wrong. That was a long journey back..

Next stop Essaouira, a beach side city/town, we spent a couple of nights there, wandering around, went for a swim, was very relaxed and nice. The temperature actually dropped to around 30 degrees at one stage which was a welcome surprise, so far during morocco it had been around 45ish every day. So after that very pleasant couple of days, we went back to Marrakech for a night, and joined up for a 2 night tour out to the Sahara. Without a doubt the highlight or Morocco, and perhaps even the trip, the Sahara was absolutely amazing. On the way we passed the windy roads of the Atlas mountains, and as specky as they were, we were also just trying our best not to be sick - our driver was insane, not the slowest driver. I did start feeling quite sick at one point, and Hugh being the great friend he is, decided the best thing to do would be to take out MY toothbrush, and poke it out of the zip of his bag (refer to the facebook picture) to be assured that I wouldn't chunder on his bag. Thanks Hugh. After 2 days of specky driving, sightseeing and photo-stops, we finally reached the edge of the Sahara, where we bough headscarfes (no idea what they're actually called, refer to picures), and started out camel trip into the desert. 2 hours on a camel to our campsite, we finished just as the sun set. After dinner, we stargazed for a bit, watching some spectacular shooting stars, with the only light pollution at all being a tiny candle in the sand. Which actually managed to attract a scorpion that we later researched and found to be called a 'deathstalker', no wonder the tour leader was so quick to kill it. Out went the candle. Anyway after that we had no problem in climbing a 200m sand dune in bare feet, and stargazed again at the top, before heading back to sleep under the stars. I cannot describe the Sahara in words, being out there was one of the more amazing things I've ever done. All you can see is sand dunes, nothing remotely man made or touched by people, neither this blog of the photo's really do it justice. The next morning at sunrise we went back, and spent the whole of that day driving back to Marrakech.

Another day of wandering the Medina, and it was time to finally end my huge trip. Flew back to England, pretty keen to finally not live out of a bag. It had been about 6 and a bit weeks, and I hadn't spent more than 2 nights in one place. Looking back on it now, it was a pretty amazing experience, the spontanuity and adventure of it all, and some of the unexpected experiences.

Now its time to pay back Mummy and Daddy....

Heading west

So this my first blog in a few days, covering Rome, Pisa and Nice.

Anyway, so we ended up on a train that got to Rome at 11pm, with the intention of getting straight on an urban train to the campsite we are staying at. We were thrilled, however, when we arrived in Rome and found out the urban trains had shut down for the night, so we hung out under a doorway in the center of Rome, in one of the biggest thunderstorms I’ve seen, until about 2am when we had to suck it up and fork out 40 euros for a cab. Seeing as we’d slept on the roof of a ferry the night before, it was fair to say that we were pretty wrecked, and treated outselves to a small sleep in the next day.

Come early afternoon, Soph and I ventured into the city of Rome, to get our tourist on. We saw the must-sees like the Colloseum and the Vatican (which was a lot more impressive than I though it would be) – but apparently isn’t very beater friendly so we had to buy cringeworthy tourist shirts to cover ourselves with. Anyway, we got on a trian back to the campsite, and as I was just outside the station someone pointed out that my bag was undone. A quick check revealed that I’d been robbed; they’d opened my bag while it was on my back and taken my camera and ipod. While both were covered with travel insurance, I was pretty annoyed; I’d lost a day worth of photos. As it turns out, it ended up being extremely lucky, but more on that later.

So I hit up the police station the next morning before we left Rome, played shirades with the policeman for half an hour (he didn’t speak a word of english) and did whatever I needed to do to get my police report, then we got on a train to Pisa. First thought was ‘christ, it REALLY does lean’. No joke, someone screwed up pretty bad, that’s one crooked tower. Looks nice as well, Pisa is a pretty asthetic city, we went out for dinner and an evening walk around, loads of tourists. Bloody tourists. We had planned to visit La Spezia the following day, but we decided to chill out a bit in Pisa, fill out my insurance claim, and then find a place to buy a new camrea. What we ended up finding was the best/worst check out chick. Ever. I decided to lash out on a $350 camera that looked the bees’ knees, and found a case and memory card. Was all good, bought them at the checkout, went back to our room and got the receipt to put in my ‘safe’ folder, and.. The receipt said 22 euros. 1 camera bag, 1 memory card. Not a word about the camera. No joke, the lady at the checkout took the security tag off the camera, but must have forgotten to swipe it. I just scored $350 worth of camera for absolutely free. This has put me in a good mood ever since, I still can’t really believe it happened.

Soph and I awoke the next morning feeling remarkably average. There was a fair bit of whinging untill we realised it may well be due to the fact that we have not eaten anything other than Margharita pizza for the last 4 days; we hadn’t so much as looked at a piece of fruit or a vegedable. So we desperately hit up a supermarket, and feasted on watermelon, grapes, bananas and fruit juice. Worked like a charm - lesson learnt.

We left Pisa, said goodbye to Italy, and made our way up to Nice in the south of France for a night. Very pretty town, very touristy and pretty expensive, we met up with Hugh once again there, and went for a wander. We reall immersed ourselves in french culture as we ordered KFC for diner without a word of french being said, and went for an evening ‘wasp’ around the city, watching a pretty entertaining breakdancing show amoungst other street performances. We’re hoping to see somebody famous, but no luck so far. Now we’re on a train to Marseille for a night, before making our way to Spain, and from there Morocco. Europe is nearly over...

Serbia, Macadonia and Kosovo.

After about 20 hours of travel, we got to Belgrade, Serbia. Man that place was cheap, we could eat anything we wanted, buy pretty much anything we saw, so naturally we had a good time. That night Soph and I decided to try and find a boat party we’d heard about, but I managed to get us spectacularly lost (being lost in alleyways at midnight in Serbia is heaps of fun), so we settled to have a beer and watch a live rooftop band near the hostel. After another day of exploring Belgrade, we caught an overnight train down to Skopje, Macadonia. ‘Overnight train’ is apparently a symonim for getting drunk; we had some beers with some Dutchies, a couple of English backpackers and a swiss guy, was good fun, we were pleasantly surprised. Anyway, as soon as we ditched out bags in Skopje, we jumped on a bus to Kosovo for the day. We were expecting a war torn city, still half reduced to rubble, but we were pretty wrong. The city was alive, contruction everywhere, hard to tell that 7 years ago it was in a heavy war. There were a few telltale signs though, like speed limits for tanks alongside the limit for cars, a few ruins, and some NATO military presence still in the area. Hugh gave us all a lesson in the history of the area and the story of Yugoslavia, and me and Soph learn’t a fair bit. Then we had a restaurant meal and beer when we got back (came to about 3 euro’s each), and hit the hay.

They next day we explored Skopje (surprisingly more run down than Pristina in Kosovo), and then jumped on a train to Thessaloniki – Greece. A couple of German guys taught us a new card game that we have been playing ever since, and are getting near obsessed with. Anyway, got there at around 11pm, and it was still stinking hot, it was around 37 degrees throughout our time in Greece. Thessaoniki had a few cool sights that we saw the next day, including a fair bit of history and some cool markets, but we had only 1 night there before we went down to Athens. A big city, pretty dirty, but some interesting sights there, like the Akropolis and the first Olympic stadium, we enjoyed wandering around. But the heat drained us pretty bad, didn’t have a whole lot of energy for evening ‘activities’. We parted with Hugh the next afternon, as we got on different ferries; we went on an overnight ferry to Bari, Italy, where I am at the moment. The ferry was an experience, being backpackers we got our free deck pass included with our rail pass, and ended up playing cards with a few other Aussies until it was time to sleep, and we opted to sleep under the stars, on the helicopter pad on the roof of the ferry. Pretty windy, and cold at times, but there were some pretty good views. So now I’m at a macas in Bari, Itay, trying to connect to the internet but failing miserably due to Italys stringent anti-terrorism laws. Unfortunatly, the train we thought we might catch is booked up, and we have to now catch a train that gets us into Rome about 11pm. It’ll take serious effort to stay up until then…

So, Croatia...

We came from Budapest and spent 2 days in the capitol of Croatia, Zagreb. Not a bad city, but not particularly exciting; bit of a chill out and relax. In an effort to make eating on a few euro’s more fun, we decided to play ‘Backpacker Mastershef’ – we gave ourselves a budget of 3 euros and went supermarket shopping to see who could make the tastiest lunch. Of course I won, but apaprently due to a minor technicality I was disqualified (about 10 cents over budget). I still regard myself as the masterchef champion.

After a couple of nights there, we started the 11 hour journey down to Dubrovnik which we were all pretty excited about – we’d heard it was amazing. 6 hours on a train, followed by possibly the most amazing bus ride of my life. 5 hours hugging the south Croatian coastline, winding around the hills and cliffs. We now can also say that we’ve been to Bosnia, after driving through for about half an hour, which included a 10 minute food stop.

So we were deperately hoping that Dubrovbnik wouldn’t turn out to an anti-climactic touist trap. No way. Although there was no shortage of tourists and a few big cruise ships in the bay, Dubrovnik turned out to be one of our favourite cities. The authentic old town, surrounded by the original castle walls, was amazing, both in the day and at night. To make things better, the cheapest accomodation I could find was to get our own private appartment 10 minutes out of the town, meaning that we could cook for ourselves, which of course came in handy the following day... I don’t think I’ll be able to forget this birthday anytime soon. We first found a supermarket and bought a small cake, candles and party hats, to kick off the celebrations (yeah, we party hard), and soon after hit up the beach. Small and overcrouded but with an amazing backdrop, it was our first beach hit in 8 months, we’d all missed it. After Hugh and Soph managed to get themselves a nice sunburn, we went for another walk around the old town untill we went once again to the supermarket to stock up for a birthday fry up. I’m still not really sure what we ate, but it was delcious. Google translator said one of the words on the packet of meat was ‘neck’, but that’s all we could make out, but we weren’t fussed. Then of course that evening we went into the old town where Hugh and Soph shouted me a couple of drinks. We decided it was a good idea to get a yardglass of cocktail, but luckily made some friends to help us finish it. We then hit up a street party in the old square, before heading back to bed. Good as birthday.

So we embarked on the 5 hour bus ride once again, untill we arrived at Split, the half way point, and decided where we were going to stay that night; the options were a night there, or the overnight train. We opted for the overnight train in the end, and it payed off, with out own cabin and fully reclining seats. Now I’m sitting on the connection, on the way to Belgrade, which is our stop over on our way down to Greece. Hopefully this’ll give us a chance to do sume much needed washing, and to catch up on a bit of sleep. I’ve uploaded pictures, so you can check them out if you’re keen.

Budapest...

Coolest, hostel, ever. We stayed at a place recommended to us called Grandio Party Hostel. The online description starts with ‘You can sleep when you’re dead, so don’t expect to get any here’, and it held up to its description pretty accurately. With an on site bar, and the most relaxed atmosphere I’ve come across yet in a hostel, we got there at 9ish and were hitting the less-than-1-euro beers half an hour later. Then they took us around Budapest, visitng a few different places including a club with a live big band (which was surprisingly awesome). A few of the guys were getting quite loose, including an Aussie from perth. Anyway, so we got back in the early hours and went to bed. Untill we got woken up.

“KNOCK KNOCK, IT’S THE PIGS”. Nah they didn’t actually say that. But we did get woken up by 3 Hungaian police coming into our room and arresting said guy from Perth, who apparently ripped a number plate off a car that night. It was pretty interesting, a talking point for the rest of the day. The guy had made himself pretty unpopular that night, and was being pretty roudy so we were all quite relived when they popo took him away at 8 in the morning so we could all get some sleep.

So we had decided, as much fun as Party Hostel was, that it’d be good to get some sleep the next day, so we changed hostels to nice quiet boring place, and then spend a few hours walking around Budapest. Untill then, we hadn’t realised how great a city it is – it really is one of the more beautiful cities I’ve ever visited. The old town is amazing, with a combination of huge monuments, huge parks, huge olden style buildings, all with a really genuine and not so touristy feel. We liked it so much we decided to delay the rest of our trip by a day to spend another night there. So that night we once again met Hugh, and spent the next day sightseeing. The sherrin made an appearance at a park, which is always good. Last night was quiet as well, a couple of good nights sleep has helped us feel a little better, I’m not even a third through my travels yet, so I’m trying not to be too wrecked.

So as per normal I’m writing this on a train, this time on the way to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. We’re all pretty excited; Croatia has been built up to be something special. We’re spending 2 nights there, then heading down to Dubrovnik for another couple of ngihts, where we’ve got our own small appartment for 2 nights, and is where I’ll be spending my birthday. Should be tops.

Bratislava and Krakow.

Bratislava – Make your own fun. One of the more boring cities we’ll visit on our trip, but that isn’t to say that we didn’t have a great time. As the slogan suggests, you have to go out looking for fun, but you can find it. We arrived to a bit of a bumpy start; the 10 minutes it was supposed to take to get to the hostel turned into about an hour, due our difficulty in telling the difference between a bus and a tram (no we’re not actually that retarded, the bus did look a little like a tram). Anyway, from the lack of tourists and abundance of strange stares we got we figured this stop might have been a mistake. A wander around the city the next day however proved that the city is actualy quite nice, with a nice view from a hilltop castle and the fact everything was cheap as chips.

So I’ll try not to bore you with too many details, but that night we met a couple of dutchies and a couple of english guys and all went out for a drink or two. We got a few more strange stares in our first bar when the shot we ordered with out first beer turned out to be eggnog, not quite the usual party starter. We hit up the best club in town, which we were convinced was playing ‘So Fresh; the hits of summer 2004’ from a CD player behind the bar. But the night got better, and reached a climax when we found a trolley at the top of a small hill and we [I] thought a good bit of trolley surfing would be reasonably harmless. The police that pulled us over just as I hit a curb and fell out didn’t seem to think so. They checked our ID’s, muttered something under their breath (I assume it was something along the lines of ‘bloody tourists’) then burned off. The ‘almost get arrested by european police’ box has now been ticked. What menaces to society we are.

Then, after sleeping through 3 alarms the next morning, we finally got up and caught 3 trains to Krakow. Unlike Bratislava, Krakow rocks. Cheaper, cooler, more to see and do, and our hostel was one of the best I’ve stayed at, Soph spent the best part of the next two days ranting about the all you can eat breakfast (?). Spent half a day wandering around the city, and the other half at Auschwitz, which was heavy man. Also, turns out that if you buy the cheapest antihistamines from a chemist, they might not be non-drowsy. I fell asleep at 2pm. Then on the train on the way back we made a new friend who we named Trent from Poland (a play on words from the youtube character ‘Trent from punchy’, for the foreign or youtube n00bs). After singing an amazingly enthusiastic rendition of the sex pistols, complete with lap drums and vocals, he prodecded to strip and show us his stomach tattoo’s, then left dragging his cap on the ground via a piece of gum attached to his arse. Classy stuff.
I miss Trent from Poland.

That evening we had a rendevouz with Hugh in Krakow and went for a beer, and this morning we set off for a marathon 10 hours of trains to get to Budapest, where we have booked a hostel called Grandio Party Hostel that suggests if you intend to sleep before 3am, you should drink enough to pass out. Should be an interesting night to say the least. So I’m in the waiting room of a train station, waiting for a train that may or may not be 50 minutes late (if only I could understand Czech). Getting on a train, then finding out where it’s going seems to be the order of events now. We, like, totally know what we’re doing.

Dusseldorf, the Love Parade, and Soph.

Righto. So I left Paris at 5 in the arvo after splitting with Hugh, and travelled up do Dusseldorf in Germany. So I got to my hostel, only to find no staff there whatsoever, but istead a group of drunk Irish, English and Australians – so naturally I chilled out with them a bit and shared some stories. They were all there for the Love Parade in a couple of days time. More on that later.

So I spent the day walking around Dusseldorf by myself, checking out the sights and cool stuff like that; there is this tower 180 meters above sea level where the observation deck turns a full circle every day, kind of like the revoling reastaurant at the casino back home. Anyway, went up there to check out the view, which was pretty cool, then just wandered about the river, doing normal touristy stuff, untill that evening where I met Soph at the train station. Coool as. We went to our hostel, and had a beer and shared stories and photo’s for a fair bit.

Anyway, the next day was the interesting bit. Amazing and sad at the same time; I’m sure you’ve probably heard what happened at the Love Parade. 1.4 million people. Amazing atmosphere and vibe (up untill about 5 that evening), reasonably well organised and masses of people. It was supposed to be a free concert and parade celebrating love, with some of the worlds best DJ’s; apparently its the worlds biggest techno festival. As the photo’s on facebook show, the whole thing was surreal, I’ve never seen more people in one spot in my life. At one stage my pants ripped, but then a random german happened to have a sewing kit and fixed them for me, which was a pleasant surprise. But of course the tragedy that evening was the stampede in one of the tunnels leading to the stage area that left 19 (and counting) dead, and over a hundred injured. Scary stuff, had we left Dusseldorf a little later, we may well have been involved. Luckily though Soph, Gareth (an Aussie we befriended) and myself were all OK, we didn’t even realise what had happened untill later that night, around 11 o’clock. DJ’s were told to play on, so as not to cause another stampede of people leaving, but from the evening onwards, the crowds started to get smaller and smaller. Later that night, everyone was in a very solemn mood, masses of people on their phone to their mothers in reassurance they’re ok, police and ambulances EVERYWHERE. It was a pretty scary end to a night that had started off with the potential to be so amazing.

So Soph and I pulled an all nighter that night, having a marathon 3 hour facebook session in the early hours, untill we left Dusseldorf at 6 in the morning on our way to Prague for a night, and then on to Bratislava. About 2 hours ago, I fell asleep againt a door of the train, and when it stopped and the door opened I fell out. Sad christmas.

So I’m sitting on the ground in a corridor of the train, after having no sleep last night and not having had a huge amount at all to eat in the last 18 hours. To he honest, I’m pretty looking forward to a nice granny nap and a shower when we get to Prague, before we wander around the old town at night.

The whole experience of the Love Parade, for the good bits and the bad, will be one that will stick with me for life I’m sure.