ABDA Safi

Safi is charming Oceanside town with a huge factory obstructing a serious part of the ocean view. Known for its pottery it features a lovely Medina (walled old city) with tiny alleys, pottery shops, fish sandwich stalls, and some of the most beautiful men I've ever seen. In the evening I was sweet-talked by Ahmad, a local who supposedly was charmed by my wearing a djellaba and was going to treat me for tea at a nearby cafe. He turned ...

... pact to return here on the way out of Morocco. Around lunchtime I met an old friend of mine who I hadnt seen since Mexico (Stomach bug, entire afternoon looking at the decore in the bathroom.. you get the drift) so Proudy had a dip and I wrote off the rest of the day. I came good around sunset and we walked down the beach (holding hands of course) to get a better lookat the point. When it started to get dark we headed ...

... managed to get in a couple trips to the ocean and got a particularly thorough tour of the old palace ruins. It's amazing how much more you get to see when your guide is a 10-year-old. Though I've been back to visit several times over the past couple years, sometimes I still have my head stuck in the past and forget that the little kids who used to ...

... sort of a cross between a sauna and a beauty parlor. Women go once or twice a week to bathe and gossip. For Moroccan women a visit to the bath can be an all-afternoon event and they usually have mountains of stuff they take with them including at least four layers of fresh new clothes to put on afterward (wouldn't want to catch cold!). Even bathing at a liesurely pace I tend to be in and out in under an hour, take only ...

... paying for there bags so we tried to be awkward and walk around the bus and put our bags in that side, but then an english guy came over and said this is the way they usually do it so we just went along with it, were pretty sure we got charged some tourist tax though! The bus journey there was three hours long and claire and chris sat behind me and i was sat on my own on the seat until just before we were about to leave and a guy came and sat next to me ...

... son Constant in Barcelona where we all enjoyed tapas and dinner into the wee hours of the morning. Thanks again Philippe! On the coast we were joined by Brad and Georgene from Baraboo where we enjoyed a week of beautiful weather and fun together. Then onto the distinctly Moorish influence in Granada and Cordoba where we saw just a hint of what we were to find in Morocco. Lions and tigers and bears oh my! This has gotten too long so I'll sign off. T& D

Essouira... The night before leaving for Essouira out of Imintanoute, we packed and prepared our food carefully- ready for a 90 plus mile day (our longest yet). We were determined to make it all the way there, but unsure of the terrain as our (Michelin) map lacks a elevation key and the color chart is shoddy and unreliable. A sale map, what cabn ya do... The morning was freezing cold in the mountains, and we bundled up for the frosty ride out of town, fingertips chipping off. The ...

Sunday, time to go home. Of course, we couldn't do things the easy way!!! A big thanks goes out to Thompson Fly for our 7 or so hour delay on our flight!!! boy was I glad to get home that night, at one stage it looked like we were stuck in Morocco!! enough said!!!

Passeport en main on est parti pour safi, histoire de sapprocher de la frontiere mauritanienne ah et vaccin aussi. Cest fou le nombre de bibitte qu il y a la. Safi, rien a dire cest po mal ennuyeux on est vite parti. Encore une fois on a fait la grasse matinée pour apprendre que cest la fin du congé marocain et que tout les car sont complet. Zut plan B . bon ben on va aller a souria, ya une plage et un camping. Seulemet arrivé la bas ya pas de camping... bon ...

... for swimmers, but there were a few kite surfers out. At the far end, we came across sand crabs and little turtles amongst the twigs and ocean vegetation washed up by the tide. Hopeful camel owners pestered us to take a camel ride to Jimi Hendrix's house. It's hard to believe that it's almost Christmas as we've seen no sign of it in the Muslim countries we've been to. (No doubt everyone at home has been inundated with Christmas ...