Tanjah Flandria Hotel Tangier

... the way to Casablanca. It didn’t seem like long until we were there and said
goodbye to Nick, we continued on, the train slowly becoming late at each stop.
A 15 minute wait in the middle of no where, then a 20 minute on again a bit
later, until we finally came to a standstill for about 2 hours, a kilometre
from a little town. People finally gave up and started walking for town, so we
decided to follow to, and walked along the train tracks until we found a
station and ...

... than expected. Our stay in Tangier was quite uneventful and short.  Tangier is known for it's hustlers so we didn't feel like staying here too long.  We stayed a night in pretty run down hotel and made our way down to Fez he next morning. Next stop: Fez, Morocco

... into Erik Dronen (from Signal Hill) at the Madrid airport. He lives and works in Madrid, and he was looking for his bags, none of which were there. Sucks to be Erik! BOTH of my bags were there ... hooray! I had to mail one of my bags to Switzerland from the Madrid airport (which I was planning to do), because Europe has stupid baggage allowances. However ...

... us of his three current wives as a way to destroy any notions that he might be in his words a ¨homo¨. When the homo word popped up, of course everyone on the bus just paused...all eyes on me....I guessed by then that homosexuality was kind of a no-no in Morocco. He was very awkward...he would randomly burst out in Arabic, French, Swahili, English, or Spanish...we had two of his five languages covered but the others just baffled us. I don´t know, I ...

... Let them eat cake. We have also learned that non-Muslims can buy liquor if they succeed in convincing a store owner to open his Aladdin's cave of booze and show a passport, a bit of a process for a beer we thought. Where are we gonna get the drinks for Nadias birthday? We also unknowingly commited the sin of smoking cigarettes in the main square and people were yelling Ramadan, Ramadan at us. They meant it too and we dont want to be on the wrong end of an ...

... I breeze through the border confidently, although my car is searched for drugs, including taps all over the body to see if there are any hidden in some secret compartment. A quick look around Ceuta then I drive on to the ferry and a short time later am back in Europe. Although I have been in Morocco for a month and have seen a fair bit of it I feel I have barely skimmed the surface. The lack of speaking the language and the difficulty in speaking in any depth with people (and ...

... for her wild parties, Painter Henri Matisse, the Beats: Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs (who subsequently wrote 'The Naked Lunch' in the hotel we stayed in). Paul Bowles ex-pat, novelist, play-wright, composer, and the seeming inspiration for me to make a trip to Morocco; the city of Tangier has a list of resident artists far longer then my arm. We had come to see the Tanjazz festival, after dragging our luggage across town, and chowing down on ...

On our way to Chefchaouen we stopped at Tetouan and I experienced my first Moroccan market, a sure culture shock. It was in the Medina, which is the old walled part of town. The first thing that hit me as we walked into the crowds of people was the smell of rotten chicken and their excrement. Walking through this wasn't particularly nice either, I really wished I wasn't wearing flipflops as the grimy water ran down the cobbled ...

... glasses of the national drink , Mint Tea, syrupy sweet. After an hour and a half we were finally cleared to leave the customs area. next stop is the kiosk which sells vehicle insurance where we can only buy either 10 days worth or a month. We're planning about 12-3 days so are stuck with about 88 euros worth of insurance. the bank is nearby, and thankfully accepts our bank card so now we have Dirhams and are ready to hit the road. 10 ...

... and more than I could eat. Our guide, who for a reason I never found out had only one arm, finally arrived. We paid for a taxi to carry us all to the old city. He gave us a little information as we drove by the palace and the gardens. We got out at the entrance to the medina. The medina of Fes is like another world. It is in essence a market that has grown to fill the entire old city. It's enormous, literally a city in itself, and very easy to get lost in. It is crammed with ...