Follow Quark Around The World

We’re home. It’s hard to say how I feel about it; I’m happy, but a part of me misses wandering already. There aren’t many surprises here at home. Richard was able to put it into words when he said, “It’s like we never left, isn’t it?” Yes it is. Looking back, it feels like we were gone such a short time, such a long time ago. My memories are already starting to fade. I think back to our time in Hong Kong and it feels like a trip I took as a child, or a movie I saw once.

But not everything is as it was when we left. The car battery was so dead the car wouldn’t stay running without a new one. I can’t find any of my things and the memories of even owning them are so fuzzy that I can’t imagine where I would have kept them. The worst was locating a pair of socks. It’s been three days and I just discovered my sock drawer an hour ago.

I’ve been slowly adjusting my sleep schedule; I couldn’t stay awake in the evening and today, when I slept past 6am, I considered it a huge achievement.

Our cats remember us. We, however, had forgotten how misbehaved they can be. I am also shocked and concerned to hear that one of our cats has a cheese addiction.

While this is a free country, I realize now that we’ve had to give up a lot of freedom. When I look around I see how uptight we are. Now that I’ve traveled a bit, I can see the contrast. We have so many rules, speed limits, warning signs, hand railings, helmets, neon vests… Don’t get me wrong, these things are good, but we don’t have them simply because they’re great innovations; it’s because we can’t be trusted to take care of ourselves. It does, on the other hand, show how much we value the well being of each and every person.

I’m really glad to have seen the world. I’m grateful for the opportunity. What a privilege it is to be able to travel freely nearly everywhere. One thing I know now - Canada is, without a doubt, an excellent country to call home. We’ve got money, education and protection. We’re free to criticize our government and form our own opinions. It’s a huge country and I like to think we have everything we need, which isn’t exactly true, but I figure we probably have enough resources that we could build huge climate controlled domes for growing fruits and vegetables. We could create domed tropical resorts too… but never mind.  Perhaps the most shocking revelation is this: Canadians are in fact nice people. We’re way more polite than most. I will never, ever complain about standing in a slow moving, civilized line again. It will only remind me how lucky I am. Sure, there are a lot of problems in Canada, but they’re the kind of problems that only demonstrate that this is the greatest country on Earth, next to Japan… just kidding.

This is it. The end of our journey. Our last evening abroad. I can't believe it's over. Finally. Already. I feel relieved, but sad too and definately confused. I have no idea what I'll be doing when I get home. Not tomorrow. Nor in a week, a month, a year. I'm starting to think that the real journey will begin once I'm back in Calgary.

But I do know one thing for certain - it's cold in Calgary. So mom, if you read this in time, could you please bring my long winter coat to the airport with you?

I do intend to write one more blog once I'm back (all kinds of interesting things can and do happen on international flights), and I still need to write a 'conclusion' as I was taught in English class. So in the next few days I'll post one final entry. I'll make Rich write one too.

We fly out of Heathrow tomorrow and I'll be seeing some of you very soon!

Actually, they're cousins, not leprechauns. I found out today that some of the Irish actually believe in leprechauns.

Speaking of the Irish, we’re in Ireland right now. We really haven’t done much and haven’t seen much. I’ve got cousins living here and we’re hanging out at their place. We have seen some of the countryside north of Dublin and it’s quite lovely. Cold though. We’ve had frost the last couple of mornings.

Not much else to tell you really…

We’re just 3 days from going home and we’re looking forward to it, but we’re not getting too anxious or anything, just chilling out ‘til then.

We’ve posted a few pictures, but the Leprechauns kept running off before I could get a picture.

See you soon!

Greetings from London. It’s chilly, but we had a dry and nearly sunny day so we’re not complaining. It’s a big city and by big I mean really huge. It took something like an hour to get from the airport to our hotel in the tube – otherwise known as the subway. We’re getting the hang of the lingo. It’s weird though; it’s our first English country since Singapore and we’ve actually had trouble interpreting the signs here. Sure, it’s English, but what does it mean?

The city has a strange feel that I can’t identify. There are a few little things that stand out: the tabloids that everyone seems to be reading on the subway, the city wide video surveillance (it’s creepy). The police do carry guns, by the way. I even saw a machine gun today. It’s a nice city, well maintained and clean. The people seem friendly. But there’s something odd about this place and I’m not sure I like it.

But it’s been a long day. We saw the sights: Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Buckingham and Westminster Abbey. We stopped at Piccadilly Circus and walked through St. James’s park. Then, after lunch, we hit the museums. We went to the Museum of Natural History and the Science Museum. They were not only free, but good. We didn’t see everything in the museums of course, just some of the highlights.

The sun set early today (we’re further north now and we’re not used to the short days) so we saw London at night on our way back to the hotel. We discovered the river walk and some neat cobblestone streets lined with pubs and restaurants.

Tate Modern was open in the evening and we decided to check out some modern… ahem “art”. I have to admit that while I disliked most of the art, much of it is indeed art in the true sense of the word, but I just don’t see how anyone could associate the word ‘art’ with two square meters of orange paint. It’s not art, it’s a color. The artist didn’t create orange; they can’t claim it as their own. I think the plaque said that the unmodulated color was absorbing and disorienting. I found the beige wall behind it had much the same effect. I was also a bit annoyed with the description – they could have summed up nicely with: Orange, 2.3 X 1.7m.

I guess an orange line on canvas is a little more like art. The artist didn’t create orange or invent the line, but the combination of the two must have taken a bit of creativity. Hard to imagine it hasn’t been done before though.

But to prove that we’re not completely uncultured, there was one painting in the museum that both of us liked; Spitz by Bernard Frize. (Sorry, no online pictures, you’ll have to visit London to see it).

And that’s about it for now. We can’t afford to stay in London – the cheapest hotel we could find is costing $120 CAD per night and meals are outrageous. This internet access is costing us more than $15 CAD, but we needed it to sort out our day tomorrow. We’re heading to Birmingham to see my cousin Jordan and his wife Lis. Maybe we won’t do much of anything there besides visiting… and laundry...

 

We crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangiers to Tarifa, Spain because some guy at the port told us to. Really, this goes against everything we’ve learned this year, but when we did some digging of our own, it turned out that the guy was telling the truth. Tarifa was closer, cheaper and there was a free bus from there to Algecieras (our original destination). But when we got to Tarifa, we didn’t want to leave. It’s a really nice little town with a great beach, lots of cafes and restaurants, a huge grocery store, a tourist office and we found a great hotel that didn’t cost too much. We ended up staying two nights. We spent an afternoon on the beach – it was quite relaxing.

We then went to Seville for a couple of nights, one of them bringing in the New Year. One of Spain’s traditions is to eat twelve grapes at midnight, one each second as the bell tolls. The grapes represent the twelve months of the year and if you manage all twelve in twelve seconds, you’ll have twelve months of good luck in the year to come. So Rich and I each bought a cup with twelve grapes in it and we went to the town square where everybody gathered. There were hundreds of people watching the clock tower with handfuls of grapes and champagne bottles ready to be popped. As midnight approached, Rich dropped one of his grapes. Naturally, he declined to pick it up. He figured, eleven months of good luck in one year wasn’t too bad.

There was no countdown or anyone on a loudspeaker, just people waiting for the clock to strike twelve. It was exciting, but when midnight should have come, nothing happened. It seems the clock bells didn’t work. They chimed at 11:30, but I guess they weren’t working on the hour… Anyway, it became obvious that something was awry so people just started cheering and wolfing down grapes and spraying champagne into the crowd. I tried to eat my grapes (12 in 12 seconds isn’t as easy as it seems). Richard tried one and said ‘yuck’.

There were a lot of cheap fireworks going off in the square and a few hot air paper balloons with candles in them were set free. I wonder where and how those balloons come down. I’d think they could be a fire hazard. I don’t know how the fireworks don’t cause injuries since they were being shot into the crowd and so many seemed to misfire. Add to that all the alcohol consumption and it’s a wonder there weren’t several injuries – but everything seemed to come out okay. Maybe we just have too many unnecessary laws in Canada. Anyhow, things didn’t get any more interesting as time went on. We didn’t stay out too late, I think we were asleep by two o’clock.

On New Year’s Day, we wandered around a bit in Seville. It turns out it’s a really beautiful city. They have some amazing parks, squares, streets, churches and buildings. It was also really nice wandering around on a holiday – no cars and lots of people. I think Seville would be amazing in the summer.

After just two nights in Seville, we jumped on a bus to Lisbon. We were absolutely shocked to find out that we weren’t allowed to take any food on the bus. It’s a 6 hour trip! We brought snacks! All kinds of junk food – comfort food for the journey ahead. We said “okay, we won’t eat on the bus,” but that wasn’t good enough. They told us to put our food in the luggage hold. We had peanut butter sandwiches in a shopping bag and I couldn’t imagine how they would survive the journey in the luggage compartment, but I chucked them on top of the suitcases. Luckily, they didn’t ask to look in Richard’s backpack which contained the granola bars, chips, chocolate and juice boxes that we’d stocked up on. So we brought it on the bus with us. As it turns out, people were eating on the bus anyway (the driver didn’t care and he was the only employee on the bus). So we ate too. We stopped halfway and retrieved our sandwiches from below. They weren’t too squished. It was just weird though. It’s true, many people are pigs and they’ll make a mess if you give them the right tools, but it’s a six hour trip and the bus was full of adults. I would think chewing gum should be prohibited too. Not to mention that a rule as stupid as that really needs to be enforced, otherwise, why bother? Everything else about the trip was okay, I guess, other than the really old, bad movies they were showing, dubbed in Spanish of course.

So, yes, we’re in Lisbon. It’s nice here too. It’s a bit of a worn down, shabby city, but it has a lot of character and charm. The custard tarts are to die for and we got some great views of the city from the castle on the hill. The weather is kinda weird; dark and cloudy, bright and sunny, dark again, chilly and wet then sunny and hot again…. Sometimes calm, sometimes windy… I don’t know. It’s like it can’t decide. Richard’s feet are soaked, but otherwise we’ve been able to stay mostly dry. At least it’s not that cold.

Tomorrow we fly to London. We’re sorry we didn’t see more of Portugal, but it’ll still be here in years to come.

Driving through Morocco was interesting. It’s a country with a rather diverse geography; desert, oases, rock, cacti, mountains, forests, beaches and more. We were surprised to find alpine resorts and huge cedars on our way north.

Having a car was both good and bad. It gave us some flexibility and control, and we like being able to open the windows, turn up the heat, stop for pictures and take restroom breaks whenever we liked. We were able to avoid taxis in the cities and we liked stopping to spend the night anyplace that looked inviting. We also got a chance to drive through some cedar forests full of Barbary apes (I don’t know, I think maybe they’re just extra fuzzy monkeys). They’re great climbers and we got to watch them picking lice out of each other’s fur. Naturally, they eat the lice. We also saw them doing the wild thing.

The roads are great in Morocco, or at least I’d call them very good. They’re like highways in Alberta, paved but sometimes narrow and rough. The real trouble with driving in Morocco is that the other drivers aren’t very careful or considerate. On the narrow highways, none of the oncoming traffic moved over to make room for us. We always did, because we didn’t want to get hit, but it’s disturbing to see an old Mercedes come barreling down the middle of the road at 120 kph while you’re clinging to the shoulder and hoping it will all be over soon.

The pedestrians in Morocco are even worse. First of all, everybody wants you to stop. Everyone wants a ride or wants to sell you something, and they’re very aggressive about letting you know. We had more than one person jump out in front of the car and force us to stop. Others would point at our tires or front grille in an effort to convince us there was something wrong. But stopping for any reason can get you into trouble. We had many conversations through the car windows and they were fine up until the part where people wanted money or a lift in your direction. We felt guilty at times, but we never gave anyone a ride. We didn’t feel comfortable and we were sure that would end up costing us some money somehow.

There are a lot of police check stops in Morocco. We only got stopped once because Rich failed to stop at a sign neither of us saw. I think maybe it was behind a parked car.

Gas was pricey, when you could find it. It was over $1.50 Canadian per liter. Fortunately, our car had a big tank.

Parking was difficult. There aren’t a lot of parking lots and there is no such thing as a meter. You just pull up to a curb somewhere and an ‘attendant’ will help you park and then ‘watch’ your car while you’re gone. All of this means you have to pay him when you return – if you don’t, he’ll jump in front of the car as you’re pulling away.

The city streets are chaotic. Most of the cities have sidewalks, but everyone walks on the street anyway. They cross wherever they like and they don’t always pay attention to the cars. The other drivers were swerving around us and honking their horns to encourage us to run over people. It was ridiculous.

Returning the car turned out to be just as difficult. First, it took us a couple of hours just to find the place, or for that matter, figure out how to get onto the street it was on. Then we had to park a block away. And the office wasn’t open. We waited ten minutes or so, and then called the assistance number to ask what was going on. We were told to keep waiting. Somebody did come eventually and the rest turned out okay.  We used Avis, I can’t imagine how much trouble a lesser rental agency would have been.

After all that waiting we missed the first ferry across the straight of Gibraltar. We were disgusted to hear that the next fast ferry was a four hour wait and that the slow ferries took twice as long to cross. But as it turns out, we spoke to a local who recommended crossing to Tarifa, Spain instead, then taking the bus from there. He didn’t ask for a tip, so we’re still a little stunned by his generous hint, but it sure is nice to leave a country on a high note. As for Tarifa, Spain… we love it here! And the ferry ticket was a little cheaper too.

Internet access isn´t very traveller friendly in Spain (that´s where we are). So we´ve got pics and stuff, but we can´t upload yet... soon!

Have a happy and safe New Year! (We´ll be partying in Seville).

 

We’re at the edge of the Sahara Desert and it’s absolutely stunning. There is a big set of huge sand dunes here, it’s called an Erg. From what I understand, the Sahara isn’t all sand, it’s mostly mountains, rock and dirt and from the top of the big dunes we got a good look in all directions. There do seem to be some mountains and while we can see more sand dunes on the horizon, the space in between is mostly rock and dirt.

The dunes here are amazing. I think I read that the big dune here, called the High Dune, is the biggest in Morocco. The sand is really nice, so nice that any beach resort in the entire world would want this sand if they could get it. It’s a nice color, a little pink from a distance and it’s the kind of sand that just falls off of you when you stand up. It does tend to collect in your shoes and pockets though.

We climbed the high dune today - not easy, but once we were on top we were able to walk around the whole thing, from peak to peak, on rather hard sand. We really enjoyed causing sand slides and running down the slopes of soft sand. I tried to get a snowboard for the day, but I couldn’t find one. I think it would be fun though.

The town here, Merzouga, is at the foot of the dunes in a dry lake bed. Strangely enough, it does rain occasionally and it actually rained both days we were here. Apparently, the town gets really wet and it suffered a nasty flood a while back.

The people here are Berber, not Arab. They sell all kinds of souvenirs, including rugs. The desert is full of minerals and semi-precious stones, so we’ve seen everything from jewelry to tea sets in silver and turquoise and a million other stones I don’t remember. They also use camel bone and leather for other things.

It gets really cold here at night, probably close to freezing some nights. Really it wouldn’t be so bad, but there’s no heating in our room, so it gets down to 13 Celsius in there. Richard made a little tent, I wore my toque.

We’re moving on today, heading north for Fes. Not sure when we’ll have internet again, but Quarks battery seems to be working again and we have a car, so it’s easy to seek out unsecured signals.

Hope Christmas is going well for everyone – no coal in your stockings… we have sand in ours!

Eid El-Kebir turned out to be much less terrifying (also less interesting) than we’d expected. Most of the shops and restaurants closed for two or three days while people feasted on sheep to honor Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his son. We did notice a lot of sheep leading up to the feast. Every grindstone in Marrakech had been dragged out to the street so people could get their knives and hatchets sharpened at the last minute. On the morning of Eid, we saw a lot of sheep on motorbikes. I know that sentence may invoke a certain image, so I’ll clarify; the sheep were not driving, I doubt they could handle it with their hooves, though I’m sure if they’d known where they were going, they would have tried to flee the city to escape their demise. No, the sheep were riding on the backs of the motorcycles, either tied on or being held. I noticed that not one was wearing a helmet.

By 10 AM on Eid, there were no more bleating sheep about, just bloody sheep skins and burning sheep heads. I don’t know why they burn the heads, maybe to keep them from rotting, but even after seeing them in fires all day, we were a little surprised to find a box of burnt sheep heads in the lobby of our hotel upon our return.

We didn’t stay in Marrakech all that long. We rented a car and took to the highway to see more of Morocco. We drove through High Atlas Mountains, The Dades Valley, Todra Gorge and now the edge of The Sahara Desert. We’re having a great time.

We know it’s almost Christmas, though it was nothing here that tipped us off. It’s chilly in some places (cold at night) but it’s not cold like we’re used to at Christmas. Certainly not white. And Christmas isn’t celebrated here. Actually, we’ve heard little mention of it. But we will have a nice Christmas just the same and we hope you do too!

 

The wind really picked up yesterday and I’m thoroughly impressed by the result. Our little stretch of land juts out into the ocean enough that if we stay on the beach, the dust and sand aren’t too bad, but if you go up to the road it’s nasty. We can see that further down the coast the people have it worse. It looks like fog, but with a sandy brown tinge. We’ve kept the doors closed, but it’s only a matter of time before we have sand dunes in the hall.

The power keeps going out. It’s a wonder they bother to turn it back on. It went out at least 5 times during the night - it was off more often than it was on. I know because I couldn’t sleep. There was a lot of banging and thumping. I got up to close our shutters, which got rid of one rattle, but it only made it easier to hear the tapping, scraping and howling. Richard not only slept through the night, he’s still asleep.

I can’t stop staring at the patio doors. I knew glass was technically flexible, but I’ve never seen it bend like this. It is a little nerve-racking as it can only bend so much…

I’m glad we have such nice patio doors to look through. I do like watching the seagulls who, by the way, love the strong winds. They float past the window going backwards and I could swear they’re smiling. The gulls haven’t done much more than stand around on the beach for two weeks and now they’re swooping, diving and soaring all day long. I’ve seen some interesting aerobatics in the last 24 hours.

For those who are less amused by the gulls – the die hard surfers for instance – the wind is a real drag. The ocean is white capped and rough, and the surf has been chopped up by the wind. It’s a mess. I saw a lot of bummed out surfers yesterday, standing on patios and rocks, staring out at the sea with their arms crossed. It’s looking even worse today. But, oh, wait, there are some surfers out there! They’re not surfing exactly. I think they’re just trying not to drown. It looks rough. I was hoping to spend the day body surfing, since it’s our last day here, but I think not.

Yes, sadly, it’s time to pack up and leave this lovely apartment in Taghazout. No more surfing, no more strolling on the beach, and no more staring mindlessly out at the ocean. It’s been nice, but the apartment is reserved over Christmas and we’re being evicted.

It isn’t the best time to travel in Morocco, actually. Eid el-Kebir starts tomorrow, and everybody is trying to get home in time to enjoy the festivities. We’ve got bus tickets to Marrakech already, so we’re set, but I’m not exactly sure what to expect when Eid starts. It’s basically a huge four day feast, but the only food feasted on is meat. We’ve seen hundreds of sheep being herded in the last couple of days and I don’t think they’re being shipped to petting zoos. But I hope they are. Richard says they’re going to the petting zoo in the sky.

Anyway, Marrakech should be interesting during Eid and after that we’re planning to rent a car and see more of Morocco the way we like!