Last entry was coming back from the dream land of Strbske Pleso, so before we ventured off to Granada we had a couple more days left in Bratislava. The most memorable part of this was when we stumbled upon a fantastic little cocktail lounge internet cafe. We could not resist the amazing cocktails and some rounds of shots which had up to 72% alcohol meant things were quite blurry indeed once we finally left. Babitchka went above and beyond again cooking up some seriously enjoyable food including crepes with homemade apricot jam for breakfast and some massive pots of stew.
We then had quite a hefty transit day, Martins uncle Lubo drove us to the Bratislava airport in the morning where we took a ryan air flight to London, had a few hours wait, then back south to Granada in Spain.
Granada was a spectacular city offering up more beautiful European architecture and probably the best idea in the world; a plate of food when you purchase a beverage, tapas. Oh how I do enjoy this phenomenon. It wasn’t all heavy drinking though, our visit to the Alhambra was really grand. Reminded me of Angkor Wat where Phill must be somewhere near at present. On the final night in Granada we really did exploit the tapas, it’s just so good; buy a beer or wine which is usually less than 2€ and get a tasty plate of food to go with. In one bar which had all seafood we got talking to a couple who offered us accommodation, Jacko and Martin joined a 50th birthday celebration where they even received cake in another, there was a classical singer and guitarist who sounded fantastic in a different small bar. Many great times to be had, and the cost of this was a horrific next day; mainly for myself but Baranovic wasn’t fairing too well either. This was a real shame as we were catching a train-bus combo down to Algeciras not a good mix with hangover. But even my bout of self inflicted illness couldn’t waver from the staggering beauty that is southern Spain. It made me immensely happy in fact as we weaved our way through the mountains winding roads in a bus; because I now know that in the future i will return to that glorious driving road with a motorbike and no hangover.
In Algeciras we met up with Dean who has been in London on exchange for six months. Reunited we found our way to the boat which took us to Tangier in the north of Morocco. Again this wasn’t pleasant for myself; in fact it was extremely lousy. Nevertheless Africa!!
We spent a few days in Tangier and are now in Fes. In this time Jacko, Martin and I have all suffered from sickness in some way. I highly doubt the other two will last much longer before they get their turn. It’s not pleasant but at least its only lasted around 24 hours and there’s some peace of mind knowing it’s not self inflicted. - Two day interim –
Frustrating times; although the sickness was never extremely bad it had a crippling effect on the amount of sight-seeing I felt comfortable attempting ie. None more than 500m from the bathroom. Missed two days of exploration in Fes and from the lads photo’s it was a real loss; walks through Fes’ old Medina which has 14km of alleyways to get lost in, the tanneries where you can see the whole process where cows are transformed into good leather goods and hillsides overlooking the city (always a big favourite of mine). On the day of my return we’d organised a van which ended up being extremely comfortable and we felt very ritzy with our large, new, clean vehicle (a Hyundai shh) with personal driver; only we were missing Jacko... can we ever be complete in Morocco.
Our first stop on this day tour was the Roman Ruins at Volubilis which is the best preserved archaeological site in Morocco and a Unesco World Heritage site. The monuments were built in the 2nd and 3rd centuries; I’m thinking that makes them the oldest man made buildings I’ve ever seen. It was a beautiful picture with the near two thousand yr old ruins resisting gravity defiantly amid the green fields, finished off with a perfect days blue sky. After this we stopped in a small bustling town before heading to Meknes for our late lunch. One of the tourist sites in Meknes is an old jail which was ironically designed by a prisoner from Portugal I believe.
Anyhow I’d best try jump back to highlights from Tangier or they mightn’t get in.
Done.
No there were definitely some worthy mentions from there, our arrival to our accommodation for instance. We got a taxi straight from the boat whom we thought could find us our place; we did have the address after all. Apparently this isn’t always enough and even after asking many other fellow locals along the way we eventually decided we’d risk trying to find it ourselves. We had some directions to go by, which began at the Mosque in this particular suburb, only there are three Mosques in that suburb. After a small amount of time we were requesting the locals help and within no time we had enough numbers to form a small army, us with our big packs looked the part as well. Tangier seems to be less popular as a tourist destination and the area of our accommodation was far enough from town that the locals found our presence a bit of a novelty. Ended up being quite a walk before we did get to the right place and we really must thank the three guys who stuck it out till the end, felt like we might’ve been on the streets without them. Our place in Tangier was amazing, appeared to be a locals place and it was all very decorative design.
Since that initial generosity every other person who’s offered help or perhaps even a useless fact has been doing so hoping they’ll get something for it. I like to think those guys were actually trying to help, or perhaps our naivety and genuinely thankful handshakes satisfied them as much as our Dirham could have.
I’m not even sure what i’ve written as it’s mostly been late at nights. But we’re currently at an cyber park in Marrakech so i might as well put this up! Have joined up with Crissy and Byron also which is awesome but i’ll get into that some other time hopefully.
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