In the Riad, the Clingon gets Welcome News

We're staying in a riad: a multistorey dwelling, that opens onto what used to be a courtyard. The rooms rise above the former courtyard on all sides. Several hundred years old but recently renovated by the Australian owner and her Moroccan husband. I took the photo from the roof garden at sunset last night.

The last two days have been of great interest to the Clingon, not just because we're staying in Fez and have been exploring the medina. The HSC results came out two nights ago, and the ATAR came out last night. He did very well (topped his school) in both Spanish Continuers and Ancient History. He came 5th in the state in Spanish Continuers. His ATAR is 92.65, which he is very happy with.






I don't travel to shop, dear reader. My bag is far too heavy as it is, and I have been shedding whatever I could at checkout. But yesterday I was glad to buy a leather handbag. (I will now superannuate the embroidered cloth bag you may have seen on my shoulder in the past: I realised it was very easy to dip a hand into and just snatch out anything rattling around in there.) I've bought myself a bag with several pockets and zips for locking contents in place. Also bought a leather jacket from a leather tannery co-op in the medina. (I haven't owned one of those since the 80's, when all the teachers at ILI in Cairo bought one.)







As for us, we are off to Meknes for the day, today, and will return to sleep here tonight, and hope to take off for points further south--the desert--tomorrow. After the desert, we'll spend a couple of days in Marrakech. We fly out of Casablanca for Lisbon on 28th December.

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Location:Derb Moulay Abdellah Fadili,Fès Médina,Morocco

Waterlogged and Gin Soaked

Clouded over yesterday and has been raining steadily ever since. Thunder, lightning, the whole show. The mountain view from our room is a cloud view now.

I'm propped up at the empty bar at the Parador Hotel. All the other soaks must have left when the rain set in, so at least it's smoke-free. It's one of the only places in town where you can get a drink; I guess I landed on my feet at least as far as drowning my troubles.


We've been here over 24 hours now, and have just made one quick trip into the medina. We didn't see the Kasbah yesterday when it was open, and before it started raining, and today--Sunday--it was closed. Not that we wanted to go up there today. Far too wet. We went out to the square for lunch and sat in a leaky tent, just long enough to eat and get our feet wet in the stream that was running over the floor.

Tomorrow more rain is predicted, here and in Fez, where we have planned to go next. I know I'm not happy to go down that mountain road in a bus in the wet, so I think we'll stay at least one more night after tonight. I hope we manage to get to the Kasbah tomorrow, and do a bit of exploring in the medina.

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Location:Avenue Hassan II,Chechaouen,Morocco

Chechouen is a state of mind

We arrived here at 3 o'clock this afternoon, and hamdullilah!

Instead of taking the CMT bus, as we had planned, Habib--the driver of the previous day's cab--talked us into purchasing his services for the trip from Tangier to Chechaouen when he picked us up for the drive to the bus station. He said we'd stop in Tetouan. We could look around the place a bit, pull up for photos whenever I wanted on the way, and not just go straight to Chechaouen as I would do if I took the bus. What he didn't mention was that he'd drive like a maniac on the narrow mountain roads.

I kept telling the Clingon to tell the old bastard, in Spanish, to slow down. Habib seemed to believe that he was addressing me in English, but what I heard was French; I understand "baguette", and "oo la la" and a few other useful French phrases, but most of the lexis and grammar is a mystery to me, as I've never had a French lesson. Eventually, I think Habib got my message succinctly from my tone, even if English was not one of his best languages; for example, when he started to overtake a truck on a blind curve, I said: "No! No! No!"

Thereafter, for the next hour or so he kept up a private conversation under his breath. We didn't know whether he was cursing us, or praying to Allah for patience with the Madam in the back seat. Maybe it was a combination of the two.

When we finally touched down in Chechaouen, I was grateful that I'd arrived without having to vomit from the back window.

There are no photos in the entry today because I did not take any. It's the first day since I left home that I haven't taken any photos. I could not bear to delay our arrival at the destination. That was the first reason I didn't take any photos. The other reason was that when H. left us to wander into the medina in Tetouan, I felt spooked.

Tetouan had changed greatly in the forty years since I last set eyes on it; and I guess I must have changed as well. Not so brave (foolhardy, perhaps?) as I was at 21. Or was it disappointment that I did not recognise any of the quiet alleyways and covered spaces I walked around so many years ago. They were crowded, dark, dirty and menacing somehow. I have only pleasant memories of Tetouan. Also Chechaouen, when we finally arrived, did not resemble at all the quiet, blue village in the mountains, that I'd secreted in my memory bank.

The mountains are still here, of course, and the blue houses, but not the serenity that I experienced then. We were followed and hassled almost from the time we set foot out of the cab in this town. The Clingon was approached twice by gaunt characters trying to sell him marijuana. (They slipped past me and whispered in his pearl-like out of my hearing.)

Last time I was here, I remember seeing two women totally in white. (Think burqa but pure white.) I remember eating a fantastic salad of carrots in orange juice. I remember a tranquil beauty. Today it was noisy; there was a real tourist scene, with hawkers and buskers wandering around the outdoor restaurant tables. People not taking "no" for an answer. Daunting. And no women in white floating past the blue walls.

As I hear the wind howling and wait for the rain to start beating against the windows, I try to recreate the little bit of paradise. In my mind, I'm going to Chechaouen.




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Location:Avenue Hassan II,Chechaouen,Morocco

From the Rooftop in Tangier

Arrived here yesterday, after catching the red-eye Renfe train from Granada to Algeciras. Up at 5.15 a.m. so that we could get the 6.45 train. Arrived in Tangier early afternoon and landed at this delightful guesthouse, Dar Yasmine, where I write now from the restaurant overlooking the port where our ferry came in.


We looked around the medina and the kasbah yesterday, and then had a Moroccan feast at a restaurant in the medina. We tasted all the iconic dishes: pastilla (a chicken pie finished with icing sugar!), couscous, tajine, and lots of dips and different breads (which I can't name).



Today we went for a taxi tour of the new areas of Tangier. We saw the place where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea. (I couldn't really see the difference: not like there was a different colour or anything ; )

The Clingon pestered the guide, Abdel, with questions about his most recent linguistic project: Moroccan Arabic.



Tomorrow, we're off with the local bus to Chefchaouen in the mountains. Here in Tangier it's been quite balmy. (The Clingon insisted on wearing shorts for our tour today, after we sat in the roof garden in full sunshine this morning.) Tomorrow we'll be shivering in the blue town.

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Location:Tanger Médina,Morocco

A Few Thoughts about Spain

Haven't had time to catch up lately. Train trips and fighting through crowds of Spanish tourists, on the Spanish Constitución long weekend. Madness in the narrow alleyways of Madrid, Sevilla and Cordoba. Footpaths barely wide enough for walking forwards; come an entourage of taxis and everyone's flat, backs to the wall.

A few notes about what I've learned about Spain in the last couple of weeks. (We'll leave here in a couple of days, so this may be my last chance to get these thoughts down.)


Finding a good cup of espresso coffee is not easy. That surprised me. (I was getting Spaniards mixed up with Italians, I think.) A lot of cafes have those awful Nescafe pod machines, or drip coffee.

Many Spanish seem to enjoy travelling in family groups. A few times, I've found myself in a cafe in the morning (the Clingon still in bed catching up on beauty sleep) and in walks a group of 10 or 12 people, looking for tables. I order quickly then.


The Spanish seem to be extremely fond of pig meat in all its forms. Walk into any bar, shop--not just butchers, but pastry shops and tourist tack shops--and you'll find rows of pig legs, going green and black, hanging from the ceiling. Sometimes there's a tiny fake pig leg hanging from a taxi driver's rear view mirror. I wonder how all the real pigs' legs get eaten. (Some of what I've seen the Clingon put in his mouth turns my stomach. I've come to realise that we just can't share tapas.)

Spanish people, like the Turkish, love smoking, young and old. Sometimes, as I walked down a narrow alleyway in the old part of Sevilla, I could smell the after-breakfast cigar of an old guy in the next alley.

Spanish people are very happy to speak to the Clingon, and they all compliment him on his Spanish. Generally, they seem to be quite friendly and amiable. Not as polite as the Turkish to this old girl--no-one has stood up for me on the Metro here, or anywhere at all--but they generally greet us with "Hola", and "Buenos dias!".

So, off to get a bite to eat now, at 9.30p.m. We are becoming more like the Spanish, eating late. Can't stay up and out though. Have to be in bed by 10 if I'm going to continue walking for several hours every day. Tomorrow we've got tickets to the Alhambra, which we can see from our room.








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Location:Calle de Portería de la Concepción,Granada,Spain

The €120 Carnation

Our last day in Madrid today. Discovered a couple of things about this city.



First of all, if a couple of upbeat ladies approach one asking for €0.01 in return for a carnation because there's a fiesta on the next block this afternoon, it's probably a good idea to take a photo of them. It saves time going through the mug shots at the police station when you report the theft. I was searching for the 1 Euro cent (not something that comes in very handy here, as you may be aware, though it is still tendered in change).

The older woman suddenly had her hand in my purse while the younger one distracted the Clingon. Neither I, nor the stranger with her hand in my purse, could find the cent, so the women snatched back the carnations they'd foisted on us, and disappeared.

The Clingon wondered if they were the pickpockets we'd been warned about. I suddenly wondered that too, and looked in my purse for the €120 that I'd last seen while searching for the 1 cent coin 30 seconds earlier. But you know the story.


We spent a couple of hours at the police station. First I took a number, and made a statement over the phone to a national policing centre. Meanwhile, the Clingon was out traversing Plaza de España looking for the two perps. I went into the waiting room, and cooled my heels with twenty other people, all waiting for their numbers to come up. The Clingon arrived and then a young policeman took us in to sign the statement which I'd given the man on the phone. The statement was in Spanish; the Clingon translated as best as he could, and I put my name to something which may or may not have been exactly what I said.

After that we went back to the waiting room, and I played Sudoku on my phone, while the Clingon's belly rumbled. Finally a young woman in jeans (she looked like one of Charlie's angels) called my name and we followed her to a small, grimy office in which a couple of plain-clothes policemen showed us photos and we tried to identify the women from the park. We did finally identify two women, and, in fact the women we reluctantly identified were known to work the carnation scam as a team. If I had to bet my life on our identification, though, I would not do it. I had to sign my name across the faces of the photographs of the two women, got my signed and stamped police statement, and now I'll wait until the Allianz phone line for claims opens again in a couple of hours to start the insurance ball rolling.






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Location:Calle Gran Vía,Madrid,Spain

Bye Bye Barcelona

This is our last morning in Barcelona. We catch the fast train to Madrid at 11. 

It's sad to leave when there's so much we haven't seen, but the rain and the Clingon's Barcelona belly have hampered us a bit. I've (re)learned a great deal about travel and have been close to tears with frustration at times.

It rained for three days, as the Clingon predicted it would, on arrival. Yesterday was clear, even with glimpses of blue sky at times. I walked to the Gothic quarter of town and checked out Barcelona's 14th Century cathedral, which was impressive. 

The Clingon was confined to quarters. The meds hadn't worked, but we tried the big guns at bedtime, and he's had a quiet night.   

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Yesterday, I went to Sants Estacio via the subway to book tickets for the train to Madrid today. I'd put my soggy three-day metro ticket--which I'd used for one journey--into the slot. The night before I'd been drenched, as I described in the last blog entry, and my cloth bag and all its contents had been thorougly washed out. It was early in the morning. I was the only person there. The machine ate my ticket. There were no station staff I could call on, nor any bystanders who might have helped. So, with trepidation--would the machine eat my new ticket as well?--I bought a one trip ticket and made my way down to the platform.

I'd been to Sants Estacio to make the seat reservation on the Barcelona to Madrid train the previous day, and learned that the seats could only be reserved one day in advance. I was told that I could go to booths 8-15 at 10 a.m. to do the booking. But there was something the railway     staffmember failed to tell me. Why would she? So obvious when you know, so vital when you don't.

I joined a hundred other people on the seats waiting for 10 a.m., when I envisioned a shit fight for space at a counter. I wondered about this. Did I need to take a number. I asked a young woman waiting on one of the seats, but she didn't understand English. Then I saw what had been hidden by people standing around it earlier: a machine where you could push a button and take a number. OK, I was making a reservation, having already paid for the Eurail pass, so I pressed the reservation number. Ten seconds later, it was 10 o'clock and my number came up! I was first in the queue. Another woman waiting, who must have witnessed what had just happened, demanded to see my number. I showed it to her, breasted my way to the booth and presented my number. I asked if the clerk understood English. She said "No", and then told me I had the wrong ticket. I had to get a ticket for prepurchase, or something like that. Language: lost in translation.

By the time I returned to the machine, my number was 0038. Frustration. Should I cry now? I decided to do a Soduku on my phone, swallowed the tears and waited for 0038 to pop up on the digital display at the front.

So, dear readers, I am brought back to an understanding of what my students go through when they are newly arrived in Australia.

I'll catch up with you from Madrid.



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