Brunette Katie - now available in stores!

The day after I got back from Morocco, I dyed my hair. Not really sure why; I just wanted a change. Let me know whatcha think...

Morocco Day 4 - Tangier

Even with slight hangovers from the Moroccan wine night, we managed to get up before dawn to catch a train to Tangier.

A five-hour train ride to Tangier...

MUCH BETTER than a 12-hour bus ride!!!

We arrived in Tangier around noon, ready to explore and eat! Darby and I only had until 8:00pm that night before heading back to Marrakech to catch our flight back to Dublin.

Figured this was a good sign - my shoes match the taxi!!

We found the beach!!! And had some yummy lunch at a beach cafe. I mean, I think it was yummy; we ate our meals in about 3 minutes. Trains make us hungry!!

So, here's Jess, THE traveler - packed with a sleeping bag, boots, two back packs, and jacket. She looks like a old pro, right?

Now, compare that to me - flip-flops, dress over jeans, shoes on my belt...looking like "a bag lady" to quote Darby!

How weird is this! We stopped at a Shell station to ask directions and were struck by the wildlife! There were two huge peacocks just chillin' about!

And what can only be described as a duck and goose sanctuary. Bizarre!

Well, we found the hostel and then set off to tackle Tangier in 5 hours.

First, to the beach!!! No waves, as it was near a marina. But, there were some shells!

Next, the camels! Also on the beach!!! There were 3 pairs of camels, presumably mama camel with her baby. Needless to say, I was thrilled! I went RUNNING to them!!

AND I got to ride one!!! For one minute anyway! TOTALLY WORTH the $3!!! These guys are tall, and not very well-mannered. When this camel stood up, she began, uh, farting! That's nice. Then when the "ride" was over, her baby decided it was a good time to, uh, relieve itself. No shame!!

At the beach!!

A Catholic church in the Muslim country!

We spent our last few hours in Tangier in the Petit Savoy, little market. I did some last minute shopping - had to spend all my dirhams! - and...

...had the BEST SOUP OF MY LIFE!!! Here I am polishing off Darby's soup, two spoonfuls at a time, after I finish mine. It was TASTY!!!

The final picture of the trip! After this, Darby and I headed back to the train station to begin 24 hours of travel to get back to Swansea. This included an 11-hour overnight train to Marrakech, 3 hours wait at the airport, a 3.5-hour flight to London Gatwick, a 4.5-hour train to Swansea, and, finally, a 25-minute bus ride back to our flats. It was a very, very long night and day. We left Tangier at 9:05pm and arrived back home at 9:15pm the following day. Worth it? ABSOLUTELY!!!!

Morocco Day 3 - Fes Ville Nouvelle

Here we are getting ready to leave the Old City of Fes for the New City.

It was a 3-4 mile walk down the road. Of course, we really weren't sure we were going the right way. But we did get to see this spectacular cemetary on the way. Morocco has tons of them like this. They're HUGE was hundreds of tombstones. The thing is they're not just headstones but full size cement markers for each person buried.

We made it to the new and modern Ville Nouvelle! Notice the car and the McDonald's.

A remnant of the old tradition in the new city - an Arabic toilet. Literally a hole in the ground. Yes, I used it! When in Morocco...

Here's Jess and I in front of this beautiful fountain median on a major street in Ville Nouvelle. It runs the whole length of the busy street - probably a good 2 miles lined with palm trees and the waterway in the middle.

Solo shot in front of the fountain

This one's for my dad! The post office in Ville Nouvelle, Morocco!

Realizing that we hadn't had a single drink on this vacation, we were well excited to find a "pub" in Ville Nouvelle.

We shared a delicious bottle of Moroccan wine from a winery in Meknes - not too far from Fes. It was really nice to sit back, relax and have some drink. :-)

Of course, we did get a little tipsy and silly! Here I am doing an amazing water trick in a fountain. There was a family with little kids watching us be dorks here. It was really funny to watch their reactions to the crazy American tourists.

When one bottle wasn't enough, we picked up another (ok, two more) and took them back to the hostel. Had a fun night drinking red wine and getting to know each other a bit better.

This is Leonard, Jess' travel buddy. We're both covering our ears after hearing something a bit crass from either Darby or Jess - neither Leonard nor I can remember what was said.

With the drinks came the late night hunger. Here's Jess trying to sneak into our supply of goat cheese and bread we bought for the next morning. Hahaha, Jess! Too bad it turned out to be NASTY!!!

Overall, Ville Nouvelle was fun. But it was weird to see how urban this new city is compared to the old city from earlier in the day. There is lots of development here and everyone's hustling about town. There are no donkey carts and barely any scooters. Kinda just felt like any city. Not as much "culture" as we had found in Fes el Bali and Marrakech.

Morocco Day 3 - Fes el Bali - The Old City

Since we got into Fes so late, we took the first hotel we could find. It was called Hotel Erraha and was recommended by a seemingly nice young guy named Kareem. He set us up with a decent room at a good price (about $8 for the night) and offered to take us around the town the next morning. Oh, and this hotel, well hostel, also had hot showers for only $1.50. BTW, this was our one and only shower of the trip.

This painted map of Morocco was on the wall of our hotel.

This Riad was opened by a Jewish-American from Las Vegas. He apparently bought a bunch of property and built a luxury hotel that goes for over 1000 dirhams (about $90) a night. That's A LOT for Fes, but I imagine behind the wood doors are free hot showers, cushy beds, maybe even spa services.

This is the original entrance to the city. Ornate with tile and intricate details. But small. Not even the taxis could make it through that opening.

It's a school bus!!!! CUUUUUTE!!! It's taking kids to the Koranic school that teaches them about Islam and the Koran. It is one of two schools children attend. The other is a government school that teaches the basic subjects.

Here's the government school.

This is an old tradition. A Muslim woman could not leave the house without her husband. If she was seen in public without her husband, it would disgrace her and her husband. So, if the husband was at work or out of the house, she'd have to call down to someone on the street and ask that person to get whatever she might need - milk, meat, whatever. She'd dropped her money down the bottom of this window covering and the person would place her items in a bucket which she'd get using a rope to pull it up to her. Kareem, the tour guide, insists that this is a really old and dying custom. The family that lives here is very traditional.

This is a real working tannery, or leather making shop. It was one of the stops on the tour. Here, the workers strip the hides of fur, wash them in limestone and pigeon shit (I'm quoting the guide here), then dye the leather using natural dyes like indigo, poppy seed, saffron, etc.

It smelled REALLY BAD as you can imagine. I mean, they deal with dead animal skin here, from sheep, camels, and cows. Ugh! The guide gave us each a bunch of fresh mint to smell while we were up on the roof looking over at the tannery.

There was a gift shop at the tannery, too. I was swindled into buying two purses. The guy who owned the shop could tell I was nervous about the purchase and told me, "Close your eyes and imagine all the Moroccan artisans and craftsmen you will be helping if you make this purchase." SUCKA!!! I walked out of there with $200 less than I walked in with.

This guy's job is to bake bread for the town. People can bring him their dough and he cooks it in a stone oven over wood fire. It smelled so good!

Here's Jess and I eating our complimentary bread straight from the oven. YUMMY!!!

This is to give you an idea of narrow "streets" we were walking down. And this one is actually a pretty good size. Some were so tight, I wondered if I'd get stuck. According to Kareem, those types of alleyways are not for the "fat Americans." (He wasn't referring to us. I think...)
This was last stop on our tour, which in all honesty, was Kareem's way of making commission off of us by taking us to his buddies shops. This is a weaving business owned by a Berber family, descendents of the mountain villagers. They make large rugs and blankets using sheep wool, camel fur, and catcus fibers.

I, of course, bought a tapestry. It could fit a freakin' queen-size bed, but I had to buy it. Apparently the livelihood of the Berber tradition rested on Darby and I making purchases here. At least with this stop I wasn't the only SUCKA! But really, I LOVE what I got. It's aqua blue and green from catcus and camel fur.

This is from the terrace of our hostel. Great view! This part of Fes was so dense. You can kind of see it in the background. It reminded me of San Francisco with buildings piled on top of each other.

At about 12:00 noon, we decided we'd had enough of the Old City and walked to the Ville Nouvelle (the New City). It was a quick 3-4 mile walk down the road.

Morocco Day 2 - The Bus Ride to Fes

So, you are probably wandering why a bus ride requires a full post. You'll see...

We left our hostel at 8:00am so we could get the earliest ride to Fes. We hoped to get to the train station, but were mislead to the bus station.

This is our not-so-luxury coach. It was 130 dirhams (about $20) and was supposed to take 8 hours, getting us to Fes at 4:30pm.

The bus stopped in nearly every town, city, or village on the way from Marrakech to Fes. The idea is to pick up as many passengers as possible. And this wasn't the nice touristy bus. It was the down-home Moroccan bus filled to the gills with locals. One such local must have suffered from a bit of car-sickness because he vomited on the bus while we were stopped in one the towns. He played it cool though - looked around to make sure no one saw (WE SAW), then casually moved to another, less barfy seat in the front of the bus. Nice! Bitonti, you would've DIED!!!

First McDonald's sighting - The Moroccans Lovin' It!

After we left the bustling town areas, the road to Meknes (on the way to Fes) was really green and fertile. They actually grow grapes here and make some decent wine.

At this point in the ride, the bus pulled over to fix some mechanical problems; the bus had been making some funny putt-putt-putter sounds on the way down the last hill. If gave us a chance to get out and stretch our legs, until tragedy struck. An old Muslim woman crossed the highway to relieve herself. As she came back across, she was hit by a car, going who knows how fast (it is a highway)! She was lying next to bus on the highway, people were screaming, I was crying, and the driver of the car that struck, plus his 6 passengers (two of which were young children), were awe-struck and very upset. We waited while the police showed up, along with medical assistance; the woman was alive, but undoubtedly injured and in a lot of pain. Then we ventured to the nearest police station, where we were parked for nearly an hour while the bus driver gave a statement about what happened. Mind you, we didn't really know what was going on - most of the passengers spoke only Arabic or French. And it was getting dark. This was a scary night, but honestly, it was the only time I felt nervous or scared on this whole adventure.

We FINALLY made it to Fes el Bali - The Old City. We had spent the entire day, 8:00am-9:00pm, on that god forsaken bus, eating only a few Pringles, one pastry, and a tangerine and several dates that other passengers gave me.

We were more than thrilled to get to sit down and enjoy a MEAL! Here I had ground beef medallions, rice and french fries. Oh, and an Arabic Diet Coke (see below!)