Granada

Well, I knew I was back in Spain last night! These buggers never sleep and there was an all- night party right outside my window! No wonder the shops don't open before 10am!
Granada is a lovely city with a very nice atmosphere. It is a university city and we were serenaded last night by some students from the music school.Unfortunately we only had time to visit the Alhambra here. It is sited on the hill above Granada.On the way up we saw some cave dwellings!
The Alhambra ( meaning 'red fortress') was amazing. It is a splendid example of moorish architecture built in the 12 th century constructed of tiles, stucco, plaster, bricks and wood. It had richly decorated rooms for concubines and is the last symbol of Muslim power in the Iberian peninsula and one of the most visited tourist attractions in Spain. 23 sultans reigned in the Alhambra before the Christians took it over in 1492. It had extensive gardens requiring 55 gardeners. We could have spent longer here, but it was teeming with tourists . Today we drove through La Mancha, well- known through Cervantes' Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote. In the book DQ thought that windmills were giants that he had to fight and we saw several in La Mancha! The landscape today was dry and hilly with olives the main crop, also vines where it was flat.There are over 200 varieties of olive in Spain.
Apparently Spain was one of the few countries which adhered to the Kyoto Protocol and there are more than 30,000 companies working in solar heating. I saw a whole paddock of solar panels ( see photo)We also saw lots of wind turbines on the Costa del Sol yesterday.
No wonder Spain is in crisis. Miguel pointed out a huge new development just outside of Madrid. It was row on row of apartments , complete with schools and shops, but a ghost town with no inhabitants. Apparently Manchester United paid 94 million euros for the soccer player, Ronaldo!
Anyway 4,000 miles later and it is off to England on Monday. I hope to go to the Prado Museum tomorrow and have a quiet day.

Tangier to Granada

A 4am start to get the early ferry crossing from Tangier to Tarifa and back onto Spanish soil. 800 km and 15 hours travelling including the ferry crossing today!! Apparently it is quite common for illegal immigrants to try and hide in the gap between the wheels of buses to try to get to Spain from Morocco. We saw some police being quite rough with such a man in Tangier. We drove past the Rock of Gibraltar, a British territory for the last 300 years and a tax haven, and along the Costa del Sol and much lusher vegetation. It has a lovely climate and apparently there are 170 golf courses in this region plus some very sumptuous mansions for the rich and famous.It is very touristy and developed, some of the beaches even have artificial sand. We lunched above Malaga, whose two most famous sons were Picasso and Anthony Banderos. A large area here was devastated by fire last September. We drove inland through rows and rows of olive trees, corn and asparagus with the typical white Spanish houses with tile orange tiled roofs.
Photos all taken from bus, hence poor quality. The blurry one is the Rock of Gibraltar in the distance!

Casablanca and Rabat

We drove on the motorway in fog for nearly 4 hours this morning through barren flat countryside to Casablanca. We arrived in bright sunshine at lunch time to huge traffic jams and the cars were parked bumper to bumper. I didn't see any trying to get out of their parks! Casablanca is the commercial capital and the biggest city in Morocco, with a population of 5 million and is famous for the film of the same name, starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart. We saw one of the Rick's Cafes and a spectacular mosque on the water named after Hassam 2nd. It was an enormous building with beautiful green and blue tiles. Prior to the 15th century Casablanca was just a fishing village and it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755.It was a very plain, almost tatty city driving in, with continuous apartment blocks, each with multiple satellite dishes. In the city centre the architecture was almost art deco style, but quite delapidated and certainly not the romantic city we are led to believe it is. The water front had some attractive homes and we had lunch in McDonalds at La Corniche on the seaside!!!Several of us have a touch of Dehli Belly today, so we thought that Macca's chips would be a safe bet.
We arrived in Rabat at 5 pm.Rabat is the political capital of Morocco and dates back to the 12th century. It is located on the Atlantic Coast at the mouth of a river, with a pleasant maritime climate. It was a much more attractive city than Casablanca with jacaranda - lined avenues, broader streets and modernish Art Deco architecture. There were some beautiful homes here. We drove around Rabat, where we saw the king's palace in the Royal District and the mausoleum of King Mohammed 5th who ruled Morocco between 1926 and 1961. He is considered the ' father of independence' in Morocco. As usual the city was surrounded by a huge ochre wall and the Casbar fortress was on the coast. Rabat was a centre for pirates in the past. Unfortunately we have to be on the road at 4am tomorrow to catch the ferry at Tangiers before we go onto Granada! It will be a very long day on the bus, so an early night is beckoning.

Marrakesh

Marrakesh is one of the most visited and colourful cities in North Africa and I much preferred it to Fez.It is not donkeys you avoid here, but motorcycles. They are lethal as they drive so fast and it is not unknown for motor cyclists to ride up close and snatch unwitting tourists' handbags!! It has a population of 1,600,000 and was founded in the 11th century, so it is 200 years older than Fez and much cleaner. It is an attractive city with lovely gardens and palm trees and most of the buildings are a pinkish colour. In the past it was rich because of its gold and it is now an important commercial centre. Medina, Malak and Casbar are the names of the three sections. Our local guide today was Mohammed, a Moroccan George Clooney! The photo of the brightly clothed men in red are water sellers.
Our first visit was to the biggest mosque in Marrakesh called Koutoubia. Interestingly, the mosques in Morocco all have square minarets. We then visited the Bahia Palace, the former home of the Prime Minister. The courtyard was shaded and peaceful until the tourist hordes arrived. In comparison to other palaces we have visited, the Bahia Palace was quite plain but it had the most beautiful cedar doors and ceilings.
We then spent a couple of hours in the souks in Casbar.There were caleshes (horse and buggies), snake charmers, monkey handlers and again hundreds of very colourful stalls with bright clothing, rugs and porcelain; spices, leather, copper and silverware, leather etc; people in Arab and Berber clothing and veiled women.However, the vendors didn't hassle us as in Fez, so bargaining was much more pleasant and they took 'no' for an answer. My only hassle was a couple of girls who had hennaed my arm almost before I realized they had done it!
I jumped straight into the pool on our return to the hotel before we were off again to visit a Berber village. At night we went to an evening in a giant tent called '1001 Nights'. We had a delicious 4 course Moroccan meal and typical Berber entertainment- belly dancing, juggling, acrobats and again the not very tuneful music!

Berber Village visit

This afternoon we drove south to the very pretty Ourika Gorge in the Atlas mountains to see a Berber village. The foothills were dotted with red clay villages which merged into the landscape. The Berbers were the first inhabitants of NW Africa and originated in Central Asia The word 'Berber' came from the word 'barbar' and the north coast here is the Barbary Coast.The Berber home was primitive but comfortable and they served us mint tea and a sort of flat bread with honey. I find the mint tea a very refreshing drink. The motorbike boys who were selling jewellery followed us all afternoon and hassled us at every stop! There were also camel men on several corners trying to tempt us to ride a camel.

En route to Marrakesh

Last night we went for a traditional Moroccan 'tagine' in a highly decorated house in the Medina. It was delicious, a kind of stew. Afterwards we were treated to belly dancing and typical Berber entertainment - not very melodic music and even a magician!

Another long day on the bus - 530 km from Fez to Marrakesh in 30 degrees, but the bus is air-conditioned, thank goodness. We drove through the Middle Atlas Mountains which rise up to 8,000 ft. They border the Sahara, which is 9 million square km (almost the same size as the USA) and it moves 800 km per year.We drove through various different landscapes. At first it was much tidier and more fertile looking country. As we drove west we could have been in the Mackenzie country(see photo) with a similar climate - hot dry summers and cold winters with snow.Once again we passed lots of villages and herders with their Barbary sheep with long ears and tails. The herders typically squat in the shade while watching their stock. Their adobe houses are very primitive with stones holding down the roofs and copious plastic covering hay and wood stacks.It got progressively browner, rockier and drier as we headed west. The soil also changed to an ochre colour and there were some enormous houses seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Where it was flat and there was water, there were crops of citrus fruit and sugar beet, with a sort of border dyke irrigation.
The towns we passed through were very bleak- pastel shaded blocky buildings with barren ground all around, and often rubbish. Nothing nice about them at all! About 100km from Marrakesh the landscape was flat and almost desertic and we saw camels, as well as sheep, goats and donkeys.
We are in another 5 star hotel in Marrakesh with an enormous pool. I have just had a lovely swim at 7.30 pm with the pool all to myself and the palm trees floodlit. Very romantic?

Fez

Fez is divided into three parts : one built by the French, the Medina built by the dynasty and the Jewish quarter. Fez is the religious, intellectual and handicraft capital of Morocco. There are 320 mosques in the Medina and half a million live and work inside it. We spent all morning wandering through the labyrinth of narrow alleyways.The souks were laden with everything imaginable - fruit, silver, silk, leather, carpets , jewellery , spices etc and we had to avoid laden donkeys, people pushing past and also the very persistent hagglers! If you hear the word 'balak' you need to move fast, because it means that a laden donkey or hand- drawn cart is trying to get past.I bought a lovely blue leather jacket and a small kirim carpet and was proud of my bargaining efforts! It was unbelievable in the carpet shop because the owner is married to Gwen Avery's niece, Elizabeth. Gwen was my senior English teacher at TGHS and went on to become the headmistress! What a small world? At first I didn't believe him when he said he had been to Timaru! There are three types of Moroccan carpets- the true blue patterned Fez carpets with 460,000 knots per square metre; the colourful tribal carpets which they make for themselves as heirlooms and the kilim or tapestry- like carpets, which are embroidered by hand. The Medina was fascinating but claustrophobic, hot, colourful, dirty, smelly and noisy. You had to watch where you put your feet but I did feel safe there.It was interesting that only the men work in the medina. I came back hot, dirty and tired to the lovely pool this afternoon.

We also visited the palace, which dates from the 14 th century, covers 200 acres and is surrounded by a huge wall. It has seven brass doors, one for each day of the week ,which are polished with lemon juice. It is not yet open to the public.

Morocco

Morocco : September 30th

We drove in the dark through fertile plains to Tarifa to catch the ferry to Morocco. Lots of alfalfa and cotton, umbrella pines and this is also the area where Caballa Blanco ( the dancing horses) come from. It was interesting to see lots of wind turbines as we neared the coast. At the ferry we had our first taste of bribing! That was Miguel to get our passports stamped quickly. A few extra dirhams work wonders!

Sabah al khair! We had a smooth crossing to Tangiers and our local guide in Morocco is Khalid. Morocco ( El Magreb)has been a Muslim country since the 9th century with a dynasty of kings since the 17th century. The present king, Mohammed 6 th has modernised Morocco eg introduction of votes for women and divorce. Islam is the official religion but others are allowed and non- Muslims cannot go into the mosques.Polygamy is still practised with 4 wives allowed and many women still wear the jellaba. Morocco has remained authentic and both Arabic and French are spoken and surprisingly, more English is spoken than in Spain. Temperatures can get up to 48 degrees (not at the moment), it is a comfortable 25 degrees and about 30% humidity.
Tangiers had 1 million people and was rather scruffy with lots of unfinished blocky buildings. Apparently you don't have to pay tax if your house is unfinished! Morocco's population is 32 million with 5 million head of sheep! Under the French regime schooling is only compulsory from 6-12 years. As expected the landscape is very brown and dry and there is a lot of rubbish everywhere, especially plastic. There don't seem to be any fences and there were lots of herders with sheep, goats and cattle and crops of melon, strawberries, peanuts, sugarcane, and citrus fruit where irrigation was available.. Agriculture looks quite primitive eg ploughing with horses and lots of horses and carts and donkeys. The villages we drove through were terribly scruffy and the meat just hanging by the dirty roadside made me gag! Don't you love the photo of the butchers in a roadside stop we made! I also bartered for some pomegranates. You don't see many women, but there seem to be lots of men lounging around in the villages. As we climbed into the hills the soil seemed to improve and much of the land was cultivated but not yet planted.
We had a very long drive today . Fez is 5 hours from Tangiers so I had a swim in this lovely pool as soon as we arrived. We are staying in a very sumptuous hotel called Zalagh Park Palace. Tomorrow we go to the Medina and its bazaars with a traditional Moroccan evening at night.