cliaz.net

Our return to Germany began with a rather long travel day from Portugal, 13 hours of intermittent movement interspersed with hours and hours of waiting around in an airport. Surprisingly, we dealt with it quite well, barely noticing the wait. Is it a bad thing that you can get used to sitting around waiting for stuff to happen for 6 hours?

A rather amusing fact (given the vaunted German efficiency) about Berlin’s public transport. The S-bahn, the trains connecting the suburbs to the city itself, was running with only about one fifth of it’s trains. The reason why? The trains – all of them – had somehow managed to miss annual servicing. 6 years running.

A spate of brake and wheel failures prompted drastic actions, and roughly 80% of the trains were out of service. This made getting to our apartment pretty bloody hard, especially at 2am.

Anyways, travel difficulties aside, Berlin is probably our favourite city to date. It may have been the mix of being back in a fairly western culture, or that we met up with a mate from Australia now living in Germany – sup Crispy – but we had an absolute blast here.

From seeing some random concert with Steve’s cousin to doing the walking tour through the city proper (highly, highly recommend it – New Europe Walking Tours), everything just seemed…great. We saw all the classic sights, the Brandenberg Tor, the wall, the site of Hitler’s bunker, East side gallery, all the major landmarks.

As much of what we saw was laden with WW2 history, it was natural for Sachsenhausen to rear it’s ugly head, and we did put aside a day to visit that particular concentration camp. It has truly mind opening stories and facts about the entire period, and while not really enjoyable as such, it too was worth the visit.

If we hadn’t been museumed out by the first 10 weeks of our trip, they probably would have held some interest as well. As it stands, we gave them a miss in favour of hitting up the nightlife with some locals (Aussies, but now living here).

Sleeping off a 6am finish the night before, we spent a quiet Sunday relaxing by catching a movie in one of Berlin’s many English cinemas.

Our 4 days in Berlin were, while overshadowed by shitty shitty German weather – first sub 20 degree day we’ve had yet – a lot of fun, and I personally can’t wait to go back.

Our return to Europe was greeted (at least by us) with a certain degree of enthusiasm. Although Morocco had been tremendous fun, the action packed days did take their toll, and we were looking forward to a bit of what we’ve come to consider ‘normal’.

Thankfully, Portugal provided that for us in abundance. We’d decided back in San Sebastian to stay in the top rated hostel in Hostel World, a place in the centre of town called Traveller’s House. It definitely lived up to it’s reputation, welcoming us with open arms, 24 chillout jazz and unlimited breakfast…heaven.

Beyond the luxurious hostel, Portugal’s main attraction (for us) was rest and relaxation – accompanied by plenty of Portugese custard tarts and roast chicken. Beyond our wanders locally to enjoy some brews, our one sightseeing attempt to see the famous Sintra region ended poorly; a 25 minute walk and a €1.30 train ticket, all to end up less than 100m from our Hostel. Disheartened, we had a coffee and gave up on Sintra.

One thing which made Lisbon interesting was the prevalence of poorly dressed individuals offering you large amounts of oregano or flour, wrapped up and packaged as hash or heroin. This forced me to adjust my method for dealing with the dealers – no longer could I say that hashish wasn’t hard enough for me and that I wanted some cocain, heroin or meth. If I pulled that here, they would instantly offer me some annonymous white powder. It wasn’t even real, the nerve!

Instead, we started playing games with them. As the dealers are rather easy to spot, we would wander close enough to attract their attention then try out various solutions we’d come up with. Foisting them onto each onto random strangers was amusing, but rarely successful; asking for rare substances was largely ignored; consistent rudeness (the words ‘fuck off’ hummed in chorus, or flipping the bird for the entire length of the dealer’s approach) worked, but gave rise to a game called ‘how long till Klaus gets stabbed’; by far the most successful method was flat out refusal to acknowledge them.

The worst was enthusiastically asking for 3kg’s of weed, a bag which would be roughly the size of my upper torso, then telling the dealer to take it and insert in the orifice of his choice. That lead to said dealer following us down the street for a good minute, hurling abuse. Hey, at least it kept the other ones off of us.

Portugal was also the final point in our journey where we four travellers would be together, with Steve and I heading up to Berlin while James and Dave headed to London after a brief sojourn in Porto. James of course, to begin his journey home, while Dave wanted to catch some design festivals – something which I’ve begun to appreciate more in the last couple of months.

After a final meal of roast chicken together (shat all over Nando’s) we spent the evening putting our affairs into order – hence my angry post early thursday morning.

All things being in order, Mr Richards and I bid James, Portugal, and in fact Southern Europe (and it’s warm weather and beaches) a final farewell and flew to Berlin…let the crazy nightlife begin!

What a hole. Seriously. Barely deserves a blog post, but I’ve done it for every other city so why not.

Tangir was disliked by the old King, as being the main port to Europe it had a constant stream of Westerners, whose influence he was not pleased with. Therefore Tangir remains a dirty port city, with little to offer. The new King has invested some money into it, but its still no place you’d want to visit.

We wandered the streets before finding a hotel for 3 euro each, and although the facilities were archaic and the beds had hills and valleys, it was comfortable enough. The rusty shank of metal that was the shower room door handle gashed my finger nicely though, taking my right hand out if action for a while…hooray for Steves first aid bag, thank you Lynne for packing such a wonderful assortment of medical goods.

That’s it really. Shitty little port town in which I probably gave myself tetanus. Win.

Our journey to this little town high up in the Rif mountains of northern Morocco began with a 4 hour long taxi ride. That might seem kinda crazy, but it worked out to be only $35 AUD each – about the same price a bus would have been. Admittedly, we had sqaushed 6 people in the taxi, which lowered the average price, but it was a still a comfortable enough drive – although I shared the front seat with our guide. At least it wasn’t the stereotypical 15 people packed onto (not into) a van, of which we saw a few.

After a couple of police checkpoints (and associated bribes) we were dropped off near the centre of town. Immediately, barely out of the taxi, we were offered hashish. Not just by one guy, but by 10. Without even trying to be subtle. Walk straight up to you and asked if you wanted to buy some hash. Bizzare.

To fend off the countless dealers I quickly responded by asking for stronger stuff – heroin, cocain, meth, anything along those lines, trying to throw them. For a short time that worked, leaving them staring dumbly while I wandered on. Soon enough though they learnt to just ignore me and drone on, spouting their offers of hash like broken records.

Our accomodation for the 3 nights we had was cheap. Incredibly cheap. $5 AUD a night, well below the $45 we budget for normally. Unfortunately, it was a roof. Literally. A series of mats lying against a wall on the roof of a house was to be our home for the next few days.

That eve, after a tasty tagine and salad – yes, salad, our first in months! – for dinner we went to the bathhouse for a traditional steam and massage, called a Hamam. Alternating between scorchingly hot water and ice cold water being poured over you in what was effectively a sauna, followed by a thorough massage, leaves you pretty exhausted, and it was a relieved bunch that fell into bed that night.

The following day, once Stacie, Ishaam and Wajih’s (our guide’s) brother had arrived, we went off to Akshour to swim in the mountain streams and waterfalls. All 8 of us squuezed into a minivan – and I do mean a mini van, about half the size of what we typically call a minivan – and off we went. At one point we had to jump out and scramble down a hill to avoid a police checkpoint, as the taxi driver wasn’t a registered driver or something. May have been because we’d squeezed 4 people in the boot, not sure. Either way, a semi comfortable hour long drive took us to the sedate part of the creek in which we’d be spending our day.

After hiking upstream to find a favoured swimming hole and cooling off, our guide prepared a feast of goats cheese, yoghurt, flatbread and apricot jam for us to eat while he started on the tagine which was to be our main meal. As I’ve said before, the hospitality is without fault.

That evening, after a tiring day of waterfall jumping and swimming – discovering a semi submerged cave behind a waterfall – we spent a quiet eve back at the hostel. I ended up going to the terrace and sat around with some backpackers who were taking advantage of the constant offerings of hashish and were smoking up a storm.

While sitting there, wreathed in smoke listening to the strains of Pink Floyd drifting out from an iPod (cliche much?), I saw one of the most amazing sights I’ve seen in my life, on par with the Barrier Reef and the Alps.

To the left of me, over the closest mountains, the moon was rising, just clearing the peaks. To the right, across the valley, the sun was setting over the far mountains, also just scraping the peaks. Such a magnificant view I’ve never seen, both celestial objects in the sky together, and the setting seemed so perfect for it.

Then the crazy 50 year old French rocker/stoner in lyrcra and mesh started playing guitar and wailing, so I barrel rolled the hell out of there. Way to kill the mood.

Our last day we wandered the town, seeing how the small mountain town lived, learning some of the history. Apparently it is required by law to paint your house blue (in the old town), failing to do so landing you in jail. One way to keep the moniker the Blue City I guess. We topped off the day by climbing (part way) up a mountain to take in the view of this pleasant mountain town, overlooking a valley.

An interesting note about the climb was that it took us through a forest, where gained some companions. No, not friendly forest creatures or stray pets, but surprise surprise…drug dealers. Drug dealers who were for some reason hiding out in a forest. There were around 8 of the buggers hanging around in the trees, coming out of the shadows silently as we passed, their low calls chasing us down the road, offering hashish. After repeated rejections, some continued to follow us up the mountain, trudging silently next to us for reasons unknown. Strange, strange people.

Our 3 nights in Chefchaouen over, our African sojourn coming to an end, we said farewell to our friends and caught a taxi to Tangir, from where our flight back to mainland Europe left.

Its 4am.

I’m not drunk.

I was drunk, quite some time ago.  I miss that.

Right now I’m cracking open another beer and relaxing for the first time in several hours. Over those serveral hours, pretty much everything that could have gone wrong, technology-wise, has gone wrong.

Firstly, retrieving some music files (an asston of chillout/jazz) from an old mac turned into a fiasco when the mac refused to allow my usb stick to be formatted in any other filesystem but UFS.
Fuck you for not supporting EXT2/EXT3, you slack bastards.
Then, the file/folder exploring utility on said Mac wasn’t recognising files that didn’t exist, and trying to copy them. When it found such a file, it would crash without warning and undo all copying.

If one is copying 1091 files, which may or may not exist, this can get tedious.

While all this was going on, a routine software update for my iPhone fried the sim card, requiring me to scab someones spare one in an attempt to allow me to use it again. No, let me clarify. To allow iTunes to allow me to use it again. The phone functions fine without a sim card. iTunes however, does not. Cause its shit.

Then, while sorting all this out, the computer on which I’m working (Jimmy’s laptop) had multiple hardware failures cumulating in iTunes wiping all existing memory of well, pretty much anything. All playlists, all music, everything.

So, juggling backing up a USB stick on one PC so I can reformat it to use it on a Mac to put files to a PC which then can’t read the files cause they’re in the wrong fucking filesystem (UFS + windows = fail), and trying to put my music back onto my iPhone, I’ve had little enough time to do my Fez blog, let alone the Chefchaouen one.

Oh, and did I mention I have to catch a flight out of the country at 9am, and this will be the last chance I have to use either laptop for blogging/pictures/iPhone music stuff. So yea, sweet night in Portugal.

In any case, while I’m writing this rant the pictures and original content are being restored to my usb stick, the songs/playlists are being restored to the iPhone, and I’m relaxing with a beer.

4:23 am now, but life is good.

After the truly awesome experience that was Marrakech, we were pretty pumped for Fez. Thankfully, we were not to be disappointed.

The journey there was an adventure in itself, travelling on the Moroccan train system as we were. 40 degree day, packed into aircon-less compartments, trying to refrain from drinking to avoid offending fellow travellers. James had reacted badly to the beef tagine he’d had last night, and spent the 8 hour trip ridding himself of the toxins in every which way possible. That turned out to be a stroke of luck, as during one of his many absences a rather friendly fellow by the name of Mahmoud. Turns out one of his cousins, Isham, has a New Zealand girlfriend, and we were more than welcome to join them for dinner that night. Our decision to do this was by far the best thing we could have done, and it really shaped the rest of the trip for us.

After finding our hotel and dropping a still ailing James off, we headed out to meet Mahmoud and Stacie. 30 minutes later, our new friends running late, Steve and I had gotten bored and were wandering around trying to get oriented, while Dave stayed at the meeting point. Wandering around, hopeless lost and disoriented, we were approached by locals – and this is where Morocco became one of my favourite countries.

Unlike Marrakech or Casablanca, heavily tourist based towns, the locals here are genuinely willing to help, not trying to gain something out of the transaction. Of course, there would be some bad eggs, but on the whole the populace were amazingly helpful and friendly.

So, back to the story. The locals asked what we were trying to do, where we were trying to go. We explained we were trying to find the market to get some food, as the sun was just about to set and the Ramadan fast about to be broken. Immediately, we were offered seats (all this took place on the street, as is commonplace here) at their table, to take part in dinner with them. When we (rather shocked) tried to decline, saying we had to get food for our friend too, they started offering us plates of food to take with us. No concern for the plates, we could just bring them back later, no worries! Still declining, slightly bemused by it all now, we explained we want to try to explore a bit, find the market and with it our bearings.

So, to make the journey faster, they gave me a moped.

Put the key in, started it up, and proceeded to show me the tricks to start it again once it died. By the time Dave arrived, Stacie and Mahmoud in tow, I was sitting on the moped practising kick starting it, ready to whiz round a strange town completely lacking in road rules, helmet- and gear-less. Slightly disappointed, I returned the moped and Steve and I joined the others, heading to Stacie’s house to break fast with them.

I won’t delve into the details of it all, but the Moroccan hospitality continued in the same vein as described above, Isham (a qualified guide for Fez) offering to show us around the next day for free, while another cousin, a chef, prepared a stunning feast for us. For people they’d never met before. Without asking a thing. Absolutely mind blowing.

That night we joined them in a game of midnight soccer, playing amongst the rubble and ruins in the 30 degree heat. The occasional donkey got in the way, but beyond that the game was pretty much normal – albeit I understood almost nothing of what was shouted at me, and it appeared as though they were going to fight at any moment. They take soccer very seriously here.

The next morning Isham and Stacie took the 3 of us, James still recovering, on a tour of Fez. Without him we would have become hopelessly lost, as Marrakech is a well planned, structured city compared to Fez. One thing for sure, Morocco constantly forced me to re-evaluate my standards.

The tour took us through most of the old city, including the biggest sights. The tannery, biggest in Morocco and using all natural ingredients (stank like it too); the weavery, still using an manual loom and threading; various Mosques, and the oldest University in the world – built in the 800s. The pictures can explain better than I can, be sure to check them out.

That eve we gathered James and joined Stacie again to break fast, having some traditional Berber food (the natives). While we were there, another cousin (bloody huge family) offered to guide us around Chefchaouen, our next destination. He had family there, and was more than happy to come along with us and spend some time showing us around – for some reimbursement of course. Not everyone is a saint haha.

Plans made, we had another game of soccer before retiring for the night, our 2 nights in Fez brief but eventful.

Flying in to Marrakech was slightly unreal, not only because for the first time in Europe we’d flown somewhere (well, Steve and I anyways), but of course because we were now in Africa. And in a country of Islam. Almost had an ‘oh shit we’re in Europe’ moment, except that of course, we weren’t in Europe.

Our contact from the hostel arrived late, a juxtaposition of smart dressing, thongs and cheap cigarettes, all bundled up in a beat up minivan. The drive to the hostel was initially hair raising and concerning, but soon enough the crazy swerving and complete and utter lack of road rules kind of lulled you into acceptance. Once disembarked, we followed our host through dusty winding streets,  poorly lit alleys and low archways stretching 10s of meters forcing one to duckwalk for quite some time.

The hostel itself was truly amazing, a high walled courtyard surrounding by 2 levels of rooms and 2 terraces, absolutely divine. We were treated to some Berber whiskey (the local name for mint tea, the popular drink) while having some of the rules of the city explained to us. Thus prepared, the net morning we set out to explore a totally foreign culture.

We were staying in the old town, quite near Jemaa el Fna (the main square), so we jumped right into everything. The market stalls were huge, a twisting turning warren of sellers hawking their wares, each trying to fleece hapless tourists for however much they could. Thankfully our host had forewarned us and armed us with some basic haggling knowledge. A key tip was not to buy till your last day, cause you’ll see many vendors offering the same items and the prices are generally made up on the spot. Getting a feel for the range of prices allowed you to more accurately aim for a reasonable price – often 1/10th of what was initially proposed.

An interesting point to our entire stay in Morocco was that we were visiting during Ramadan, a major Islamic festival. Not a festival in the traditional sense, but a period in which followers fast between dawn and sunset, consuming no liquid of food or any other luxury – e.g. smoking. This makes being a tourist slightly awkward, as the country shifts to a nighttime cycle of life, and eating during the day in front of people is considered rude. Still, snatching quick bites to eat unseen in corners, or sitting down at a cafe is permitted, so one can survive easily enough.

While we spent the daylight hours wandering through the old town, seeing the catacombs and palaces, sunset was when Marrakech truly came to life. Named the Red City for the simple fact that almost all the city is red from the building materials, the fading sunlight highlighted this dramatically. Watching the sunset from a terrace overlooking Jemaa El Fna, we witnessed the entire square fill with food stands and locals eager to break their fast and indulge in food. And what food it was, Tagines, couscous, whole lambs heads, camel (quite expensive), spicy Moroccan soups, all along side traditional western meats. A feast, for quite reasonable prices too – couple of euro would land you a good feed, if your bowels didn’t react badly to the local cuisine.

One of the 3 days we went on a tour of the countryside, visiting a traditional Berber house (Berber being the natives, as opposed to the Arabic population) to experience first hand the lifestyle. As part of that we mounted up on some fractious camels and had a brief ride. Once out of sight of his dad however, the child acting as our guide tried to extort us, refusing to lead us back till we gave him some euro’s. Cheeky bugger, it conveys well enough the general attitude towards tourists that exists over here – cash cows, waiting to be milked.

Our 3 days in Marrakech were packed with activity, and thoroughly enjoyed by all. With that in mind, we had high hopes for our next port of call, Fez.

well…mostly.

Stuff from Africa isn’t up yet because I don’t have the pictures off of the camera yet, but it’ll happen very soon as I only have the luxury of Dave’s laptop for 2 more days before we part ways.

In any case, list of updates (only picture/video links, as the blogs you can just browse from this site), chronologically.

France

• Lyon Pictures
• Paris Pictures
• Bordeaux Pictures

Spain

• San Sebastian Pictures
• Bilbao Pictures
• Barcelona Pictures
• Valencia Pictures
• La Tomatina Pictures

La Tomatina Videos

• Locals cooling off the crowd
• Shirt throwing war zone
• Let the tomato throwing begin
• Ankle deep in tomatoes and sangria

That’s it, hope they satiate you for a bit – next up will be the Africa pictures and blogs, and those from Portugal, but after that will be a larger dry spell. Seperating as Steve and I are from the other two, we will be without a laptop to use when we feel like, and posts/pictures will be difficult, pictures more so than posts.

This is what its all about in my opinion. Pure, undiluted randomness and winging it. No real planning, just a snap decision.

After hearing about how we’d be in the area for La Tomatina from almost every traveller we’d met, Dave and I decided off the cuff to make it happen. Our jaunt south started with a train to Valencia, where we hiked around town a bit, not lost, just searching for our Hotel. Once found, we settled in for an early night to prepare us for the big day to come.

6am, dawn just broken. I suited up, settling my Panama hat firmly on my head, while Dave made similar preparations – wearing as much white as possible, as is tradition. Making our way to the train station I’m the subject of many odd looks and more than a few chuckles or high fives. Once at Bunol, where the festivities were to be held, chuckles and high fives turned into outright drunken laughter (at 8am, as many people had been drinking the entire night) and photos. I also made it onto TV, as the most well dressed celebrator.

Thankfully we’d chosen to come quite early, so managed to make it near the centre of town where the greased pole was. For those unfamiliar with how La Tomatina all works, at 10am the crowd starts climbing the 10m high greased pole, trying to knock the ham off the top. While this happens, the rest of the crowd entertain themselves by ripping shirts off each other, tying them in knots and throwing them around while the locals spray them with hoses. Can get pretty insane, lumps of sodden cloth flying around, looks like a war zone.

Once the ham is loosed, cannons fire, signalling the begin. 10-15 dump trucks full of tomatoes then start making their way through the crowd, with some lucky few in the trucks beginning the barrage. Once near the middle, the trucks dump, and the insanity begins.

It really is impossible to describe, beyond calling it a war zone. Being in a full white suit, Panama hat and all, I was a prime target, and to be honest had the time of my life.

Some time through the onslaught Dave caught an unsquashed tomato in the eye, swelling it nicely and showing why tomatoes should be squished in the hand before being thrown.

Beyond that though, a solid 2 hours of awesomeness was had. Traditionally, after 1 hour the cannon fires again and people stop throwing tomatoes. Traditionally. When you get 60,000 people, drunk, mostly naked and covered in tomatoes, tradition sometimes gets tossed out the window. Once peoples fervour finally died, I started making my way to the meeting point to catch up with Dave, having been separated rather quickly.

On the way back I took every opportunity to hose off, finding tomatoes and tomato residue everywhere…and I do mean everywhere. On the way I by pure chance ran into Coops, our guide from the Croatia Cruise – fairly amazing luck given the sheer volume of people.

While the public service to Bunol was superb, running smoothly an efficiently, service out was dismal. Completely full trains would sit for 40 minutes at Bunol, before moving for 10 minutes towards Valencia then stopping in the middle of nowhere for another 20 minutes. I found some floor space next to a tomato filled trash can and spent most of the trip asleep, looking the Hobo part quite well in my now pink suit.

Once finally in Valencia, I found a park with a fountain to wash off in and had a siesta while my clothes dried in the sun.

Truly an awesome experience, although I showered red for the next couple of days – not from tomatoes per se, but from the sangria that was also thrown around. Cannot recommend it highly enough if to anyone who ever gets the chance, do not miss it.

Oh, and check out Dave’s take on it all, over at his Euramble blog with James

Pictures
La Tomatina Pictures
Valencia Pictures

Videos
Locals cooling off the crowd
Shirt throwing war zone
Let the tomato throwing begin
Ankle deep in Tomatoes and Sangria

After 3-4 hours of blissful unconsciousness, I was wrested from my peaceful slumber by James rolling off the seats onto me. Once the resulting confusion cleared, we realised we’d reached the halfway mark, with the associated rest pause. Thankfully the rest stop was well equipped, and we did what we could to alleviate our hangovers before boarding for the remaining 4 hours of the journey.

Now, I should explain why we were stuck on a bus for 8 hours instead of whizzing to Barcelona in speed and (relative) comfort on the train system, which is remarkably good. We had originally planned to do so, it just didn’t turn out that way. Out of the blue, on the day we’d planned to leave San Sebastian, every train – really, every train – to Barcelona had been booked out. Completely. How bizarre.

So, back to the floor of the bus. Although my initial level of obliviousness was unreachable, being sober and all, the remained passed in relative comfort, as Dave shared with me the wonders of Dexter on his laptop. Once disembarked, we made our way to the hostel, wandering ignorantly (on my part at least) past some Gaudi architecture.

That night was thankfully quiet, but bright and early the next morning we headed to the beach to meet up with Sal (from Croatia cruise), now living in Barcelona. Spending the afternoon reminiscing with her was nice and relaxing, so much so that when the Hostel organised a ‘massive night out’ we jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, Opium, the biggest beach bar in Barcelona, was…shit. No other words for it.

Returning to the Hostel around 4, the others crashed out while I sat out on the smoking deck (according to the hostel staff, for weed only, no cigarettes…brilliant) with some of the guys. One of the guys was convinced the fridge was magically eating his maltesers, as every night for the last 4 nights he’d been putting a bag in it and the next morning it was gone. What he neglected to mention was that he’d been high, and had in fact hidden 4 bags in 4 separate fridges, and when this was discovered around 4:30 he was over the moon.

To top the night off, I passed out on the couch, guitar in hand, with a girl so drunk she was shaking with cold in a 28 degree room in my lap, trying to stay warm. Bloody odd night.

The next morning we darted off to La Familiar (another of Gaudi’s constructions) to meet with Sal one last time, before Dave and I headed down to Valencia to get to La Tomatina, Festival of Tomatoes.

Barcelona Pictures