London Town

There have been many calls for a London blog, and not being the one to disappoint, I am here delivering said blog. I am thrilled to report that I do have a wonderful (perhaps a slight exaggeration) tale of deceit to tell. It all happened in our first hours of arrival in the fair 'Mother country'. In our search for a roof over our heads in London we posted an advertisement on the infamous "Gumtree". Not twenty four hours later I was contacted by one Ella Peaderson, claiming to have a wonderful, empty apartment in the very convenient location of Southwark. We jumped at this gem and requested an inspection. Emails floated through the etha between this Ella and ourselves until an innocent email requesting money to be deposited in a neutral Western Union account arrived in our inblox. The girl claimed that she had shown around prospective tennants before us and they had all but let her down. She wanted 'security' she said, she wanted us to fax her a receipt of the deposit before she would come to London to show us the apartment. Being the intelligent, streetwise people that we are, we smelt a rat. There was no way I was going to guarantee funds for a place that I just wanted to inspect. I sent Ms Peaderson a firm email declining her request and that was that, we never heard from her again. We later found out that the Western Union scam is a well known one. If we had sent Ella a copy of a receipt then by Western Union standards that would be enough for her to withdraw our precious funds.

Aside from that little drama, finding a place to live was relatively hassle free. We arrived on a Wednesday in sunny London, spent Thursday sussing out the possibilities, Friday morning we confirmed our choice of residence and by Friday we were comfortably installed into our new living quarters. We chose a characteristic old house on the boarder of Wood Green and Bounds Green in North East London. It is a five bedroom, three story house with a fully equipped kitchen, loungeroom and three bathrooms. The house is inhabited by four couples and a slightly dysfunctional single. we have become tight with the other couples, sharing nights in making pizza and playing poker. It is friendly without being suffocating, suffice to say we are very comfortable in our new home.

Our time in London has been mostly occupied by the tedious task of applying for jobs. Applying is such a long and involved process that you are knackered upon completion of each one. But the waiting game is the worst part of it all, employers are quick to reject an application but somewhat slower to invite one in for an interview and a cuppa. Despite that aspect (which we knew all along was going to be hard) London life is pretty swell. We have been treating ourselves to little outings here and there which has been important to our morale. We first took ourselves off to High Wycombe (Buckinghamshire) where we visited High Wycombe Manor and the Hell Fire Caves. The caves were commissioned to by dug by Sir Francis Dashwood (of High Wycombe Manor) to provide employment to the local lads. They mined chalk which was used in the development of roads. Once the caves were no longer used for employment, Sir Francis used the space for his own pleasure; turning them into a debaucherous place for he and his cronies to entertain the ladies. The caves went down to a depth of 300m and even had underground lakes! Very eerie!

Our second outing was into London one Sunday for a picnic in Hyde Park. We had perfect weather for it and the day was even semi-warm! We took a stroll to Buckingham Palace where we were treated to a marching band of the fuzzy hat/red uniformed men. Our third outing was to Camden Town for a stroll around the markets, lunch and then a stroll that led us to Regents Park...I want to live around there, I have even chosen my future house! Then on another day we took ourselves off to the Museums, for a cultural indulgence. And today has seen us enjoying more good weather downing pints (or half pints for me) at the pub. Oh, and we went on another picnic at Fulham Palace yesterday and soaked up more good weather.

So amidst many picnics and suprisingly nice weather we have had a jolly fine time. Next weekend we might even venture out in a car on the open roads....

Stay tuned!

Intro to Morocco...the journey ends here!

People say that you can smell Morocco from across the waters in Tarifa, Spain, but it is not until you arrive that you know what these smells are. In every Medina that we have frequented, we have been engulfed by the dizzy smells of mint and heavy scents of simmering Tajine.

Mint tea is the warm welcome that you receive where ever you go, sweet and syrupy it invites warmth and comfort. This is how we were greeted by our hosts in Chefchaeoun, along with a drag on their Kif! We arrived in Morocco hesitant about what we would find. Our first stop was a wonderful way to settle any uneasiness, Chefchaeuon is a modest town set into the folds of the Rif Mountains. It is a rabbit warren of blue painted alleyways that house the multi-lingual inhabitants in its cramped space. We stayed in the house of a mad scottish family who have settled 100m above the Medina. We spent some very happy hours soaking up the sun and the lush view of the surrounding Mountians and Valleys on their comfortable rooftop terrace.

Our endearing but somewhat scatty hosts generously offered us a lift to the bus station on our last morning with them. We eagerly accepted but readily acknowledged that the bomb that they called a car had a strong possiblity of not starting. As expected, we found ourselves pushing the dusty mercedes backwards up the hill before clambering in. Silently we prayed that the car would start once we had the momentum of the downwards "slope"of the Mountain. It started thank fully and the breaks brought us to a halt once at the baron location that they referred to as the 'bus stop'.

Our next stop was Fes, actually our next stop was a tiny orange stall on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Our bus driver had decided to carefully hand pick a whole sack full of oranges whilst we sat waiting patiently on the bus! We had a good old giggle about it with our new friends Jo and Chris, a lovely couple from Sheffield. We fast became friendly stalkers for them, leeching onto them to find the accommodation that they had booked and we hoped to book into (thanks to our "winging it" attitude). Our new friends became our devoted side kicks over the following six days....starting with a guided tour of Fes with our proud guide, Albi. He was very thorough, taking us through an unfathomable network of market streets with stalls selling everything from socks to snails (I was genorously offered a back pack full of them by a playful stall owner)!

Although there are many lovely Moroccans (like the affore mentioned snail man), there are three times as many scammers. Unfortunately it meant that we did not want to trust anyone by the end of our sixteen day adventure. Befriending opening lines always led to a hard sell and the method of guilting you into buying their merchandise. It was unfortunate that every "nice" local was generally only out to make a profit from you. Despite this we actually felt very safe traveling through Morocco, you just have to keep your wits about you and be prepared to juggle manners and an attitude to not be suckered in.

Our friendship with our new buddies continued into the Sahara desert and through the Atlas Mountains when they invited JJ and I to join their five day private tour. It was an amazing experience, the first day we drove mostly through the Rif mountains to get out of Fes and then slowly we headed further out into the desolate landscape that is Morocco (out that way at least), our first night was spent way out over the 30 metre tall sand dunes in the Sahara desert in a traditional tent. We helped our guide, Mohammad, prepare the evening meal of Tajine in a traditional cooking tent before devouring it with bread and our sandy fingers!

The next day we woke at 5am to watch the sun rise and then trek back to the 4x4 (on our camels), we had a monumentally long day driving from 7am till 9:30pm!!! I woke with a gurling stomach that fast turned into an aggressive bout of stomach upset...stuck in a car for the entire day whilst driving through the desert (which in turn means no readily available toilets) meant that it was possibly my least favourite day of our travels! The sights that we passed in the car that day though were rather majestic!

The three days following we spent doing some pretty serious mountain hiking through the Atlas mountains...if we knew how much there was going to be and how intense then I am not sure we would have done it, but I am glad that we did! We stayed the first two nights in a little Berber town called Imlil which sits about 1700m above sea level. The first day we took it easy, climbing to 2500m. It was a pleasant walk through villages, down rocky hill sides, over streams and along the man made irragation systems. It took us around six hours in total. Day two we started with an 800m hike directly up to the top of the mountain where the soil was rocky and soft and hard to grip; thankfully we had a mule to carry our ruck sacks and a mulateer to provide us with lunch at the top! We spent the night in a tiny Berber village where we slept on concrete floors and had no particular comforts (a foam mattress was as luxurious as it got)...it was freezing...there was snow on the mountains!!! The third day was much easier, we only climbed another 400m and then back down through the valley to the pick up point, although by that time I must say, our hearts just weren't in it! The first day we walked 22km, then the second day we walked around 30km, followed by about 15km on the last day. A grand total of 67km!!!

Our next stop was spent in a seaside town called Essouira, where we took the time to recoup and enjoy the creature comforts like hot showers, and western style loos...I never thought that I could be so excited to see a western style toilet...until my nasty dose of diorreaha!! We spent a comfortable four days being lazy on the roof terrace that over looked the bay and the fishing port. We enjoyed laid back mornings consuming crepes and the fresh OJ that Morocco does so well. We have been consuming the stuff by the jugful...which led me to my second bout of bowel tangling smelly horror! My last evening was once again spent in friendship with the loo...although by this time we had at least made it to our luxury Riad in Marrakech! Oh, and to finish of the drama have I told you about the flea bites that I got from my towel in Essouira?

Despite these small dramas the whole of our trip was issue free. We had an amazing time consuming all of what Morocco had to offer. I wish I could provide you with a better picture of the extremes in landscape that the country threw at us, but it is one of those things...it will never be the same as being there. All I can say is, it is and was an adventure worth exploring!

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain