The Silence Of The Moths

So, it was with some trepidation, heart pounding, that I put the key into the front door of my late mother's flat. What lay beyond?

I expected the flat to be dark and humid, curtains drawn and a plague of large rubbery moths zero-ing in on me for disturbing their new squat as soon as I walk in through the entrance.

My hands would try to ward them off unsuccessfully. Discarded cocoons would crunch underfoot on the half eaten carpet and I would stumble. As I scream they fly into my mouth...

Later I wake up to find myself in complete darkness, pushed into the bath, unable to move, in a giant cocoon whilst a giant moth man comes to eat me...slowly....

As you can see, I had thought about this, waaaay too much!

Of course, it was nothing like this. I managed to fight off the moth man that was living in the bathroom and fend him off with a can of insecticide and flush him down the loo.

Seriously though, the moths were just tiny clothes moths and there weren't that many of them. They hadn't propagated that well because: (and I learnt this from the interweb, so it must be true.)

a) There weren't any clothes left in the flat.

b) None of the fibres left in the house, such as the carpet, were natural. Clothes moths only really go for natural fibres such as wool or cotton.

c) There were a few spiders doing the rounds and lots of dead moths already in a few hidden, dark corners where the webs had done their work

So to cut a long story short, I bought two cans of Rentakill wasp and moth killer for less than four quid, covered the flat in it and went back on the Monday to vacuum up the dead bugs.

The whole place has never been cleaner!

So all's well that ends well. *phew!*

Doobrie 1 - Evil Moth Empire 0

A plague on your house!

No pictures this time....They just wouldn't be nice...Read on to find out why.

So, I'm just getting ready to go to bed on Thursday night when I notice that I've had a missed call during the day when I was ay work. I check and find a rather distressing voice mail.

"Hello Mr Doobrie, this is Debbie from the agency selling your late mother's house. We had somebody go to see it yesterday and well, you appear to have a moth infestation. There are LOADS of moths (she really emphasised that word) and a rather unpleasant smell coming from the bathroom. They were even crawling on the walls as we entered. We had to just close the door and leave the flat. Just talking about it is making me itch, could you please ring be back IMMEDIATELY (emphasised by her again) to get this resolved."

*sigh* They had a mice infestation last year which they paid to fix and I had my ant infestation and now this!!! Whatever next?! A plague of locusts?!

Plus the timing was brilliant. Here's me going to bed with the sound of this woman saying "LOADS of moths" ringing around in my head. Nightmares here I come!

I'm not keen on creepy crawlies but will deal with them if need be just to prove that I'm higher up the food chain than they are but here I was having visions of leathery moth wings assaulting me as I enter my mum's flat and cocoons all over the place with half the carpet and funiture eaten away. A lot could have happened in the nine months since I'd last been there. And what about the smell coming from the bathroom? What the hell is that supposed to be? Is that where their nest is or has something died in there???!!!

So I slept really well that night. I had a dream that I was in that scene from "Silence Of The Lambs" where Clarice Starling is wandering around in the moth infested dark whilst the killer is stalking her with his night vision goggles on.

To be continued....

The Great British Summer

Brazil Nuts!

The Sultan's Elephant

So, I saw Mission Impossible III on Thursday down at the Marble Arch Odeon. I thought that it was an okay movie. Nothing ground-breaking but good brainless entertainment and a good night out nonetheless. I was interested in all the bits set in Shanghai as it was only eighteen months ago that I was there.

Then, on Friday I spent some time getting my money's worth wandering around the Michelangelo Drawings exhibition at the British Museum. Also discovered that it's a great place to meet members of the opposite sex! Then read something over the weekend that said that the V&A was the number one museum for meeting future partners. Wow! Who'd have thought it!? I'll have to check that out next!

On Saturday, we were lucky to have a warm dry morning but with rain forecast (surprise!) so I hurriedly walked into London to hunt down the Sultan's Elephant...

As it was it wasn't that hard to find. It seems as if any event organised in London nowadays draws huge crowds. So I walked past Buckingham Palace and down The Mall. I knew that something was going on as the Mall was closed to traffic. So I turned down into Pall Mall and things were still quiet. The streets were still sealed off, so I knew that I was getting close.

Then I spotted my first clue. A row of cars seemingly wrecked by the side of the road. I was so intent on looking for the elephant that I almost walked past without noticing. The cars were stitched together, literally! The rope that was sewn through their bodywork was made to look as if it went into the tarmac too. Tres cool!


Then ahead I heard music. I turned the corner into Waterloo Place and there was a giant puppet of a girl with little kids swinging backwards and forwards on her arms! Getting better...

I then carried on towards Trafalgar Square and just as I walked past Haymarket I saw a sight that took my breath away! It was like a scene from a monster movie. There down the other end of the street coming around the corner was the mechanical elephant that I had been searching for! Three stories high it turned onto Haymarket with hundreds of people milling around its feet taking pictures or just plain staring in astonishment!

A huge childish grin plastered itself onto my face. It was just so f***ing amazing! I hadn't known what to expect and this was too cool! I walked towards it and joined the local paparazzi snapping away. Shots from the front, from the side. How could something so large and obviously so heavy move so gracefully, I wondered?

I knew that it's destination was Trafalgar Square, so I headed there before it got there. By now the giant girl had finished playing with the kids and was now walking into the Square joined by the huge elephant. I got a good central spot and just carried on grinning.

They had closed off most of the major roads around the West End but, in my opinion, it was so original and amazing to see, that it was all so very worth it. Though I had only just seen an hour or two's worth of the event, it had in fact started on Thursday with a giant capsule smoking in the street having apparently crash landed from space and ended up on Sunday with the giant girl blasting off in her rocket

I look forward to seeing what the French theatre group who orchestrated the spectacle plan next for us Londoners. I'm sure they will be back.

Quick Quick Slow Slow

Had a nice bank holiday weekend that started off hectic and then slowed to a snail's pace...

Saturday involved travelling up to Liverpool (three and a half hours to North West England) to see Liverpool win their last home game of the season 3-1. Then a mad rush back to Lime Street station to catch the train down to Alfreton (two hours cross country) in Derbyshire, where one of my best friends live, then a quick change of clothes later, we meet up with one of my other best friends and we head out to celebrate in Mansfield (unfortunately the closest town with any semblance of night life.)


Then started to slow down a bit after all the travelling and drinking on Saturday by laughing our collective heads off on Sunday morning at an episode of Takeshi's castle on Challenge TV that had all the contestants dressed up in monster costumes.

In fact it was probably the funniest episode that I've ever seen!...of anything!!!

Then off to celebrate my friend's daughter's twelfth birthday, after she had opened all her presents, including a wet suit (don't ask!) with a nice local pub lunch followed by the car ride back down to London (two and a quarter hours.)

Phew!

After all that I didn't even leave the house on Monday having one of those couldn't be bothered to do anything-type days. So I just taking the time to catch up on a load of TV and movies.

I've started to get itchy feet again and so have started checking out holiday options for August. So far Cambodia/Vietnam looks favourite....Though it's not as if I can book anything as my new debit card still hasn't turned up at my local bank! *sigh*

It's not all bad news though. I got a letter from the council telling me that I had been overpaying my council tax due to a clerical error resulting in my flat being put into the wrong tax banding!

For the last seven years!!! Yeah, they never noticed.

They refunded me over nine hundred quid! Cor blimey guv'nor! Oh, and in case you were wondering.... That's how I can afford to go on holiday.

I'm all excited!!!

Okay, so they just gave me the money back with no interest but it's better than a kick in the teeth, right?

Tomorrow I plan on popping along to the Marble Arch Odeon (soon to be right next door to where my office is moving...that'll be handy!) to see Mission Impossible III whilst getting high on Maltesers, because mixing lots of chocolate and diet coke gives me a chemical high!

Then Friday I'm off from work a bit earlier than usual to check out the Michelangelo exhibition at the British Museum. (finally!)

The weekend? I have no idea. Yet.... Though it may involve trying to find this...

Another Card Bites The Dust

A typical journey in today. Travelling in on a packed Hammersmith & City train, we are asked to get off at Edgware Road to what is an obviously already absolutely jam-packed platform in the hope of catching the rammed-full train just coming in on the opposite platform. *sigh*

Luckily for me, I only have one stop left to go so get out and do the ten minute walk instead. Granted the exercise is good, right?

But unfortunately:
1) I strained hamstring muscles over the weekend, so walking isn't as comfortable as it should be at the moment.
2) Walking alongside a busy main road for ten minutes isn't all that brillant either.

I got into the office and check my e-mail to find one from play.com telling me that my card had been refused. What?! *sigh* I have had a few weird problems over the weekend where my card was fine in some places but not so in others.

So I ring my bank to find out what's going on.

"There has been possible fraudulent activity on your card, sir. Did you not get a letter from us last week asking you to confirm this?"

"What?!!! No. I havem't received anything." I wonder to myself if I've left something unopened assuming that it's an advert or some other piece of junk mail.

It turns out that some gambling site registered in Gibraltar had twice tried to withdraw money from my account. *big sigh*

This is the second time in three months that this has happened to me. I look back over my transactions and they are all for large well-established outlets....All that is apart from one....

My jaw drops. I used my card to buy a carpet in Morocco. I KNEW that I should have used cash!!! Damn! Damn! Damn!

I explained this to my bank but they didn't seem all that bothered but they cancelled my card and now I have to go through the rigmarole (oooh, never typed that word before) of waiting for a new card and moving anything across that was using the old one....

Alarm Bells!

Something strange happened to me this morning. I was woken up by the sound of my new alarm clock (something that my brain is still adjusting to the sound of) so I got up and switched it off.

It's on a chest of drawers near the foot of my bed rather than next to me and that's how I prefer it as it forces me to get out of bed to switch off rather than just reaching out, hitting it and going back to sleep straight away.

Anyway, as I mentioned, today, I flick the alarm switch off and lie down for a few seconds. But I can still hear it ringing. Weird!

I get up and switch it off again...

I can still hear it going!!!

I look at it. The alarm switch is off but it still shrilly rings at me.

Damn that new alarm clock. What's going on????

That's when my brain caught up with me and said "You're still asleep, you muppet!" (It's quite a sarcastically cruel brain sometimes.)

Sure enough, I was dreaming that I had switched the alarm clock off but in the real world it was still making a racket!

*big sigh*

And slowly and surely drew their plans against us...

I went to see War Of The Worlds at the Royal Albert Hall today.
No not the one with the placenta eating alien freak boy but the electro-hippy-trippy one from the 70s conducted by Jeff Wayne.

I'd bought the tickets months ago and only just realised late last week that the time was almost upon me to go!

Just as well that I remembered. It was a unique experience. Live music, light show, performance and CGI movie all in one. Plus there was the 25 foot tall war machine whose legs descended part way through the first act with lasers flying and explosions going off!

A shiver went down my spine as the animated Richard Burton started his commentary and the first bars of the opening tune played by a live orchestra and rock band inter-mixed kicked in.

It was tres cool baby!

The only down side is that back home, I feel ill now. I think that I've come down with something. My temperature is soaring and I ache all over. *sigh*

Oh well, a good night's rest should help. So g'night everyone!
(or good morning/day/evening depending on when you're reading this!)

Rem-ember-ance

Well, that last post was number one hundred for me, and I hadn't even realised. That's ninety-nine entries longer than I've ever managed to keep a diary going for!

I've been back three weeks from holiday and it's taken that long to write it all up. No idea why really, perhaps something to remember it all by in years to come if blogger still exists then.

Check out here for all the pictures. I took everything in digital RAW format but didn't have time to process everything so just bunged them all onto a site for future prosperity. Over time I'll tweak them and save them somewhere a bit more permanent....maybe.

Come Saturday I went along to see a play called "Embers" featuring Jeremy Irons. I paid full whack for a ticket a few days ago as I fancied a bit of culture and was interested by the fact that it was based on a book by a Hungarian author. Annoyingly the day after I bought the ticket I got a mailing from rip-off merchants Ticketmaster advertising the same tickets for half price. Bloody hell! There wasn't much I could do as they don't allow refunds because they don't give a damn about their customers.

Me: "Hey I just got run over and can't make it. Can I get a refund?"
Ticketmaster: "Tough Titties!"
(Obviously fictional, but you get the point.)

I got a nice seat in the fourth row with no seat in front of me, so lots of leg room. That's about as good as it got though. The play was heavy going. I don't know what I was thinking going to a play based on a Hungarian book. Old Hungarians books (and I've read a few, infrequently) aren't exactly known for their light-heartedness. They are full of tragedy or perceived tragedy. Lots of inner monologues and depression. And that's just the good ones.

To be honest, I struggled. It was so unoriginal and uninspiring that I couldn't wait for it to end. Now I know what it feels to be a true Hungarian, I thought to myself.

The first act was mercifully short at less than thirty minutes. My hopes were raised that even though I'd paid a lot for the ticket, I would be out of there quickly. The second act was over an hour long, unfortunately.

And a strange thing happened during the second act. The two protagonists (who were basically the only two people on stage for ninety-nine percent of the time,) were in a scene where they were smoking cigars after an unseen dinner.

The venue, the York Theatre is small/intimate (depending on how creative you are) and the smoke from the cigars basically wafted out over the audience. No surprise then that a couple of people started coughing. Before I'd gone in I noticed a sign warning about strobe lighting (for a short lightning effect) but nothing about passive smoking.

I blocked out the coughing as I was concentrated on the actors but then Jeremy Irons walks up to the front of the stage and talks directly to the audience.

"It's always an option to walk out," he said. And then he carried on with the play.
But the bubble was broken.

We weren't in a castle on the Hungarian plains but back in a small theatre in London town where the star of the show was telling off someone in the audience. I felt so sorry for them. It came across as a bit nasty to single out someone like that.

I was glad when it was all over. I clapped methodically with no real feeling. It was great to get out into the fresh air after. Annoyingly it was raining and cold so the rest of the afternoon/evening was scuppered for outdoor things.

Sunday was just church for Easter in the evening and then a 5k run on the old treadmill (my new year's resolution has kicked in a bit late but better late than never!)

Today, I walked into London (more exercise!) to see an excellent American indie film called "Junebug."

Walking through Notting Hill I passed a Securitas van with an alarm going off declaring in a posh English voice. "This van is being attacked! Please call the police!"

In the front of the van were two men in Securitas uniform looking a bit embarrassed. I guess that everyone assumes that someone else is dealing with it. I couldn't see anyone doing anything so I just walked by too. Hehe.

The photo, taken today, is of the Peter Pan statue in Hyde Park.

Back To Reality

I’m feeling a bit sad today. Yesterday was my last proper full day in Morocco.

Today is just a day of travel back to life, back to reality.

This time we are woken up by the sound of the call to prayer. Mainly because our room is on the opposite side of the hotel from when we first stayed here and I swear that the mosque’s speakers are directed straight at our room!

It’s really annoying that although Morocco is less than three hours flight time from the UK that here we are heading off at half seven in the morning to catch a connecting flight to Casablanca and that we won’t make the UK until early evening.

Weirdly, today, once we have started to head back I just can’t wait to get home. The travelling bits in between origin and destination points are just plain boring for me. My brain just disengages and then switches back on when I’m walking in through my front door.

Right now, I’m switched off. I suppose that I don’t want the week to end but, of course, it has to. I feel ever so slightly broken, a bit frayed at the edges. There are things that I want to say to someone but never do before I walk off into the distance at Heathrow. I metaphorically kick myself all the way home.

It has been a great holiday though, tiny bus and dodgy guide aside. The group had some cool people and though I don’t feel that I spoke to everyone in the group as much as, perhaps, I would have liked to, the group was a contributing factor in making the holiday a good one.

Ma'al salâma & shukran - Goodbye & thank-you (everyone)

A chilled out last day

It's yet another blue skies and sunshine day in Morocco! So that makes it a T-shirt and shorts day too!

We decide to start off with a stroll along the beach. Our target is the half-submerged ruined fort in the sand at the far end of the beach that I seem to recall a holiday programme a few weeks ago mentioning was the inspiration for Jimi Hendrix's 'Spanish Castle Magic.' I've no idea if that is true but it gives us something interesting to aim for.

I'm not really one for lying around on a beach doing nothing all day long. I can manage for small spells but will generally get restless and have to be doing something.

As we walk I think back over the past week and the diversity of the places we have been too. We've slept in the desert, stayed in the mountains, wandered around bustling Marrakech and now here we are, on a gorgeous day, chilled out walking along the beach with a refreshing breeze. So cool!

seeing that it is a Saturday, there are a lot of families out on the beach. We pass a section where there is a basketball court being used to play a frantic game of football by the local lads. Further along we come to a section where we spot our first sunbathing Westerners. It's only a small section, obviously associated with a hotel or resort behind the beach on the other side of the road that runs alongside. But thankfully this isn't a resort town, so no high rise hotels along the beachfront to spoil the view.

It's all a very laid back place. Everyone seems happy to be here and it's easy to see why. We pass a few other people out for a stroll, just like us. There are also a few hordes being ridden up and down. At one point we reach a guy who's trying to sell camel rides along the beach. Well, it certainly makes a change from donkey rides at Blackpool! It was all a bit too touristy for me though and with the memories of the bruises from our rides in the desert still fresh in our minds, we politely declined.

We eventually reached the end of the beach to discover that the only way onward to reach the ruined fort would have been to wade across a small peninsular to reach the beach on the other side where the fort was. Oh well! We didn't really fancy getting wet as we has already checked out of the hotel, so I settled for a few long shots of the fort from where we were.
We then strolled back, politely declining an old geezer on his camel with two baby camels wanting money for photos of his "bebe-s." Instead I take a sneaky one as we walk away with my camera facing behind me!

It's still rather hot and we are a bit parched so we sit outside a cafe by the beach and I get text updates from my mate who's at a Liverpool-Everton game that I was supposed to be at but hadn't realised that the date clashed with my holiday. Suffice to say, the weather was a lot nicer where I was!

We then head back to the main part of town and wander through the narrow streets taking the odd photo here and there. Paul mentions that there is a slightly dodgy part of town with a bit of a drug-related problem (according to Lonely Planet) so we try our best to avoid this. At one point we do spot someone rushing past us obviously completely stoned, his eyes saucer-like in shape and gibbering to himself. Later on, looking at the town map we realise that we had in fact walked straight through the area that we had intended to avoid. So much for sense of direction!
We then visit the small fort overlooking the harbour. It's something like a pound to get in and you get some great all round views from the top. There appears to be a school trip visiting at the same time as us so we have to jostle our way past hordes of kids who are trying to grab all the best viewpoints.

After all this, it's nice to sit down and grab a light lunch in a local cafe watching the world go by.

Then, once again, it's time to ascend the steps of our compact and bijou mini-bus and the journey away from paradise into the mad hustle and bustle that is Marrakech.

The journey back appears to go faster to me but Sarah, who is sat in front of me, still succeeds in doing a really good job of falling asleep in places where nobody else could. I correctly guess that her head is going to loll to the left first.



We find ourselves back at the same hotel that we left a day earlier (though it now seems longer than a day) but not in the same rooms, which is a relief as I won't have to be wrestling with the fold up camp bed anymore. In fact our room even has a small suite attached with a sofa and armchair pushed into the corner. Thankfully we also have hot water (some people didn't the last time we were here) though the toilet is in a separate room from the shower and sink, which is a bit unusual.

Before the sun sets we head off to the main square. It's even busier than it was the last time we were here. There are a lot more events going on too with crowds around each. We watch a boxing match, see snake charmers, acrobats and performing monkeys. We avoid taking pictures of any of the animal-related entertainments as we have read that they all have sad, cruel lives and we don't want to encourage that type of tourism. Unfortunately lots of others in the square have no such reservations.

As it's our last night together as a group, Mohammed books dinner for us in a restaurant by the main square. It's basically an eat as much as you like buffet affair but the food is good.

We realise afterwards that weirdly, given that it's the last night, nobody thinks to get a group photo. The streets bustle with activity. It's a warm, muggy evening and we slowly stroll back to the hotel after to walk off the food.

Unfortunately, it's going to be a relatively early start the next day as we need to get to the airport with a few hours to spare.

Marrakech And Essouira

My earplugs do their job well in the morning as Paul tells me that he was woken up early by the call to prayer at the mosque just across the street. I didn't hear a thing!

Mohammed has arranged for a local guide to give us a brief city tour after which our time is free until two in the afternoon when we need to head off on the bus to our next stop, the coastal fishing town of Essouira.

Our guide, Mustapha, turns up and is a bit of a character. He's a large man wearing a traditional long djellaba over his regular clothes. He starts by telling us that he won't be using the microphone on the bus as he is frightened by the sound of his own amplified voice! He laughs a lot, especially at his own jokes.

First stop on our tour is the main mosque. He gives us a quick history lesson in how the original mosque collapsed because it had been built on a waterway and how the sultan subsequently ordered that the architect be executed and his head preserved and displayed for all to see. However, when the sultan started a search for a new architect, not surprisingly, almost over night, there suddenly wasn't one to be found in the city! He laughs a lot through his entire story, his large belly wobbling up and down throughout like a jelly.


We visit various places and end up with a whistle stop tour of the souks. "This tour is just for
looking not shopping." he jokily warns us. And boy wasn't he kidding! He scarcely pauses for
breath as he rushes through the tightly packed streets of the souks. If anyone pauses to take a picture or look into a shop they find Mustapha vanished off into the distance or even more worryingly out of sight around a corner.

The packed bazaars are colourful and make perfect photo fodder so loads of us get left behind at various stages of our tour. The narrow streets are packed with locals, speeding mopeds, men pulling huge wheelbarrows and even the odd mule or two! All the twists and turns that we have taken leave me feeling a bit lost but I always make sure I pay attention to the next turn that Mustapha takes ahead of us so as not to be left behind yet again!


The tour ends with us being ushered into a local chemist where we're told of all the herbs and spices that they sell and how each can be more effective than Western medicine. The little shop has a hundred brightly coloured jars lining shelves on all the walls and is a photo opportunity in itself. They have medicines against acne, herpes, spots and other infections of the skin alongside spices to cook fish, vegetables or meat!

Or how about: Infusions for the loins and bladder - Acts to reinforce the musculature of the bladder reduce calculations in the loins?! (sic)


Well, almost everyone bought something. I got a three for two deal on mint tea which came in packets of something that looked like you would smoke them rather than pop in hot water!
Thankfully the smell was quite obviously minty so a situation where I would have to answer awkward questions in customs shouldn’t arise!


We leave the shop with bags laden with all manner of weird and wonderful goodies. Well, to be honest it wasn't too expensive and like items in the UK would probably cost a lot more but the chemist would have been a happy man and I wondered if Mustapha would be getting a commission!

We were then shown back to the main square and that was basically the end of our tour. My stomach was rumbling so we all decide to find somewhere on the square to eat. Mohammed and Mustapha recommend an air condition restaurant on one of the side streets but really fancy eating something a bit lighter somewhere where we can do a bit of people watching too.

This turns out to be a lot harder than we had at first thought. The waiter at the first place we try beckons us upstairs into a cramped low-ceilinged room and when we walk out sits us by the kebab cooker outside which ends up grilling anyone who is sat by it too!

Then six of us sit down outside a more promising venue two to a table only for the owner to grumble about us using up too many tables and threatening to take one of them away from us. We counter-threaten to walk and he seems to back down for a minute or so before stupidly taking the table away from us and leaving us cramped around two. That's the last straw for us and the group gets up in unison with the owner looking on dumbfounded.
"Well we told you we would leave if you took the table away, so why are you looking so surprised. Now you have no customers!", I tell him as we walk off.

The whole group splits up at this point and Paul and I end up going back to the first place and enjoying a nice sandwich washed down with a coke whilst watching the world go by. After this we explore the souks and Paul haggles to buy a fez for what we both think is probably too much but it's for a friend for whom we always buy silly hats on our holidays.

I'm on the lookout for a nice rug, so before heading into a shop that I spotted on our earlier tour, I take off my watch, sunglasses and cap to remove any obvious signs of wealth that will make getting a good price harder and then manage to persuade that seller that I'm a poor student who can't go much above the budget that I have set myself.

I think that I got a good deal at the end and the seller looks on annoyed as I take out my credit card to pay. "You pay credit card?!" he says, "That will cost you more!" I don't really budge much and I leave with him not even offering to shake my hand at the end. Thinking back, I have no idea whether being annoyed was just a ploy by him to make it look like I had got a good deal or whether or not I had indeed haggled well and got a better deal than most!

But I like my new rug and I guess that's all that counts in the end!

We still have a bit of time to kill and we reward ourselves with a tasty three scoop icecream each for under a pound. Yum!

Then it's back to the bus and our three hour journey West towards the coast and Essouira. We will spend one night there before heading back into Marrakech for our final night and then the flight back to the UK.

It's early evening by the time we get there. We glimpse a long beach, port and the high city walls that surround the town. A hot shower later we head out to explore further.

We wander around a bit and find our ways onto the city walls and catch one of the most amazing sunsets that I have ever seen! The colours of the sky, sun and the contrast with the dark rocks and splashing surf below are extraordinary! Paul starts snapping away on his compact camera whilst I rue the fact that I have left my more bulky SLR back in the hotel. I can't take it much longer and run back to the hotel to just about make it back in time to catch the end of the sunset. The pictures are still amazing, though I do wish that I has simply taken my camera with me in the first place.

We walk down to the port where locals are selling their fresh fish and see the hundred or so
seagulls flying above trying to get a piece of the action hoping that none of them feels like relieving themselves at the moment that we are walking past!

Paul and I check out the local cafes and restaurants for somewhere nice to eat but are turned away from the place that we decide upon as we are told that it is by reservation only and they are full up. I end up having a cheesburger (of sorts) in the restaurant outside of our hotel whilst Paul has some calamari which he also liked.

Then we make our way up to the rooftop terrace of the restaurant that we had originally tried to get into. Up here there's just a bar and we start to wonder where everyone else in the group had got to as we hadn't bumped into anyone else on our travels. Reading the entry for this bar in Lonely Planet afterwards, we find out that this was the trendiest place in town. It's a bit chilly so high up though so we have a few drinks and are just about to leave when four of the others turn up. It turns out that they had been eating at the restaurant below and they'd had two spare seats that we could have taken. Oh well! They even had a belly dancer down there! *sigh*

We natter on for a few more drinks, (though it’s all a bit much for one of our group, aged 31, who naps off!) and knowing that we all have enough alcohol in our systems to fall asleep straight away we all head back to the hotel ready to explore the town and beach further the following morning.

From the mountains into mad Marrakech

Despite the bedding in the gite being relatively basic, I fall asleep quickly after finding that the best way of keeping warm is to keep a large blanket on top of the sleeping bag. This was so effective, in fact, that I woke up in the early hours of the morning, with a hot flush! It wasn’t just that that had woken me up though. There was a loud noise akin to having a jet plane taking off next to me!

My ear plugs were in so I was quite surprised that I could hear anything and tried to ignore it as best as I could and get back to sleep but to no avail. The bass tone of the noise was vibrating the room and my ear plugs weren’t blocking it out. *sigh* I look up trying to figure out what is going on. It’s Stephen! We shared a tent with him in the desert and he didn’t snore then but tonight he most definitely is!

I contemplate chucking a cushion at him when I notice that Paul has also been woken by the noise. In the end I decide to pop out for the call of nature hoping that the Stephen naturally stops snoring. It’s cold outside the room but I pause on the way back to go out onto the terrace to check out the stars. They’re beautiful but my feet feel like they’re turning blue so I hurry back and find that peace and quiet has returned to the room. Phew!

We pack in the morning and find that breakfast is last night’s bread with various spreads to make it seem just a little less stale. I manage to find a few of the softer pieces but supplement my energy levels with a Twix that I pickup from the chocolate stash in the main entrance along with a Mars bar for later on today.

We have an optional three to four hour trek up and down the mountain range that rises behind the gite. I welcome a bit of exercise so look forward to it. Mohammed warns us that it will be cold at the top so the group wears fleeces and some take gloves.

We are lead by a guide called Abdul who I later find out is sixty two. I don’t think that he speaks English though he does seem to understand French. He leads us up the trail with the ease of someone who could hop up the mountain…. blindfolded!

It’s a clear blue sky and the sun is shining. Within a few minutes most of the group have discarded their fleeces and we huff and puff our way up. We pause now and then to drink water and rest. Abdul, of course, is enjoying his morning stroll with not even a bead of sweat on his sun darkened brow.

We have to be careful as some of the rocks are loose and I get the fleeting thought that this climb is going to be a lot harder than I’d first thought. Luckily after about half an hour the trail becomes less steep and turns into more of a long winding one. We are in fact following a mule track up the side of the mountain, something proven when we spot a man and his mule coming up from below and eventually overtaking us!


We eventually reach the top of the range to find that our fleeces, gloves, hats etc were all redundant as we are batched in beautiful sunlight with a pleasant breeze and it’s not cold at all! I munch on my Mars bar and we take turns getting our photos taken in front of the spectacular mountain vista. A bit further down we get to meet a dog whose bark is definitely worse than his bite and who’d be no cop as a guard dog as he runs away as we approach. He appears to be guarding a goat pen. We peer in and there are loads of cute kids bleating at us. Abdul climbs in and hands one to Sarah. It turns out that she’s a natural with baby goats. It’s always useful to have a backup career skill! Her kid like here so much in fact that it carries on trying to jump out after the pen has been closed up. Arrrrr!

The journey down takes about as long as there is a lot of loose shingle and we have to be careful. I let Paul go in front of me as my early warning system as he has a knack of revealing the loose bits of rock quite effectively. Thanks Paul!

A few of us slip up now and then and I’m sure that I annoy a few by starting to give scores out of ten for how spectacular the slip ups are! Sarah won with a 9.5 but was okay afterwards, so I hope no harm done.

We are all glad that we did the walk afterwards and we head back to the gite for a nice lunch of couscous, salad and fruit on the upstairs terrace.

I pop back into our room to stretch out my legs and find myself napping off. I wake up and go downstairs. It’s awfully quiet. I head out front of the gite to find Mohammed packing our bags into the back of the petrol-driven mule.
“Where is everyone?” I ask. “Everyone is walking back to the bus,” he replies. I’m a bit shocked. I wonder if I had fallen asleep whether anyone would have noticed that I was missing until they all got to the bus?!

I grab my rucksack and start jogging down the trail to catch up with everyone. At one point the road splits and I start to panic. But I know that I have to pick one way and luckily go in the right direction as a few minutes later I spot the tail end of my group as little dots off in the distance. I switch to a brisk walk and catch up easily. It’s just one of those things and not worth getting angry about, especially on holiday but I am annoyed.

We make it back to our spacious(!) bus in one piece and commence the three hour journey to our next destination, Marrakech.

On the way we stop off at a small café (obviously for tourists) and an old man by the roadside squeezes some fresh orange juice for me using four oranges for something like 50p.

We make Marrakech late in the afternoon and find ourselves in a no frills hotel. Paul and I have three beds in a row in our room and Paul bagseys the far one so I go for the nearest. I collapse down on it to find myself sagging through almost onto the floor!

I peer under the bed and find that it’s just an unfolded camp bed with a thin mattress on top! A bit of room rearrangement is called for! I whisk into action, fold up the camp bed, prop it up against the wall and pull the middle bed along instead. This is much more comfortable. It’s probably just as well that I won’t be around in the morning to hear what the maid will have to say though!

In the evening we head out to brave the city and its bustling main square. Marrakech is a complete contrast to anywhere else that we have been on this holiday. It’s definitely a lot more hectic. The wide roads are a challenge to cross as we try to make sense of the pedestrian crossings (when there are any!) and we see a lot more local people walking around dressed in a more Western style.

We approach the square and all I can see is a huge mass of people throughout with clouds of smoke coming off from one side. It turns out that these are the food stalls where locals and brave westerners can come to eat whatever they desire. I spot a few pigeons hanging up in the distance at one stall and keep a wide berth. There also appear to be rows upon rows of stalls selling oranges, each identical (how would you choose which to go to?!) and garishly dressed water sellers walk around with huge red hats with bells on letting everyone know where they are at all times.

Alison, Sarah, Paul and I have a nice meal at a restaurant, recommend to us by Mohammed and in the Lonely Planet guide, overlooking the square.

Afterwards, we decide to brave the souks. These are narrow streets with shops or stalls overflowing selling just about everything that you could think of. The streets are packed with people and mopeds constantly rush us from behind too, which is a bit disconcerting in such a tight area. I find it all very cool and feel safe though some of the others less so.


We walk in a large circle but find that most of the places are closing up for the night. No late night haggling for us tonight! We finish off on one of those horse-drawn carriage affairs that you see in a lot of cities. The driver is very accommodating and gives us a tour of the square and parts of the city, whilst honking the horn on the side of his cab. Alison can’t stop giggling every time that he does this which just makes him do it all the more. Thanks Alison!

Our tour includes the local five star luxury hotels and casino (obviously for the westerners and not the non-gambling locals?) and ends with us being dropped off at our hotel, and all for a very reasonable charge too!

You Gite!

This holiday is starting to surprise me a bit. In Peru and a few previous holidays that involved touring around a country, you had to accept a certain inconvenience. The early start...

To fit something like the amount of places you’d want to see into a one or two week holiday necessitates an ingrown acceptance that you’ll be travelling a lot and that the only way to get somewhere early enough to see anything is to head off at an ungodly hour.

Peru was wonderful but it was physically demanding and involved a lot of early starts. I mean can something be called a holiday if you're getting up earlier than you would be if you were at home?

Morocco is a massively pleasant contrast to this. Each day we are in a new place but each day we pretty much get to wake up in our own good time.

Take today as an example. It’s a beautiful day. The sun shines in a blue sky. We go up to the terrace of the restaurant next door and are served croissants, freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee whilst we have a view that could literally take your breath away. We can see the snow-capped Atlas mountains in the distance whilst in the foreground is the impressive looking and picturesque hill all over which the clay kasbahs of Ait Benhaddou are built.

After breakfast we have a bit of spare time, so head off to conquer the kasbahs and climb to the top of the hill to take a few pictures. It looks a long way up and could be an arduous climb. My fleece is off in no time as the sun starts to take it toll. But then we find ourselves in the cooler narrow streets between the crumbling clay buildings, zigzagging our way up the hill. It turns out not to be as hard as it looked at all and we are up to the top in less than twenty minutes.


Once again it’s an amazing view. I fiddle around switching from wide for the landscapes to my telephoto lense to take a picture of some storks nesting at the top of one of the ruined towers.

Did I mention? It’s a wonderful morning!

We stroll back down in plenty of time to grab our bags and get back on the bus to head off to the Kasbah of Telouet. It’s a half renovated, half crumbling to bits mini labyrinth of rooms. To be honest, I’m a bit underwhelmed. The only bits we get to walk around are the renovated parts which don’t really have that much history. Perhaps I should have read the Lonely Planet to get a bit more of a background so that I could truly appreciate the kasbah’s past but I find myself just enjoying the holiday and not really getting much beyond skimming through my guide book during the week at all.

We have a little rest in a café by the Kasbah where a boy tries to persuade me to buy everything in his shop in return for him trying to scare some local storks that I am patiently waiting to photo.

The café also has the largest radio that I have ever seen (the size of a desk) and seems to be tuned in to a station playing old eighties hits which is a bit surreal.

A short bus trip after this rest has us being told to leave our bags behind to be carried by donkeys whilst we take a one hour stroll away from the main road into the foothills to find our accommodation for the night. A gite! A gite, we’re told is a series of rooms in which you both eat and sleep arranged around a courtyard. Unfortunately it also happens to be an alcohol-free zone. No!!!!!

Everyone had visions of the group climbing a winding trail with mules coming up the rear carrying all of our day packs. In reality it turned out that the mules had long since been retired and a mule of the petrol driven variety was used instead.

The walk into the foothills was pleasant and very picturesque. Our only moment of hesitation came when we had to cross a stream by jumping from stone to stone. Thinking back it was all a bit silly as it was more about keeping our shoes dry than anything else. It's not as if we were in a rush anyway and we could have easily taken our shoes off and walked through the stream barefoot.

We passed a few small villages on the way. We hear the local children uttering their now familiar cries of either "stylo" or "bonbon" towards us rich westerners and then hiding away if we tried to take any pictures of them without the obligatory gratuity.
After about an hour we made it to the gite. It's a two floor concrete construct with a series of rooms that can accommodate a number of groups at any one time. A group of French travellers is milling about when we arrive and there is already another Exodus group there too.

We're shown upstairs to the simple, unadorned rooms. They all connect off from a central corridor and some are large enough to for six to eight people whilst others just three. I'm the first up the stairs and claim one of the three person rooms. A long communal sink lines one of the ends of the corridor and Paul finds the hot shower, with a French girl still inside using it (!) along with the toilets, one of which is an "Asian" style (yahoo!) just around the corner from our room.

It's pretty chilly due to the thick walls and it looks like our sleeping bags will definitely be needed here. I just about remember to pull out my sleeping bag outside of the room and give it a good shake to discover a small pile of sand still hiding within. Unfortunately it also still smells a bit of camel! It’s with great relief that I realise that tonight is the last night that I'll need to be using it!

We all head out to the balcony on our floor overlooking the entrance and watch the sun set over the mountains. Life feels just great when you have a view like this!

After sunset the temperature noticeably drops and I start wishing that I'd packed my ever trusty woolly hat! We head down to dinner wondering what delights are in store for us. The dining room is pretty cold so Mohammed and I hunt around and find some blankets upstairs which we bring down for everyone to huddle under. Paul’s is a lovely pink one!

We’re all slightly surprised when Mohammed presents dinner to us. Spag Bol, Moroccan style! It’s actually rather tasty and though I do like Moroccan food, it’s still a nice change for the day.

After dinner the local guides attempt to liven up proceedings by merging the two tour groups together and entertaining us with song and dance. The songs sound just like the ones we heard in the desert mainly because we have no idea what they are singing about, though, sadly, no songs about Bob Marley this time.

I start to get itchy feet after Mohammed tries to get me to get up in front of everyone and dance or sing or play the drums. Okay, so I had no idea what he wanted but after seeing how badly one of the guys in the other group had danced (something that reminded me of Trevor & Simon’s “swing your pants” technique mixed in with inappropriate and uncoordinated hip thrusts.)

I start to realise why the UK has a “drink problem”, if this is what goes for entertainment when there is no alcohol available! Perhaps we can’t let our hair down without having something messing about with our internal chemistry. All I can say thank God for booze!

So some of us less brave souls scarper back to our rooms (rather abruptly) and I retrieve my PSP from the bottom of my rucksack and stick some 80’s music on for the escapees to listen to. A few of us make use of the shower whilst the shower is free.

I realise, with great dismay that I’ve forgotten to bring a towel and have only a flannel. I don’t relish running out of the shower with just a flannel covering my modesty. Besides it wouldn’t have been big enough! A shower will have to wait until we get to civilisation tomorrow.

It turns out that whilst we get ready for bed, some of those that stayed behind are getting high downstairs! So weirdly, no booze but smoking substances is fine?! Oh well!