Our trip into Jordan had been pretty frustrating, having had to wait for the largely disinterested fairy folk to meander us across the glassy smooth gulf of Aqaba for about three and a half hours. But immediately on arrival the Jordan effect kicked in. While chasing down our sequestered passports we were just told to take a seat while our entry stamps were procured and someone would bring our passports back to us. Our mob of tourists were then hurried past the waiting line of unfortunate Arab looking folk at customs (it seems there's no international port, air or otherwise where it pays to look too Arabian), and out into the night air.
The Jordan effect looked shaky for a second as we were surrounded by incredibly excited taxi drivers, but reasserted itself as we realised we seemed to be standing in a magic anti-taxi-driver field that kept them all at arms length. The field seemed to emanate from a couple of serious young policemen standing near by, enforcing the 'no taxi drivers on the footpath' rule much to our amusement.
A short taxi ride into downtown Aqaba later we were left to ourselves to try and find a cheap hotel for a nights stay before we headed into the interior. And there we had our first disappointment, it turns out that the price of civilisation is, well, price. The Jordanian Dinar is currently just about level with the English Pound (not to be confused with the Egyptian Pound at around 3.7 to the NZD, or the Syrian Pound at around 30 to the NZD), and prices while not British are certainly not consistently low.
We wandered the streets of Aqaba the next day, searching for guide books and hiding in McDonalds to avoid the heat of the day, before taking a bus north to the small town of Wadi Musa, gateway to the magnificent ruins of Petra. The sole image of Petra most foreigners are familiar with is a brief glimpse of the very first building from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but in reality the site spans an entire valley and we spent two happy, exhausting and very very hot days traipsing around climbing the surrounding hills and inspecting the huge number of carved facades, ruined temples, and even yet another Roman theatre. Half the fun of the site though is the entry through the long narrow gorge at the entrance. About one and a half kilometres long and only 3 to 6 metres wide and still mostly paved courtesy of the Roman empire, it makes stumbling upon the Treasury building at the start a fantastically atmospheric experience.
After our days at Petra we headed north to the crusader fortress of Al Karak, in one of those sublime travel moments we exited our hostel took about two steps toward the bus station before the bus we had just missed trundled round the corner and the bloke driving it leaned out the window and asked if we were heading north. That bus dropped us at a motorway junction and we had to flag down a passing local to take us the rest of the way. Its important to note that hitchhiking in a lot of the middle east is not just extremely safe but often the preferred option. You always have to pay your way (costs the same as a bus) but if you strike a friendly local, like in our case you will get dropped at the top of the hill you were worrying about climbing, way way above the bus station. The Jordanian effect continued with our orange juice vendor taking charge of our backpacks while we explored the castle (free of charge due to it being someones birthday).
The castle itself was pretty impressive, many stories, large vaulted halls, built on a huge stone glaice and with impressive views of the dead sea valley (if not quite the dead sea). It was a left over from one of the more successful crusades, when the Europeans set up their own little Kingdom of Jerusalem in the holy lands and kept the whole thing from falling apart (immediately) by building or expanding castles all up and down the region. So sure enough the castle featured a small ruined chapel, but also a mosque from the period after it had been captured by Saladin, and its subsequent use by the Ottoman empire.
So even after all that we still managed to get to Amman before dark, found a cheapish hotel and settled in for what turned out to be a reasonably lengthy stay. About the first thing we did was go for dinner and some fresh juice. But while Jordanians are almost flawlessly polite the same can not be said of their food hygiene, and after my two helpings of melony goodness cried freedom later that night I was laid out for a little bit of TV and sleepy times while Jacq tried to work out how were going to manage our needed Indian and Syrian visas.
The Indian visa form was extensive and had great fields like Father slash Husbands name, but reassured us that the visa would be produced within three working days. Of course the Indian bureaucracy being what it is when we turned up, cash, bank statements and photographs in hand it turned out to take 7 days (which turned out to mean 8 days when we went to pick it up). But in the end it was procured and it even worked as I am writing this very blog from the International transfers lounge of Mumbai airport.
So what did we do to entertain ourselves for a week in Amman, well not actually that much. We visited the local roman ruins, bet you never expected there to be Temple of Hercules in uptown Amman aye? Next door was a fairly small archaeolgy museum with a whole load of Greco-Roman stuff, some of the dead sea scrolls, and a couple of glass cases that the Jordanians would have you believe are the oldest surviving statues anywhere, clocking in at 8000 years old, and only vaguely humanoid. Its amazing what you can dig up (or fall over) in these kind of countries.
Our big excitement for our stay in Amman was our day trip out to the Dead Sea. Not only that but we got taken to two of the more significant of the thinking man's holy sites. Up Mount Nebo there is not a huge amount to see, but it is asserted that this is the spot that Moses climbed to view the promised land immediately before his death. The view was not perfect the day we went up but on a good day you can see well across the dead sea and into the country the locals refer to with absolutely no hint of irony as Palestine. We then got trucked down to the Jordan River to the point (that the Pope has declared) John the Baptist baptised Jesus. Oddly sandwiched between two countries that are a lot fuller of Muslims and Jews than any Christians, there is an awful lot of construction going on. Pretty much every christian group, catholic, protestant, or orthodox has brought land is building a cathedral cum visitors centre in the middle of nowhere.
The Dead Sea itself did not disappoint although it started off pretty dear, as you have to pay an entrance fee to the tune of about 30 bucks. But it turned out to be well worth it as the experience of stalwartly attempting to march into the sea was repeatedly foiled by our feats failure to make contact with the bottom. This turned out to be quite fortuitous as a near by australian learnt the hard way after determinedly paddling their head under water, getting any of the 10 times concentrated salt water anywhere near your eyes really really stings. Its so caustic that once you have had your fill of bobbing like a cork while giggling unmanfully, you immediately proceed to a fresh water shower lest the drying salt burn your skin.
Once we had discovered just how long the Indian visa would take we decided to try some parallel processing and borrowed our passports from the Indian embassy and headed out to the Syrian embassy. Unfortunately while the Syrians eventually turned out to be welcoming hosts, visa availability is not exactly standardised and the Syrians advised us to send our passports to Australia for a Visa, which wasn't really high on our list of things to do.
Pressing on we took a day trip up to Jerash, which is a reasonably spectacular set of Roman ruins in the north of Jordan. One of the things it is noted for is its largely intact and partially restored Hippodrome, which was quite evocative of Roman festivities and 'sporting' events even without waiting around for the legionnaires and chariots show. Otherwise it was the usual mess of picturesque columns, plazas (unusually oval), roads, temples and theatres. But with hardly anyone about it was quite a pleasant day out even in the scorching Jordanian sun.
On our last day of waiting we did head out to Royal Automobile Museum which houses the late King Hussein's extensive collection of cars and motorbikes collected over the 47 years of his reign. Everything from an extensive collection of enormous American classic sedans, to brand new top shelf European super cars. Even Jacquie was interested as there was a lot of Jordanian history on display, from multiple cars that King Hussein was in during assassination attempts, to his BMW rally car, to the Land Rover he used to show the Queen and Prince Phillip around Petra.
We did eventually get to leave both Amman and Jordan and immediately bolted for the Syrian border, after a tense moment where the border guard looked a little confused about whether New Zealanders lacked sufficient representation to be eligible for an at the border visa (New Zealanders are served by the Australian embassy) we were charged a 60USD welcome to Syria tax and onward we made it all the way to the Syrian capital of Damascus by mid afternoon.
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Egypt
We again arrived in a new country at the godless break of dawn, exhausted and disoriented. Egyptian customs was easy enough once we paid our 15USD for a 'visa', i.e. a vaguely holographic piece of paper to stick in our passport. I'm not sure but I always had the feeling the visa system was somehow associated with keeping out undesirables not just collecting government taxes a the border.
Anyways we found a cab and headed into the centre of Cairo. It was while driving out of the airport that we discovered just how ludicrously thick with things historic Egypt is. The roundabout at the exit of the airport is decorated with a 4000 year old obelisk. A little while later we made a second discovery, our cabbie had absolutely no idea where along one of the biggest roads in Cairo our hostel was. Luckily Egyptians are more than happy to offer directional advice, and we had bargained for a fixed price at the airport. Several sets of differing instructions later our cabbie spotted a Fed Ex guy and made a bee line for him, turns out wherever you are in the world no one knows what's on the 7th floor of decrepit apartment/office blocks like your local courier driver.
Cairo is the base for seeing the pyramids, and in fact the Giza pyramids (the big ones with the Sphinx) are smack dab in the middle of Giza (think Glenfield but a whole lot drier (and with pyramids)). They seem to have kept the area behind the pyramids free of construction giving it a nice photographic backdrop, but if you stand behind the Sphinx and look at it, you can see as much of suburban Cairo as the smog will allow.
The pyramids themselves are as impressive as you would expect for 5000 year old man made geography, but unfortunately you're not allowed in them or on them these days. Luckily that's where the Dahshur and Saqqara sites come in. Dahshur has three pyramids but only one of them is accessible as the land is now controlled by the military. The interesting inaccessible one is the Bent Pyramid which changes slope about halfway up, when the engineers realised they were building at too steep an angle and the whole thing would collapse if they kept going the same way. The Red Pyramid is the accessible one, and notable because we were allowed to descend 200 feet into the very centre of the pyramid. The length of the tombs are strung with fluorescent lighting but on the day we visited they weren't working and Jacquie and I and about 8 other tourists descended all following the light of our wonderful little LED torch (thanks Tiff).
Not only is the entry corridor quite long but it is very low and at a reasonably steep angle. But after squat walking down we were rewarded with three vary dark, quite imposing corbel vaulted burial chambers, the second of which is apparently at the dead centre of the pyramid. Interestingly enough traversing the entry corridor uses muscles that neither me or Jacq have used much of late and we were unable to climb stairs without groaning for a good two or three days afterwards.
Saqqara's main pyramid is Djoser's Stepped Pyramid which was built earlier than any of the others we'd seen and was under some fairly heavy restoration when we visited. But the stand out here was the tomb of a minor official with a lot of very nicely preserved hieroglyphics often with a lot of the original colour showing. The thing that Egyptolgists never mention is that the ancient Egyptians were not the classy minimalist decorators that the ruins may lead you to believe, but instead the original temples were so heavily painted in bright colours that dark sunglasses would have issued at the door had all the original colouring survived.
The other big draw in Cairo is the Egyptian Museum which is at once astounding and hilarious. It is the back alley junk shop of the museum world, except the junk happens to be priceless, and irreplaceable cultural treasures. The building is two large floors with about 50 areas laid out on each floor. Each area is stacked with enormous amounts of carved stonework, statuary, funerary offerings, sarcophagi, and even a couple of rooms of mummies. Nothing is labelled, but everything is worth looking at, in fact if it became a text heavy museum it would take infinitely longer than the 4 hours we spent to peruse its halls. The really fantastic stuff is Tutankhamen's. At the back of the top floor there is a room dedicated to the objects found with him, the centrepiece of which is the fairly famous funerary mask, made of 11kgs of solid gold. Apparently as impressive as all of Tutankhamen's things were they probably weren't that great compared to other Pharaohs, it was just a fluke of another Pharaoh building his tomb almost directly on top of Tut's that meant it was discovered completely untouched by the ubiquitous grave robbers that put an end to the whole pyramid building thing in the first place.
After having had a big rant about Moroccans in my previous post its probably important to say that by Egypt was pretty much what we were used to, people would call out to us a lot, and follow us trying to sell whatever they had, but they got to the point and told us what they were selling and even how much it would cost a lot more readily than their Moroccan counterparts. Cairo in particular had a lot of cheap places to eat, including a specialist pigeon restaurant (don't bother they're all stuffing). The hotels were a bit more expensive than the food but of quite a good consistent standard. In fact we were never even offered an unairconditioned room which was a good thing as most of our afternoons were spent close up to the air-con trying to cool off from a morning in the sun.
We also got to visit old Coptic Cairo, their church of Saint George and a couple of small shrines. It was really interesting to see how much of a tradition the local church has about the two lines in the bible where it says Joseph, Mary and child packed off to Egypt for a few years. They have a purported itinerary and lots of holy sites along its length. We did discover that we quite like Coptic art (especially Jacq). They're churches tend to be pretty much covered in gold haloed icons and dark wood which make them pretty attractive.
After Cairo we were convinced to get a tour loosely organised for us, as independent travel is made quite difficult by the Egyptian authorities. We weren't going to be travelling on a tour bus or anything but we had our transport and day tours arranged for us which worked out pretty well. We started by catching the foreigner only sleeper train up the Nile to Aswan. The train itself was pretty nice but I made the mistake of brushing my teeth in the drinking water provided on the train and was very very sorry shortly thereafter. But to make up for it all for the first time in my life someone was waiting for us at the siding to take us to our hotel. Shame it was just a dude in a t-shirt and there wasn't even a car, just a short walk to our hotel, but I felt special anyway.
That afternoon we headed out the High Damn and to Philae Temple in a wee van. The damn is remarkably unimpressive for something that pretty much revolutionised farming in Egypt, breaking the annual cycle of Nile flooding, and creating an enormous amount of hydroelectricity. It also managed to displace a huge amount of the Nubian population of Egypt while creating the largest man made lake in the world, and for all that it was kind of lame, not perilously vertical reinforced concrete just a whole lot of dirt with a road across the top.
Philae Temple was more interesting as it was one of several temples in the area to be moved following the construction of the damn. Now adays you jump on a little boat and motor around to the island before wandering through the many columned courts and the hieroglyph laden inner temple. Unfortunately for the carvings, 1500 years before the site was dismantled and moved by the Italians, the burgeoning Coptic Christian population defaced most of the carvings while they were using the building as somewhere out of the way to have church. Always a shame when people taking their religion seriously gets in they way of a good photo opportunity.
Our second day we got up at 3 in the morning to catch a police convoy down to Abu Simbel. Egyptian Police Convoys along with the tourist only trains are the Egyptian version of security theatre, they stick a couple of cops with guns and funny helmets at both ends of the convoy/train, wave a wand and declare you safe from the sporadic but quite real terrorist attacks that have been carried out in Egypt. I don't know about everyone else but I think I'd feel a lot safer unguarded with half a dozen other tourists in a van, than packed into a 100 foreigner jihadi piñata guarded by the exact same guys who guarded the convoy the day before.
However Abu Simbel was worth the trip, another moved temple they managed to fake the new one quite nicely into the side of an existing hill, and the carvings were the biggest and most colourful I think we say in Egypt, and we saw a crocodile hanging around the edge of the lake waiting for an unsuspecting tourist to get hot and go for a dip. Apparently the damn also keeps the crocodiles out of the lower Nile.
The next day we took to the Nile on a Felucca, along with a couple of Aussies, an Argentinian, and two skinny Egyptian wannabe rastafarians that were purportedly the crew. We criss-crossed the Nile quite merrily and were treated to some very good home cooking by our hosts. And anytime we parked somewhere we were treated to a bit of Bob Marley as well on an old beaten tape player. The hardest part of the whole trip was having to rotate on the mattresses lining the deck every time the boat tacked and watching the expert boom lowering as we made our way under a badly planned bridge.
We got off the boat the next morning and proceeded to Kom Ombo on our way down the Nile to Luxor. The Kom Ombo temple was notable for it being (half) dedicated to Offler (umm I mean Sobek), and nothing much else really. But you can't really go far wrong with a guy with a crocodile head now can you.
Further down the road we reached Luxor home of Karnak, and the Valleys of the Kings and the Queens. Karnak is fantastic and was the highlight of all the temples for me, upon entering you are surrounded by a field of enormous columns, impressively carved and well, enormous. It is one of those really very impressive places that its hard to describe.
The Monarchal valleys were also quite interesting as they were the result of the complete failure of the Pyramids as secure resting places for past pharaohs. As most of the pyramids were ransacked by tomb robbers at some point the priests packed up all the remaining sarcophagi and built new tombs in a secret valley out in the hills. Later pharaohs got in on the act too, and this is where Tutankhamen was buried. Our ticket let us into three tombs of our choosing. Two of which were very straight forward hieroglyph lined shafts, while the last was a little twisty fullah designed with a false floor and hidden burial chamber. Of course none of this helped as almost all of these tombs were also eventually robbed.
We caught our train back to Cairo and from there caught a bus out to the Sinai peninsula (the triangular bit) and to laid back Dahab. We spent a whole week there, the highlight of which was a snorkeling trip out to a diving spot called Blue Hole. When I was not sucking in water through my nose I was watching big schools of little bright fish darting around and through the reef. Not many big fish but I did spot a fluorescent parrot fish out grooming the coral. Unfortunately Jacquie got a very sun burnt back from that day out so we spent quite a few days lazing round, reading Lee Child thrillers and eating regularly.
Fully rested we took a bus up the coast to catch the ferry to Jordan. While amateur geographers may realise that one could simply drive from Egypt to Jordan via Israel, the presence of an Israeli stamp or even an Egyptian exit stamp for an Israeli crossing would have prohibited us from entering Syria. So instead we paid 70USD each and waited 3 and a half hours for our much delayed ferry to arrive and whisk us across the glassy waters of the Gulf of Aqaba and into Jordan, land of politeness, civility and helpfulness.
Anyways we found a cab and headed into the centre of Cairo. It was while driving out of the airport that we discovered just how ludicrously thick with things historic Egypt is. The roundabout at the exit of the airport is decorated with a 4000 year old obelisk. A little while later we made a second discovery, our cabbie had absolutely no idea where along one of the biggest roads in Cairo our hostel was. Luckily Egyptians are more than happy to offer directional advice, and we had bargained for a fixed price at the airport. Several sets of differing instructions later our cabbie spotted a Fed Ex guy and made a bee line for him, turns out wherever you are in the world no one knows what's on the 7th floor of decrepit apartment/office blocks like your local courier driver.
Cairo is the base for seeing the pyramids, and in fact the Giza pyramids (the big ones with the Sphinx) are smack dab in the middle of Giza (think Glenfield but a whole lot drier (and with pyramids)). They seem to have kept the area behind the pyramids free of construction giving it a nice photographic backdrop, but if you stand behind the Sphinx and look at it, you can see as much of suburban Cairo as the smog will allow.
The pyramids themselves are as impressive as you would expect for 5000 year old man made geography, but unfortunately you're not allowed in them or on them these days. Luckily that's where the Dahshur and Saqqara sites come in. Dahshur has three pyramids but only one of them is accessible as the land is now controlled by the military. The interesting inaccessible one is the Bent Pyramid which changes slope about halfway up, when the engineers realised they were building at too steep an angle and the whole thing would collapse if they kept going the same way. The Red Pyramid is the accessible one, and notable because we were allowed to descend 200 feet into the very centre of the pyramid. The length of the tombs are strung with fluorescent lighting but on the day we visited they weren't working and Jacquie and I and about 8 other tourists descended all following the light of our wonderful little LED torch (thanks Tiff).
Not only is the entry corridor quite long but it is very low and at a reasonably steep angle. But after squat walking down we were rewarded with three vary dark, quite imposing corbel vaulted burial chambers, the second of which is apparently at the dead centre of the pyramid. Interestingly enough traversing the entry corridor uses muscles that neither me or Jacq have used much of late and we were unable to climb stairs without groaning for a good two or three days afterwards.
Saqqara's main pyramid is Djoser's Stepped Pyramid which was built earlier than any of the others we'd seen and was under some fairly heavy restoration when we visited. But the stand out here was the tomb of a minor official with a lot of very nicely preserved hieroglyphics often with a lot of the original colour showing. The thing that Egyptolgists never mention is that the ancient Egyptians were not the classy minimalist decorators that the ruins may lead you to believe, but instead the original temples were so heavily painted in bright colours that dark sunglasses would have issued at the door had all the original colouring survived.
The other big draw in Cairo is the Egyptian Museum which is at once astounding and hilarious. It is the back alley junk shop of the museum world, except the junk happens to be priceless, and irreplaceable cultural treasures. The building is two large floors with about 50 areas laid out on each floor. Each area is stacked with enormous amounts of carved stonework, statuary, funerary offerings, sarcophagi, and even a couple of rooms of mummies. Nothing is labelled, but everything is worth looking at, in fact if it became a text heavy museum it would take infinitely longer than the 4 hours we spent to peruse its halls. The really fantastic stuff is Tutankhamen's. At the back of the top floor there is a room dedicated to the objects found with him, the centrepiece of which is the fairly famous funerary mask, made of 11kgs of solid gold. Apparently as impressive as all of Tutankhamen's things were they probably weren't that great compared to other Pharaohs, it was just a fluke of another Pharaoh building his tomb almost directly on top of Tut's that meant it was discovered completely untouched by the ubiquitous grave robbers that put an end to the whole pyramid building thing in the first place.
After having had a big rant about Moroccans in my previous post its probably important to say that by Egypt was pretty much what we were used to, people would call out to us a lot, and follow us trying to sell whatever they had, but they got to the point and told us what they were selling and even how much it would cost a lot more readily than their Moroccan counterparts. Cairo in particular had a lot of cheap places to eat, including a specialist pigeon restaurant (don't bother they're all stuffing). The hotels were a bit more expensive than the food but of quite a good consistent standard. In fact we were never even offered an unairconditioned room which was a good thing as most of our afternoons were spent close up to the air-con trying to cool off from a morning in the sun.
We also got to visit old Coptic Cairo, their church of Saint George and a couple of small shrines. It was really interesting to see how much of a tradition the local church has about the two lines in the bible where it says Joseph, Mary and child packed off to Egypt for a few years. They have a purported itinerary and lots of holy sites along its length. We did discover that we quite like Coptic art (especially Jacq). They're churches tend to be pretty much covered in gold haloed icons and dark wood which make them pretty attractive.
After Cairo we were convinced to get a tour loosely organised for us, as independent travel is made quite difficult by the Egyptian authorities. We weren't going to be travelling on a tour bus or anything but we had our transport and day tours arranged for us which worked out pretty well. We started by catching the foreigner only sleeper train up the Nile to Aswan. The train itself was pretty nice but I made the mistake of brushing my teeth in the drinking water provided on the train and was very very sorry shortly thereafter. But to make up for it all for the first time in my life someone was waiting for us at the siding to take us to our hotel. Shame it was just a dude in a t-shirt and there wasn't even a car, just a short walk to our hotel, but I felt special anyway.
That afternoon we headed out the High Damn and to Philae Temple in a wee van. The damn is remarkably unimpressive for something that pretty much revolutionised farming in Egypt, breaking the annual cycle of Nile flooding, and creating an enormous amount of hydroelectricity. It also managed to displace a huge amount of the Nubian population of Egypt while creating the largest man made lake in the world, and for all that it was kind of lame, not perilously vertical reinforced concrete just a whole lot of dirt with a road across the top.
Philae Temple was more interesting as it was one of several temples in the area to be moved following the construction of the damn. Now adays you jump on a little boat and motor around to the island before wandering through the many columned courts and the hieroglyph laden inner temple. Unfortunately for the carvings, 1500 years before the site was dismantled and moved by the Italians, the burgeoning Coptic Christian population defaced most of the carvings while they were using the building as somewhere out of the way to have church. Always a shame when people taking their religion seriously gets in they way of a good photo opportunity.
Our second day we got up at 3 in the morning to catch a police convoy down to Abu Simbel. Egyptian Police Convoys along with the tourist only trains are the Egyptian version of security theatre, they stick a couple of cops with guns and funny helmets at both ends of the convoy/train, wave a wand and declare you safe from the sporadic but quite real terrorist attacks that have been carried out in Egypt. I don't know about everyone else but I think I'd feel a lot safer unguarded with half a dozen other tourists in a van, than packed into a 100 foreigner jihadi piñata guarded by the exact same guys who guarded the convoy the day before.
However Abu Simbel was worth the trip, another moved temple they managed to fake the new one quite nicely into the side of an existing hill, and the carvings were the biggest and most colourful I think we say in Egypt, and we saw a crocodile hanging around the edge of the lake waiting for an unsuspecting tourist to get hot and go for a dip. Apparently the damn also keeps the crocodiles out of the lower Nile.
The next day we took to the Nile on a Felucca, along with a couple of Aussies, an Argentinian, and two skinny Egyptian wannabe rastafarians that were purportedly the crew. We criss-crossed the Nile quite merrily and were treated to some very good home cooking by our hosts. And anytime we parked somewhere we were treated to a bit of Bob Marley as well on an old beaten tape player. The hardest part of the whole trip was having to rotate on the mattresses lining the deck every time the boat tacked and watching the expert boom lowering as we made our way under a badly planned bridge.
We got off the boat the next morning and proceeded to Kom Ombo on our way down the Nile to Luxor. The Kom Ombo temple was notable for it being (half) dedicated to Offler (umm I mean Sobek), and nothing much else really. But you can't really go far wrong with a guy with a crocodile head now can you.
Further down the road we reached Luxor home of Karnak, and the Valleys of the Kings and the Queens. Karnak is fantastic and was the highlight of all the temples for me, upon entering you are surrounded by a field of enormous columns, impressively carved and well, enormous. It is one of those really very impressive places that its hard to describe.
The Monarchal valleys were also quite interesting as they were the result of the complete failure of the Pyramids as secure resting places for past pharaohs. As most of the pyramids were ransacked by tomb robbers at some point the priests packed up all the remaining sarcophagi and built new tombs in a secret valley out in the hills. Later pharaohs got in on the act too, and this is where Tutankhamen was buried. Our ticket let us into three tombs of our choosing. Two of which were very straight forward hieroglyph lined shafts, while the last was a little twisty fullah designed with a false floor and hidden burial chamber. Of course none of this helped as almost all of these tombs were also eventually robbed.
We caught our train back to Cairo and from there caught a bus out to the Sinai peninsula (the triangular bit) and to laid back Dahab. We spent a whole week there, the highlight of which was a snorkeling trip out to a diving spot called Blue Hole. When I was not sucking in water through my nose I was watching big schools of little bright fish darting around and through the reef. Not many big fish but I did spot a fluorescent parrot fish out grooming the coral. Unfortunately Jacquie got a very sun burnt back from that day out so we spent quite a few days lazing round, reading Lee Child thrillers and eating regularly.
Fully rested we took a bus up the coast to catch the ferry to Jordan. While amateur geographers may realise that one could simply drive from Egypt to Jordan via Israel, the presence of an Israeli stamp or even an Egyptian exit stamp for an Israeli crossing would have prohibited us from entering Syria. So instead we paid 70USD each and waited 3 and a half hours for our much delayed ferry to arrive and whisk us across the glassy waters of the Gulf of Aqaba and into Jordan, land of politeness, civility and helpfulness.
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Morocco
Every time I go to write about our time in Morocco I am struck with a certain amount of confusion. I look back on the month there as reasonably well spent but when I try and recall individual experiences, the ones that spring to mind are often negative. This is largely to do with the nature of the people in Morocco that speak English. Morocco was under French control for some time so most people speak both Arabic and French, along with varying amounts of Berber in the south and Spanish in the far north. As such English is some kind of distant fifth place language and is only known to either the well educated or those that make their living from extracting cash from tourists.
This would be OK if the average Moroccan tout had taken a course in effective western selling techniques. The almost universal approach to selling something to whitey is to ask what country they are from, how long they have been in morocco, possibly what hotel they are staying at. All before even announcing what it is they would like to sell you because mostly everyone sells everything. They likely have a shop of their own but are just as happy earning commission by guiding you to a local hotel, or restaurant or even just by demanding baksheesh for directions or a pro bono history lesson when in site of anything vaguely historical. And while we've been to several countries with a haggling culture we've never seen such counterproductive and zealous attempts at overcharging as in Morocco, where as in most countries if you know the 'right' price you get the 'right' price, many Moroccans will not bat at an eyelid at not making a sale if it means lowering the price to something a local would consider. And then once you have hardened to the nonsense that goes on, some of them will even act offended when you ignore (or even just refuse) their unsolicited attempts to sell you things you don't want.
Wow that's an especially long paragraph describing the short comings of Moroccans, but the worst is yet to come. Once you've come to the decision that no Moroccans are to be trusted, or even talked to you get your rental car stuck in the sand (it looks an awful lot like dirt down south) and every single person that drives past in the next few minutes stops their car, leaves their air conditioning, rushes across the road and bodily shoves your car until it is free of the bunker. AND THEN wander off without expecting a handshake and a smile let alone exorbitant baksheesh. You can understand why it was so traumatizing right?
Wow that's an especially long paragraph describing the short comings of Moroccans, but the worst is yet to come. Once you've come to the decision that no Moroccans are to be trusted, or even talked to you get your rental car stuck in the sand (it looks an awful lot like dirt down south) and every single person that drives past in the next few minutes stops their car, leaves their air conditioning, rushes across the road and bodily shoves your car until it is free of the bunker. AND THEN wander off without expecting a handshake and a smile let alone exorbitant baksheesh. You can understand why it was so traumatizing right?
Our route around Morocco was pretty much clockwise starting in Tangiers and heading southwards through Tetouan, Chefchaouen, Fez, Meknes, Azrou, Errachidia, then west through the desert and Tinerhir, Boulmaine de Dades to Ouarzazate, South to Zagora, and N'Kob before heading to the west coast Agadir, and Essaouira, and then finally our outward leg through Marrakech to Casablanca.
Our second stop after Tangiers was Chefchaouen, a pleasant small town, with windy alleys painted pale blue, where everyone wanted to sell us drugs. Not in that furtive shady guy walking the other direction whispering '¿Dak Bro?' kind of way, but in the well dressed young men reclining in the public square openly offering high quality, low price marijuana and derivatives to all and sundry. I'm pretty sure we received five separate offers the first day, and to be honest the 'pushers' were a lot more relaxed and polite than the guy trying to sell you brass lamps, or carpets.
We stayed in another really nice budget hotel, and spent some time wandering the alleyways before heading off to climb a near by hill to a ruined mosque (the only kind of mosque non-muslims are allowed into in Morocco, bar two). The climb was green and goat strewn but on arrival there wasn't much of the mosque left but there was a nice man who sold me fanta and espoused considerably on the quality of Morocco's (and therefore his) hashish and its deserved dominance in the european market.
We stayed in another really nice budget hotel, and spent some time wandering the alleyways before heading off to climb a near by hill to a ruined mosque (the only kind of mosque non-muslims are allowed into in Morocco, bar two). The climb was green and goat strewn but on arrival there wasn't much of the mosque left but there was a nice man who sold me fanta and espoused considerably on the quality of Morocco's (and therefore his) hashish and its deserved dominance in the european market.
Chefchaouen was also a firm believer in the standardized Moroccan breakfast, with all restaurants in town offering almost identical renditions of toasted fresh bread, apricot jam, fresh cream cheese with mint tea. I should note at this point that mint tea does not ever on pain of death involve a tea bag in Morocco, nope you take your glass or your tea pot and stuff it with as much mint as you can manage, add as much sugar as will dissolve and then add your boiling water and stir thoroughly.
The big cities in Morocco all blur together somewhat, large old quarters threaded with impossibly confusing, historic and/or smelly alleyways. Market stalls piled with fresh foods, public cats begging at butchers just big enough for one cow to be delivered and dismembered. Many closed ornately carved mosque doors, and small boys lurking in the windy bits waiting for us to get lost enough to require paid guidance out.
And then the burgeoning Ville Nouvelle's, full of faded colonial buildings, mad traffic and male-only coffee shops where all the chairs point outwards so the men can look at all the passers by. Perhaps my favourite image I have is of the McDonalds in Meknes with a huge mural in the drive-thru of head-clothed Arabs riding horses, while brandishing rifles above their heads. Very Middle-East meets West I thought.
And then the burgeoning Ville Nouvelle's, full of faded colonial buildings, mad traffic and male-only coffee shops where all the chairs point outwards so the men can look at all the passers by. Perhaps my favourite image I have is of the McDonalds in Meknes with a huge mural in the drive-thru of head-clothed Arabs riding horses, while brandishing rifles above their heads. Very Middle-East meets West I thought.
When we were in Fez we joined a random crowd lining the cordoned off main road only to see three black audis blast past us at way over 100kph bound for who knows where. Turns out that it was either the king or a royal decoy, and the real king caught up with us a couple of days later when we arrived in Meknes. The hotel we had chosen from the guidebook turned out to be completely inaccessible due to crowds lining the streets, and we were completely stuck in the throng with our backpacks for a good five minutes before King Mohammed VI cruised past in one of the afore mentioned Audis.
Our time in the south around the Dades and Todra Gorges was pretty good. First we took a taxi up the Todra Gorge, which was steep sided, had a small river flowing through it and was absolute party central for all the local young moroccans. Big groups of people sat on the pebble islands in the river and banged drums and tambourines and shouted and sang like you wouldn't believe. The swarms continued all the way up the narrow section of the gorge, but seemed to disappear immediately as we rounded the corner and headed up on a day hike over the saddle above the gorge. The land is really barren with little scraggly shrubs holding doing their best to hold the rocks together. On the way over we graciously allowed a British bloke to catch up with us, and proceeded up the hill and down the other side together. Turns out he was a producer of a mini-series being filmed in Ourzazate, and was out for his day off hike cum location scouting. The geology didn't disappoint as the hills provided text book views of distorted and upended sedimentary rocks that left us all terribly impressed, and in the end we even got a free ride to the next town in a clean, safe car.
The next day we headed out of Boulmaine de Dades by taxi again, and headed up the Dades gorge, and the valley of roses which was more an architectural trip than the previous day. The gorge carries a river and is lined with both palm trees and aging mud brick kasbahs (aka forts). We stopped several times and wandered down around the river, while admiring the bizarre rock formations on the other side. The river in the Dades gorge was much swifter and deeper than the day before at Todra, but this didn't stop some locals trying to convince us that we should cross the river and join them (probably so they could sell us a carpet).
On our second day in Ourzazate we succumbed to peer pressure and hired a car and spent the next three days alternately being excited about driving a car on the wrong side of the road, remembering how to drive a manual, getting stuck in the sand, and occaisionally exploring the palm lined river that led south to Zagora, and the desert east of there out to N'Kob. Before we booked the car I was very careful to note which roads we were allowed to drive on, as paved roads are at a premium in the south of morocco, and I was quite surprised that we were allowed to drive to N'Kob as it is a chicken road, one paved lane with broad gravel shoulders where anytime you meet someone coming in the other direction you must half leave the paved strip to make way. The main point of all the driving was the scenery on the way, and several times we just stopped and wandered off into the palmeries, amongst both the date palms and the fields of wheat which were being busily harvested while we were there.
We used our last day with the car to drive up to Aït Benhaddou which is probably the most famous of Moroccos kasbahs and has been in the background of a lot of movies. It was quite an interesting climb thorugh the still inhabited houses inside to get up above the valley and the river and see the town by sunset.
The other thing to do around Ourzazate is visit the film studio sets, Atlas studios was the big one and we got a cheap guided tour around several parts of the fake ancient world. The neighbouring studio had a huge double sided castle used for Kingdom of Heaven (and several movies since) which is at once the city of Jerusalem and Crac de Chevaliers in Syria.
After we returned the car we headed out west to the coast and the towns of Agadir and Essaouira. Agadir was a big modern town with a beach quite unlike anywhere else we'd been in Morocco. We had a bit of trouble finding a hotel with room, but when we found one, they immediately offered us a discount for us to take the biggest room we'd ever seen. If I had been feeling more athletic I could not have just swung a cat but my entire wife around the empty space available.
We visited the beach which was weird as Moroccans try hard to be modest but aren't experienced enough to realize that cotton is just not a modest seaside fabric. The other big news was trusting our lives in the hands of a strange hair dresser. Between a bad smattering of shared English and French we somehow both ended up with good haircuts, and the hairdressers floor ended up with at least half Jacquies hair after an extended thinning session.
Essaouira was different again with an old town perched on the coast, decorated with Portugese battlements and a lively port cum fish market. We didn't stay long but actually felt less stressed when we left, which had to be a small miracle.
Marrakech would have been just another big Moroccan city if it wasn't for our new found devotion to juice bars. The nearest one to our hotel would happily murder a punnet of strawberries to order and server them in a pint mug. No ice, no water, no milk. Just blended strawberry goodness for all of 2NZD. Needless to say we ended up heading over there just about every time our stomachs felt recovered from the last dose. Its other draw card was its main square which plays host to numerous BBQ stands, tassel headed drummers, and under appreciated snake charmers (never pick up a tambourine in Morocco you never know whats underneath it). The only act that actually drew a smile though was the kids corner were a much picked upon old man displayed a hedge hog trained to run around inside a mans hat, several tame pigeons and the most inert lizard you have ever seen. I was entertained even before a young girl made a break for it with the hedgehog and the poor old fullah had to chase off after her. He still seemed quite surprised when we passed him a few coins.
We didn't have high hopes for our day in Casablanca as it is the financial center of Morocco and not much else (apparently all the exoticness from the movie was based on Tangier). However we knew we were able to visit the enormous King Hassan II Mosque and so like obedient tourists we lined up and bought our 20 something NZD tickets stood by the English speaking tour sign and were issued with a plastic bag for the storage of our shoes while inside. And what a lot of inside there was, the main hall was rugby pitch big and cathedral tall but built as one large columned rectanguloid with marble everything, and a retractable roof. The roof is essential as mosques are never air conditioned and once you load the place with 25,000 worshipers the heat could get dangerous if there wasn't some serious airflow allowed in.
And then we left. Another month down and not a souvenir to show for it, but the flight to Egypt was quick and relatively painless and we did our best to charge straight into the Egyptian experience.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Spain
We did the lightning tour of Seville, in and out in one day. After finding our way across town from the regional bus station we arrived at to our exit bus station (while avoiding the other two regional bus stations we had no interest in) we wandered towards the mammoth Seville Cathedral. Apparently the third or forth biggest church in the world, it also claims the title of most expensive church we've ever visited clocking in at a big 8 euros each (thats 20NZD for those of you playing at home). But then it was mighty grand, contained the tomb of Christopher Colombus, two rooms just labelled treasures, and we got to climb the bell tower (built on top of the original minaret) for a great view of the city and of the flying buttresses and all the other awesome gothic fluffery on the outside of the cathedral. And then without missing a beat it was on to Granada.
Granada's big international draw card is the Al Hambra, an incredible moorish Castle/Palace complex spread over a bean shaped hill overlooking Granada. It has fantastic classical square gardens with carefully trimmed hedges, and small patches of flowers. While the buildings are either intricately carved or ornately tiled, and most of the courtyards feature enormous still pools. Entry is run on quotas so our early morning climb of the hill ended up with tickets for that afternoon, but for once the whole operation was very well run and well worth the time.
Morocco called and we headed down the coast to the port of Algeciras. The less said about Algeciras the better really, it exists only to get passengers on and off the many ferries to Morocco and the Spanish overseas territories. We had chosen one of the many highly dubious hotels between the port and the bus station and had hauled our luggage upstairs when the proprietress appeared asking for the our passports (standard so far). So Jacquie grabs her money belt and attempts to follow the 'lady' downstairs. But she turns and in Spanish pronounces "No, Nombre" (which means name). After trying to tell her our names and still just getting the "Nombre, Nombre" treatment she finally manages to peel off her bizzarre accent, points at me, and slowly says "Hombre" (i.e. man). Apparently in that exact hotel men only are allowed to provide their details for check-in.
Before working our way through the disastorously run compost of ferry companies, ticket resellers, late ferries, and random rude old men we decided to take the bus round the corner to Gibraltar. It was only a local bus trip and Gibraltar offered a certain english speaking charm. Unfortunately for us the day we chose to visit was a Sunday (who knew), and the Gibraltans still hold to some kind of antiquated belief system that includes not working all the time. So after strolling through border control and walking across the runway of Gibraltars International Airport (pausing to take photos of course), we discovered the various forts and things scattered along the rock were al closed up, but undeterred we walked the length of Gibraltar, poking our way through the quaint english shopping district, getting lost in the maze of dead-end residential streets and stopping to soak our aching our feet at a real live British beach, you know the kind with rocks and concrete.
We really had no idea where we were by now, and the road we were following disappeared directly into a cliff, apparently at right angles to the road above the cliff, but we trudged on and fairly miraculously found ourselves at Europa Point where we could see both Spain and Africa looming large across the water. We succumbed to taking the bus back to the border but I was disappointed that it wasn't the authentic double decker I'd seen plying the roads earlier. Then it was back to Algeciras.
The ferry was big and fast, and largely populated by people who had shelled out 240 something euros to take their cars with them to Tangiers, but it set off late thanks to the glacial customs control, and did rock reasonably alarmingly at times. But we once again added an immigration first by completing formalities with the requisite bored looking customs officer while still on the ferry.
Which catches us up to the out of order post I wrote about Morocco a while ago. I am currently at the beach in Dahab, Egypt so will be working on catching up over te next few lazy days.
Morocco called and we headed down the coast to the port of Algeciras. The less said about Algeciras the better really, it exists only to get passengers on and off the many ferries to Morocco and the Spanish overseas territories. We had chosen one of the many highly dubious hotels between the port and the bus station and had hauled our luggage upstairs when the proprietress appeared asking for the our passports (standard so far). So Jacquie grabs her money belt and attempts to follow the 'lady' downstairs. But she turns and in Spanish pronounces "No, Nombre" (which means name). After trying to tell her our names and still just getting the "Nombre, Nombre" treatment she finally manages to peel off her bizzarre accent, points at me, and slowly says "Hombre" (i.e. man). Apparently in that exact hotel men only are allowed to provide their details for check-in.
Before working our way through the disastorously run compost of ferry companies, ticket resellers, late ferries, and random rude old men we decided to take the bus round the corner to Gibraltar. It was only a local bus trip and Gibraltar offered a certain english speaking charm. Unfortunately for us the day we chose to visit was a Sunday (who knew), and the Gibraltans still hold to some kind of antiquated belief system that includes not working all the time. So after strolling through border control and walking across the runway of Gibraltars International Airport (pausing to take photos of course), we discovered the various forts and things scattered along the rock were al closed up, but undeterred we walked the length of Gibraltar, poking our way through the quaint english shopping district, getting lost in the maze of dead-end residential streets and stopping to soak our aching our feet at a real live British beach, you know the kind with rocks and concrete.
We really had no idea where we were by now, and the road we were following disappeared directly into a cliff, apparently at right angles to the road above the cliff, but we trudged on and fairly miraculously found ourselves at Europa Point where we could see both Spain and Africa looming large across the water. We succumbed to taking the bus back to the border but I was disappointed that it wasn't the authentic double decker I'd seen plying the roads earlier. Then it was back to Algeciras.
The ferry was big and fast, and largely populated by people who had shelled out 240 something euros to take their cars with them to Tangiers, but it set off late thanks to the glacial customs control, and did rock reasonably alarmingly at times. But we once again added an immigration first by completing formalities with the requisite bored looking customs officer while still on the ferry.
Which catches us up to the out of order post I wrote about Morocco a while ago. I am currently at the beach in Dahab, Egypt so will be working on catching up over te next few lazy days.
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Portugal: Evora and Faro
Next up on our rapid fire tour of Europe was the little Portugese town of Evora. Almost devoid of accomodation options and needing to move pretty fast we checked into the local Ibis franchise, damn europe is expensive. Evora is a little walled town with narrow alleys and some supposed charms, but really Lisbon managed a lot more charm despite its huge comparative population, go figure.
After getting pretty heavily rained and retreating to our hotel the first night, we did a quick exploration of the old town which seemed quintessentissentially quaint with its wee cobbled (read deadly slippery) alleyways, odd little eateries, one internet cafe and houses built into the arches of the 16th century aqueduct. The two star attractions were the ruined roman temple, and the church with a chapel lined with human bones. Neither of which filled me with a greater sense of my own smallness, but then I never took classics at school.
In fact the big surprise of Evora in fact was just how insanely difficult it was to travel from Portugal to Spain by bus. In order to travel directly eastwards across the now mythical border would have reauired two buses and a taxi ride. So instead we zipped south to Faro found a great, cheap hotel right by the bus station and shipped out again early in the morning for Seville. Faro seemed like a nice small seaside town, but by the time we got there the only place open for dinner was McDonalds (why yes I will have beer with my quarter pounder) and we were left with a nocturnal inspection of the town square and it's vividly painted ceramic goats.
After getting pretty heavily rained and retreating to our hotel the first night, we did a quick exploration of the old town which seemed quintessentissentially quaint with its wee cobbled (read deadly slippery) alleyways, odd little eateries, one internet cafe and houses built into the arches of the 16th century aqueduct. The two star attractions were the ruined roman temple, and the church with a chapel lined with human bones. Neither of which filled me with a greater sense of my own smallness, but then I never took classics at school.
In fact the big surprise of Evora in fact was just how insanely difficult it was to travel from Portugal to Spain by bus. In order to travel directly eastwards across the now mythical border would have reauired two buses and a taxi ride. So instead we zipped south to Faro found a great, cheap hotel right by the bus station and shipped out again early in the morning for Seville. Faro seemed like a nice small seaside town, but by the time we got there the only place open for dinner was McDonalds (why yes I will have beer with my quarter pounder) and we were left with a nocturnal inspection of the town square and it's vividly painted ceramic goats.
Friday, 24 April 2009
Portugal: Lisbon
We had gotten to Rio airport with plenty of time to spare, expecting the worst with our dodgy e-tickets but for the first time and in a country where we didn't speak the language they worked fine and after flying through the underworked security checkpoint we were left with three hours to kill. And guess what, Rio airport has three overpriced shops and a broken internet cafe left over from the 90's. :(
The flight itself was pretty full, and the inflight entetainment kept working long enough for me to watch Quantum of Solace (average), and Slumdog Millionaire (quite good), and I even managed to snatch a few hours sleep which was useful as we were arriving in Lisbon in the morning and needed to get a full day of sight seeing in as we were meeting up with our old friend Ruth from Auckland, and her new british friend Nicola.
After a really rough start fighting with stupid Portugese ATM's we managed to catch the local bus in from the airport and found the hostel we had booked almost straight despite an apparent desperate shortage of materials for street signs in Lisbon. The hostel was about the nicest we've stayed in during this trip, bright and clean and oddly layed out. Our dorm beds wouldn't be ready till the afternoon but to make it up to us we got breakfast which went along way to humanizing us after the long trip.
Our good luck held and we found Ruth's fancy hotel pretty close by and we headed off for the Torre de Belem. Lisbon is a really interesting compact city to visit, so much so that we didn't find out that the tower was closed for Easter until late afternoon. On the way we explored the botanic gardens, stopped for morning tea, viewed the city from a lovely Mirador (I hereby pronounce this spanish word captured and introduced into english), found the slow but fun electric train along the waterfront, stopped for more pastries, viewed the front of an immense monastery, and skimmed through a very large and very free modern art museum. Needless to say we weren't terribly upset and continued on to accend the Monument to the Discoveries. We had a good view of the harbour and especially Lisbon's copies of other peoples monuments. Amusingly the harbour bridge is a dead ringer for the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, and sited behind that on a concrete pedestal is Christ the King, a fairly good likeness for the Christ the Redeemer we had just visited in Rio.
Day One in europe ended with a little lie down in our dorm and a good dose of chinese food. We had stumbled on an authentic and not too expensive restaurant while searching for authentic portugese food and immediately succumbed. Jacquie got to practice her Chinese and I got to drink brandy made from (tree) flowers, Awesome!
Day two continued in much the same vein except that the owner of our hostel had shown up and jabbed at us with cinnamon pancakes during breakfast, pronouncing "Eat!". We did, and it was very good. Then after retreiving our high living friends we trapsed over to the Castle of Saint George. Stopping for a couple of Cathedrals, and another Mirador. The larger cathedral was awesome and gothic and even had some real layered Roman/Moorish ruins in the cloister. Europe seems to be drowning in this history stuff, you daren't break ground lest you find some history lurking around. Jacquie is always surprised by the piles of authentic roman Amphorae lying around outside museums that they just don't know what to do with.
The castle itself blurs a bit already but I don't think it was particularly big just a square figure eight with two large courtyards and some towers to climb. If there was anything particularly distinctive about it I've completely fogotten about it after visiting the Alhambra (yes that is a teaser).
We went for a drink or two with Ruth that night and it was great to continue the catch up, it's amazing how great it is to spend time with folks that you A) know and B) share a common cultural context with.
The third day Ruth and Nicola went shopping and we made a bee-line for the Torre de Belem and got to hide inside while Lisbon got thoroughly rained on. The Tower is built right in the water and was built to guard the harbour from incoming ships with ill intent. It was nice enough but suffered from some traffic issues as half a horder of tourists tried to get up and down a perilous narrow spiral staircase. We also got to visit the Oceanarium. I was completely hooked on going once I discovered they had a sunfish which did make some pretty awesome viewing.
Transport outward was on the dubious portugese coach system, but I'll have to try and catch up on that later.
The flight itself was pretty full, and the inflight entetainment kept working long enough for me to watch Quantum of Solace (average), and Slumdog Millionaire (quite good), and I even managed to snatch a few hours sleep which was useful as we were arriving in Lisbon in the morning and needed to get a full day of sight seeing in as we were meeting up with our old friend Ruth from Auckland, and her new british friend Nicola.
After a really rough start fighting with stupid Portugese ATM's we managed to catch the local bus in from the airport and found the hostel we had booked almost straight despite an apparent desperate shortage of materials for street signs in Lisbon. The hostel was about the nicest we've stayed in during this trip, bright and clean and oddly layed out. Our dorm beds wouldn't be ready till the afternoon but to make it up to us we got breakfast which went along way to humanizing us after the long trip.
Our good luck held and we found Ruth's fancy hotel pretty close by and we headed off for the Torre de Belem. Lisbon is a really interesting compact city to visit, so much so that we didn't find out that the tower was closed for Easter until late afternoon. On the way we explored the botanic gardens, stopped for morning tea, viewed the city from a lovely Mirador (I hereby pronounce this spanish word captured and introduced into english), found the slow but fun electric train along the waterfront, stopped for more pastries, viewed the front of an immense monastery, and skimmed through a very large and very free modern art museum. Needless to say we weren't terribly upset and continued on to accend the Monument to the Discoveries. We had a good view of the harbour and especially Lisbon's copies of other peoples monuments. Amusingly the harbour bridge is a dead ringer for the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, and sited behind that on a concrete pedestal is Christ the King, a fairly good likeness for the Christ the Redeemer we had just visited in Rio.
Day One in europe ended with a little lie down in our dorm and a good dose of chinese food. We had stumbled on an authentic and not too expensive restaurant while searching for authentic portugese food and immediately succumbed. Jacquie got to practice her Chinese and I got to drink brandy made from (tree) flowers, Awesome!
Day two continued in much the same vein except that the owner of our hostel had shown up and jabbed at us with cinnamon pancakes during breakfast, pronouncing "Eat!". We did, and it was very good. Then after retreiving our high living friends we trapsed over to the Castle of Saint George. Stopping for a couple of Cathedrals, and another Mirador. The larger cathedral was awesome and gothic and even had some real layered Roman/Moorish ruins in the cloister. Europe seems to be drowning in this history stuff, you daren't break ground lest you find some history lurking around. Jacquie is always surprised by the piles of authentic roman Amphorae lying around outside museums that they just don't know what to do with.
The castle itself blurs a bit already but I don't think it was particularly big just a square figure eight with two large courtyards and some towers to climb. If there was anything particularly distinctive about it I've completely fogotten about it after visiting the Alhambra (yes that is a teaser).
We went for a drink or two with Ruth that night and it was great to continue the catch up, it's amazing how great it is to spend time with folks that you A) know and B) share a common cultural context with.
The third day Ruth and Nicola went shopping and we made a bee-line for the Torre de Belem and got to hide inside while Lisbon got thoroughly rained on. The Tower is built right in the water and was built to guard the harbour from incoming ships with ill intent. It was nice enough but suffered from some traffic issues as half a horder of tourists tried to get up and down a perilous narrow spiral staircase. We also got to visit the Oceanarium. I was completely hooked on going once I discovered they had a sunfish which did make some pretty awesome viewing.
Transport outward was on the dubious portugese coach system, but I'll have to try and catch up on that later.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
First Day in Morocco
I'm working on the epic europe post honestly but I thought I'd get something out about our first day in Morocco.
We caught the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar along with several hundred moroccans, and added another oddity to our list of random ways to immigrate. Everyone on the boat got to file past a remarkably bored looking moroccan official who added another stamp to our growing collection. Our guide book had steeled us for a scrum of touts and taxi drivers when we got off but it turned out to be a quiet sunday afternoon instead. We took a short walk along the water front and then proceeded to get almost entirely lost in the unconfusing 'new' part of the city with the help of the brand new and entirely innacurate Lonely Planet maps. Wandering up and down stairway streets and narrow alleys between three or four storey buildings I eventually spotted our hotel and we proceeded to prove to the landlady that we speak neither arabic or french. However the hotel itself is for a change quite pleasant although a little odd. Our room has a big comfy bed, sea views, and a 2 foot square shower with the nearest toilet across the hall. Apparently some bloke called William S Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch there too, but it no longer appears to be frequented by the perpetually toasted.
We ventured out for dinner and only had to go two blocks before we found a fantastic little converted apartment restaurant with bead curtains, a 70's hippy soundtrack and our first tajines. The streets had gotten busy by the time we got out, and it was reinforced to us just how young morocco is, just about everyone was under 21, and the streets were genuinely bussling.
We slept well, waking only briefly to the first call to prayer at what Jacquie tells me was about 4 in the morning. We headed to the old walled part of the city (the bit that is supposed to be hard to navigate) and had a poke round. We visited the American legation museum and saw a letter written by George Washington as well as a hilarious letter from a previous diplomat on his failure to reject the gift of two prime moroccan lions. There was another museum too, with proof of Tangiers founding way back to pre-roman times. We didn't quite get properly lost but we did get accosted by that obnoxious ever so friendly, ever questioning breed of tout so common to some countries. We'd had a very unpleasent run in this morning with a self appointed guide who's negotiation technique had involved far too much insult to my parentage for me to be able pay him anything so we have not been particularly forthcoming since then.
I don't think I can take anymore of this ridiculous french keyboard so I'll leave it at that for tonight, and see whether this keyboard grows on me tomorrow.
We caught the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar along with several hundred moroccans, and added another oddity to our list of random ways to immigrate. Everyone on the boat got to file past a remarkably bored looking moroccan official who added another stamp to our growing collection. Our guide book had steeled us for a scrum of touts and taxi drivers when we got off but it turned out to be a quiet sunday afternoon instead. We took a short walk along the water front and then proceeded to get almost entirely lost in the unconfusing 'new' part of the city with the help of the brand new and entirely innacurate Lonely Planet maps. Wandering up and down stairway streets and narrow alleys between three or four storey buildings I eventually spotted our hotel and we proceeded to prove to the landlady that we speak neither arabic or french. However the hotel itself is for a change quite pleasant although a little odd. Our room has a big comfy bed, sea views, and a 2 foot square shower with the nearest toilet across the hall. Apparently some bloke called William S Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch there too, but it no longer appears to be frequented by the perpetually toasted.
We ventured out for dinner and only had to go two blocks before we found a fantastic little converted apartment restaurant with bead curtains, a 70's hippy soundtrack and our first tajines. The streets had gotten busy by the time we got out, and it was reinforced to us just how young morocco is, just about everyone was under 21, and the streets were genuinely bussling.
We slept well, waking only briefly to the first call to prayer at what Jacquie tells me was about 4 in the morning. We headed to the old walled part of the city (the bit that is supposed to be hard to navigate) and had a poke round. We visited the American legation museum and saw a letter written by George Washington as well as a hilarious letter from a previous diplomat on his failure to reject the gift of two prime moroccan lions. There was another museum too, with proof of Tangiers founding way back to pre-roman times. We didn't quite get properly lost but we did get accosted by that obnoxious ever so friendly, ever questioning breed of tout so common to some countries. We'd had a very unpleasent run in this morning with a self appointed guide who's negotiation technique had involved far too much insult to my parentage for me to be able pay him anything so we have not been particularly forthcoming since then.
I don't think I can take anymore of this ridiculous french keyboard so I'll leave it at that for tonight, and see whether this keyboard grows on me tomorrow.
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