To Essouaria and back with welcome guests!

Man, its been awhile again. Merry Christmas!

The past week or so has seen us frantically running about trying to get our last minute shopping done...just kidding.

We have already been given the nicest gift this holiday season, a welcome visit from family! So everyone has been checking out Marrakech.

We toured some more sights in town, surprisingly few really. However the Jardin Marjorelle was really nice. Also the Bahia Palace. The garden at Jardin Marjorelle is set in the yard of an old house of Yves Saint Lauren, the famous designer who lived here for years until his days were done. A path lined with bamboo fences winds through a giant yard filled with dozens of well established cacti and giant bamboo all carved up with various tags from travelers. A large fish pond dominates the courtyard just outside the house turned Islamic Art Museum. It is cooler and quieter in the courtyard as the plants provide shade and somehow block out the sounds of the city just yards away. This is even more surprising given the fact that it is so close to the Medina and D'Jemme al Fna.

Inside the walls of the garden are tourists looking about at the plants and the art deco house. Outside it is a much different world: taxis and cars buzz around and vendors sell all manners of fruits. The main busmall is close with all sorts of activity. Seems like old Lauren liked his tranquility, and that is the name of the game here.

It is similar at the Bahia Palace, but way bigger and... just more. A mini Alhambra in Africa.

Getting from place to place looks easy on paper here, but in practice...

This time we have a map and a much better feel for the narrow passageways of Marrakech that you cant help feeling Marion is hiding in a basket somewhere. We still get lost. Luck is with us again and a helpful young man points us in the right direction. We emerge from the streets so small they could pass for closets to a much bigger square... hold on we have been here before. Today? No, the day before? No one seems to be able to remember, but it is somewhere we got lost before. And the palace is right around the corner. A little snack is found anywhere and the palace is beautiful. So big and tiled all over. We spend some time admiring the art on the walls and imagining how it must have been all those years ago before heading down another packed tiny alley and finally back to our pad in El Fedul.

Our guests decided that maybe a beach trip was in order so we packed our bags and waved our magic wand and headed to Essouira.

Essouira, (pronounced, "suhwar uh") is tiny compared to Marrakech, sort of a training ground for getting ready to tackle the medina. A walled fortress of a city, literally. The main part of the city is contained within giant ramparts with four or five gates or babs. This is the old Essouira with the new being mostly residential neihgborhoods rolling along the coast for about 1 or 2 km north and south of the gated part. Inside the gates is all hustle and bustle, tiny streets and everything just like a tiny medina right on the beach. The beach is large and windy. Kite boarders by the dozen shoot around on the little breakers and a prison is visible on an island just out to sea. The sand is reddish and very fine, perfect for sandcastles. Since Jimi Hendrix made this town famous in '68 the town has managed to survive on music fests and tourism, as well as a small fishing community. We stayed a total of 3 nights in a really sweet apartment and managed to take in the full moon... the clouds did not cooperate for the eclipse however.

Now back to Marrakech and suddenly it's Christmas! As you can imagine, not really a big holiday out here. Even so, many holiday type objects are for sale like tinsel and stars and even plastic trees. Santa was good to the boys and made a stop here in Marrakech with some awesome Indiana Jones bags and daggers!

We miss all our friends and family who keep the fires warm for us back home and abroad. This is traditionally a time for us to be around all our family and we will sorely miss you! Hoping you all have a safe and happy holiday and a happy new year.

Love, the Moylans

Night at L' Djemme al Fna

It is dark and someplaces are so dark. Voices and people are all around and a bit farther off a chant is recognizable. Smoke from the food vendors sits above the crowd and tiny islands of musicians dot the large Medina. This is night at L' Djemme al Fna, one of the biggest markets in the world, and the largest in Africa.

During the heat of the day, people are everywhere. It is chaotic and wonderful, so unlike the world we are used to. The cars and scooters rush about, sprinkled with bikes and buses, as well as hundreds of people, even out here in the middle of new town. It looks as though everyone were rushing off to make the Obi Wan Kenobi open casting call. Arabic calligraphy is scribbled about, looking at first like leftover spaghetti. All the stores and vendors are open and everybody is talking to one and other. The sweet shop sells delicious cookies and tarts and is home to a buzzing hive of honey bees. All along the streets little booths line the way with security guards smiling with a friendly, "Salam a'lekum!" to which we reply, "Wa a'lekum a'salam!"

There are mosques all over with tall towers that the Iman climbs to broadcast his call to prayer, 5 times daily. There are shops of every convenience and usually a hammam. For about a buck you get to use the traditional baths. This means three heated rooms of different temperatures, buckets with hot water, and soap. You can stay as long as you want but most stay only an hour or so. A massage costs about 7 bucks more and is the best 7 bucks you will spend all year.

Just now you realize the movie on the big screen in the plaza is, "The Man Who Would be King," and the music brings you back. A man with a chicken on his head is playing guitar while his bandmates bang on the drums. The transvestite dancers solicit dirham from the crowd. Nearby a crosslegged turbaned man sits quietly next to a pile of bones and cards, a gruesome monkey head, mouth open, sits in front of him ready to accept payment. Blind men play music and there are bands as well. It is dark and smoky and a bit scary... so foriegn and great. There is nothing you can do to hide your out of town look.

Towards the edge of the crowd, past all the food vendors is the maze of the souks. It seems harmless, just a few small openings in the large wall. It feels familiar, like the Grand Bazaar, but it's darker with scooters and bikes. As soon as you have stopped gawking around you know you are lost. Like taking a wrong turn in an unexplored cave. The sheer size of the souks is huge, branching with secret passageways and thousands of shops. Anything and everything you can imagine is here. Ostrich eggs, goat heads, animal skins, live reptiles, foods and textiles, and other exotic crazy things. A bit of advice to tackling the souks and surviving: 1. Know what you want! 2. Know what you are willing to pay and what it is really worth. 3. Take a compass and water bro. Honestly, it doesn't matter if you have a compass if you have no map.

As we speed out of town, our hopes of renting a car diminish. Marrahkech uses a learned driving method and the beginners are shown no mercy. The city gives way to smaller shops and more and more countryside becomes visible. Off in the near distance, the mighty Atlas loom. A vast barrier between us and the Sahara. The Atlas jut out of the landscape and seem very out of place. Miles and miles of snowcapped peaks towering above the city. Further up into the mountains there are more stalls selling goods, and boys by the roadside sell berries. The road seems to end right into another souk. The river is close by and restaurants creep to the very edge of the market. A few dozen pack donkeys stand around in the river rock.

The trail to the waterfall winds through stalls and teashops almost all the way to the top of the falls. In fact there is one at the top. It feels like someone has shaken the Saturday Market out on the trail up to Multnomah Falls. There are many tourists here, most with guides. Pictures.

We pass many on the way down to a tagine restaurant by the riverside.

We realize after we are lost, that we are more lost than we thought. Our simple plan of attack to make a simple loop through the southern part of the souks has fallen apart. We exit the souks much farther south than we imagined, cause we were headed north. At this point a map would have helped. The tower of Koutoubia Mosque is visible off in the distance though and we manage to keep it in view, passing the snake charmers on the way to the bus stop.

Check out at the Marjane, like a big Fred Meyers, and the walk home is ten minutes or so. It has been dark now for at least an hour, and the traffic is the same. Our little neighborhood is awake and busy. As we get closer to our pad, the buildings give way to empty lots, some serve as soccer fields, others for sheep. Somewhere close by, in the maze of buildings, drums echo. Typical at night for this time of year

So far, Marrakech does not dissapoint.

Three Continents in Three Days!

Hello again from the planet Moylandia!

Fortune finds us in a lovely apartment on the outskirts of the Medina in sunny, warm Marrakech.

Unfortunately we have been lax in our blog department so... let's back up a couple weeks to where we left off just before Thanksgiving back in the sunny southern coast town of Gundogan. (Enter backflash music)

So we decided being in Turkey was good enough for Thanksgiving and chose a traditional dinner of beans and rice, with vigorous games of Yahtzee and 10,000 for dessert.

The next day we went exploring again to try to find the elusive Cheese Flower Cave, which is nestled somewhere in these hills. We chose a new road to follow up into the surrounding hills. Our path took us through sharp, low pricker bushes and along the base of giant cliffs. After 40 minutes of scrambling around we spotted a small opening in the rock across the valley. It took us another few minutes of working through more brush to get to what turned out to be another tomb cut into the mountain side. As we wandered around the surrounding area of bare rock and grasses we found more ruins. Tombs and some stairs leading up to a small altar area. This was really cool so we looked around more.

As I stood up on a giant boulder, Isaiah shouted from below, "Dad! Come look what I found!" I climbed down and saw the most impressive tomb yet; this one was unlike all the others. Its opening was a rounded doorway instead of a simple square and around the door were ornate carvings of snakes and a horseman figure. The entrance to the chamber had a narrow seating area on either side of the opening. This was obviously for someone a lot more important... maybe some Lelegian king, who knows. [Editor's Note: maybe also from a later time period...] This site was also littered with pottery shards as well as a tiny penknife found by Diego; it was even engraved with the number 7! Happy birthday Diego! This turned out to be the best site we came across.

The last few days in Gundogan we continued to try to find that damn cave. We found a few more tombs, one quite large, and a 3 foot long legless lizard that Diego and I thought was a cobra for sure, but no Cheese Flower Cave. Oh well, it was not for lack of trying. [Editor's Note: We also saw large tortoises, one of which nearly scared me to death when I almost stepped on it... so much for brave exploring!]

Our time was up in Gundogan; it was time to head back to Istanbul and visit Buyukada Island, the biggest of four near Istanbul in the sea of Marmara.

We arrived at the Gokcen airport around 9:30 am. After realizing our lovely and very hospitable host had mistakenly overslept, we made our way to the ferry dock at Bostanci. The only hiccup was when we got off the bus at the wrong ferry dock and had to take a couple more buses to get to the right port... a very minor inconvenience.

The ferry ride was only about a 1/2 an hour and our host was waiting for us as we stepped off the boat. It was a short walk to their amazing 3rd floor apartment. We walked because no cars except for service vehicles are allowed on the islands. This means lots of bicycles and horse carriages and streets filled with people instead of cars. Sweet.

The view from their apartment was incredible. A vast amount of the Istanbul waterfront was visible and at night it was really something. Also the hospitality of our hosts was amazing. It really feels like every host is trying to outdo the previous in generosity. Honestly, people who have never met you inviting you into their home and feeding you traditional, delicious food, like you have been one of the family for years. Humbling and refreshing.

There were parties and a bit of island touring. On Friday Dec. 3rd we ventured to the European side of Istanbul for one last goodbye.

We returned to the Blue Mosque and saw the Basilica cistern. Huge, dark, and filled with columns and surprisingly large carp. This is the site of the famous Medusa head columns thought to have been brought here from some other temple in the time of Justinian around 600 AD. When walking underground in the cistern you feel like you are in another dimension. It was cool and a bit creepy at the same time. From here we tried to go to the Topkapi Palace but arrived a bit too late to make it happen; another one for next time I guess.

We had some time left before our 7:40 pm ferry home, so we made our way back to Taksim square. As luck would have it, the movie theatre in Taksim was showing the new Harry Potter in English, so we went (Diego wanted to go for his birthday). When we got out of the movie we realized we had missed our ferry, oops. The next one was at 11 pm, so we had some time to kill. This proved to be just fine as we got to hang out at Planet Paprika with our pal Serhat.

The night was warm and the walk to the ferry only about twenty minutes. The ferry ride home was 1 1/2 hours though, so we got home pretty late. The view of the skyline on the ride home was incredible with the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Bosphorous Bridge all lit up.

Not to be outdone, our hosts back in Buyukada had a party our last night, and in the morning we were off again. Goodbye Asia, hello Europe. Also hello ice cold, as London was sitting at a chilling 28 F.

It was cold all right. Proper winter weather. Not all this warm sunny bs. Great. Well, we only had to wait 10 minutes outside once we got out of Gatwick Airport. From here, we made it to a great little guest house just 5 minutes from the airport. Gatwick Guest House was really comfortable and had the added bonus of being a short walk through a super foggy old graveyard to a 500 year old pub, Ye Olde Six Belles Pub. We had pints of London's Bright, fish and chips and burgers. All the while being surrounded by lovely British accents. Unfortunately, we had very little time visiting our first English speaking country in 6 months as we had to catch our plane early the next morning to Africa.

Now we are almost caught up. Another early Easy Jet flight and some lovely conversation with a Moroccan man and his sister brought us to Marrakech. We were all bundled up for London and Marrakech was quite warm, maybe 30 C. The nice brother and sister who sat next to me on the plane stayed with us until we were met by our new host, a native Moroccan from Marrakech and partner of a family friend. He took us on the shortish drive to his apartment, our new home for the month of December. We drove through traffic, which seems to have a life of its own as traditional rules of driving appear to be more like guidelines. There were numerous motorbikes, scooters, cars and trucks of all kinds and even a few camels. It was not quite a white knuckle ride, but close.

We arrived at the apartment and were impressed with how beautiful everything was... Moroccan style is gorgeous. We were all tired and hungry and our host made us feel quite at home. He then produced one of the best meals we have eaten all trip [Editor's Note: maybe ever]. A masterpiece of Moroccan dishes. Salads, olives, fruits and barbeque chicken, cooked eggplant and squash. It was mind numbingly good.

So we thanked our lucky stars again and lounged off to sleep.

Marrakech is impressive at first impression: big, busy and pink [Editor's Note: all buildings are pink from the clay or concrete painted pink]. We will explore around and enjoy the heat while it lasts, and of course, post more pics. Until next time...
M4