Hoshchakal Istanbul!!!!

The freezing weather made it harder to do all the sightseeing, but we still did quite a bit. We explored many neighborhoods, palaces, statues, yeah whew! Now we are getting ready to fly to Athens. From here we will take a shuttle to Piraeus, a port town where we catch a ferry to Crete. The ferry is 10 hours or so and overnight as well. We get a sleeper cabin with a little window. It will be a bit of a hike to get there but we have some great friends awaiting our arrival. I have no idea if internet will be close by to us so we may have a bit of catch up to do once we get plugged back in.

I know it is redundant to say again but we love Istanbul soooo much! This city rules, and it has been even better because of all the incredible people we have met while staying at PlanetPaprika Hostel. Hostels are cool, with more of a community feeling than at a typical hotel; and generally filled with great people doing all sorts of different things. We met a couple really fun guys from New York; one is now living in Riyadh working as a consultant. The other guy is from Brooklyn and has traveled all over, so cool. An Iranian doctor was so nice to talk to and hear about her home. There were Germans and Italians, Dutch and French, Syrian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Turks, jeez who did I miss. Oh yeah, Australians too. Anyway, everyone had great stories about where they were from and what they were doing. It was so great to get to know all of them and go eat, dance, shoot pool, and check out the city together. Hello to all of you!! We feel so blessed to have met you all and for the chance to get to know you a bit. This world is small and if you happen to find yourselves in our neck of the woods one day, look us up!!

As we look ahead to the next bit of our journey it is hard to avoid glimpsing the finish line. It has been quite a while but we still have some amazing things to do. Home is in our minds... but only just. Crete and Italy are calling!!

Pics!

Here's the much anticipated photo edition... enjoy! We are having a good time in Istanbul despite the cold, rainy weather. We have discovered a bowling alley with pool, air hockey and darts close to our hostel and have spent lots of time there between sight seeing outings to avoid the cold weather. Love to all.

[Editor's note: Chrissa, you would have loved the whirling dervishes!!]

Eis Tan Polis

Wow, I am so lazy, so much for trying to post once a week. Anyway I think last it was north Africa.

So we flew out of Marrakech and into Luton, which is called London for some reason but is actually a 45 minute fast train from London. Here we stayed at a little place called Leaside Hotel, this was really close to the airport. It was nice there and after talking with the head chef for an hour or so over a few imperial pints, we became friends. Hi Sparky!

Next we flew into Sabiha Gokcen airport on the Asian side of Istanbul. Istanbul, by the way, means "to the city" in Greek. Way back when it was Constantinople everyone called it "the city" and the signs all said "to the city." When the Turks saw the signs that said in Greek, "eis tan polis," they thought that was the name of the city. After a bit the "polis" part was changed to "bul." Okay back on track.

Now we are back in Istanbul and are trying to see all of the things we missed last time. The weather has been a mixed bag with warm spring-like days as well as cold rainy ones too.

So far we have tackled the Military Museum, which honestly could have its own post. Really all this stuff should but I am too lazy, like Behlul the rad Planet Paprika cat who sleeps all the time. Man, I am wandering huh?

Also deserving its own post is the Dolmabache Palace, which is a gorgeous 19th century European style palace built in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Huge and palacial, gold and crystal and paintings... completely over the top. I think a google search will turn up some cool pics, which is good because we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

We lucked out with the Pera Museum too. Pera is the old name of the neighborhood around Taksim Sqare, which is now called Beyoglu (silent "g" there). Anyway yeah, the Pera is an art Museum and the regular standing exhibit is amazing with great art of old Istanbul city life. There was also a visiting exhibit of 19th century Russian art - famous and gorgeous paintings. However, the real gem was the featured works of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo on exhibit at this time. Sarah you would have loved it!

We went to the fish market and fell in love with Hamsi - little anchovies. Really delicious and only 5TL for a kilo.

We had to do the Archeological Museum again, and really, we could use a few more trips. If you like old things like the code of Hamurabi, the first written peace treaty, hundreds of Greek and Roman sculptures and other artifacts like that. Honestly, it is incredible how much old stuff they have. Like a museum right?

The neighboring Gulahane park is really nice and has statues, trees and more museums. There were all kinds of birds in the trees, including herons and bright green parrots. This is where we found the Museum of Islamic Science and Technology, which was cool - and educational. Models of weapons, castles, books and chemistry from so long ago. Cool models of the planets and stars as well as an explanation of what makes a rainbow, from year 1200, were really top notch. Basically, the Islamic scientists, doctors and mathematicians of old were centuries ahead of their European counterparts. As in inventing the number zero and using anethstesia... in about the year 1000.

Let's see, what else. Neighborhood veg market on Sundays is great, and lets us practice our Turkish. Endless walks down Istiklal and ducking into little streets. Eating street food and hanging with incredibly cool people who happen to be in the hostel with us. All this and more have cemented our love of Istanbul.

So, as the Islamic world turns over its latest page in history - demanding something new, Turkey and Istanbul keep rolling along happy to be a Republic and not living under an oppressive regime.

We will stay here a few more days and then we're off to Crete... somehow. I guess train travel is cancelled in Greece right now? More museums, more walking, eating, hanging, architecture, shopping, dervishing, you get it.

Missing all you lovely friends and family! Peace to all.

It's Poppin in North Africa!

Well there's no denying it, these are exciting times in North Africa. Revolutions can be important facilitators for change and usually come from people who have had all they can take. There is always the last straw. As we sit back and watch from a much more connected part of the world, we are happy for the stability of Morocco, for now.


Many folks here seem to show support for Egypt, and for the King as well. So, as far as we can tell, all is well in our little part of Africa... which is back on the beach in Essaouira. We chose to spend the last of our days out of Marrakech and Essaouira fit just right. Like an old pair of tennis shoes.


We took the bus here this time instead of the grand taxi, and that was just fine. It took a bit longer but we didn't have to cram in the back of a taxi. Everybody had a nice view and comfy seat from the second storey of the bus. After three hours and a few comical beggars in the bus stations we got off the bus sort of close to where we thought we needed to be. We walked back to where we thought our place for a few days was and the guy who we thought was our man was waiting for us... turns out he was our man.... and somehow he managed to pick us out. The apartment we are in is pretty cool, it almost seems like we are staying in a museum. There are beautiful rugs, carved furniture and nice tile. Cause I guess nice tile is in a museum.


It is a short walk to the beach, maybe about 5 min. There was so much going on along this short,(2km) beach. Here is a list of things on the beach or directly in the water. Camels, horses, surfers, windsurfers, kite boarders, an island prison, fishing boats, castle walls, sand dunes, of course people and a few dogs. That's all I can remember.


We were fortunate to find a stick for playing stickball and this kept us busy for about 2 hours. It turns out I really sucked at hitting that damn tennis ball. In 3 at bats I struck out twice, and those were like 20-pitch strike outs. While the boys and Cadence never struck out, in like 20 at bats, and they had 4 strikes you're out. So yeah I sucked. It was still super fun. I love stick ball. So we made sure to keep the stick.


The other two hours, before we were starving, we built sand castles. Diego and I decided on an Egyptian theme of Sphynx and Pyramid, just to be on the safe side. At least one Moroccan dude gave me a thumbs up.

It is nice to be back at the beach. We will check out the castle ramparts and maybe take a dune tour on a camel, or get some ice cream or something. And I think we will keep half an ear on good old Al Jazeera.


Y'know keep up on current affairs.


P.S. our wimpy modem won't let us download pictures for now, so maybe in a couple weeks we will catch up on photos with a special edition photo montage blog. Yay!

El Fadl Times: Afternoon Edition

Our little neighborhood is El Fadl. Five to ten years ago this suburb was just farmland and now it represents the edge of the Marrakech boom that has been going on the past ten years. Apart from being obviously foreign, our crew fits in nicely here. It is a family area fairly far removed from the hustle of the Medina, (I always think of Ton Loc). Kids are all around, mostly unsupervised, and everyone knows each other. This does a fairly good job of keeping creeps and bad dudes out. Everyone in a ten block radius knows we are here and the general attitude has been one of total acceptance. It seems that as long as you are yourself, and not a jerk or hustler, we are accepted into the community. Nice.

So here we are in a muslim Arab/Berber community, clearly Americans or at the very least French, and not a bad vibe has been tossed our way. I wonder, given the current state of affairs, would the welcome be as strong if the roles were reversed? Maybe, maybe not. I'll tell ya what though, kids are kids everywhere. People say hello just the same, and a smile goes a long way.

Real important to respect other cultures as well, and some things you have to learn the hard way. It seems that everyone is willing to give us a chance though and we are really grateful for the experience. Being immersed in a muslim culture can be a bit intimidating at first, but in the end everybody just wants the same things: food, shelter, and a better life for their kids. Of course there are bad apples; that is also no different than anywhere else on the face of the planet. For the most part though, they make up a minority and luckily our path has not taken us in their direction.

We have spent the past week or so just hanging around our hood. Playing football, talking with the security guys, cooking and eating, as well as devoting a couple hours a day to language studies, math, science and reading. For languages, mostly Moroccan Arabic, Turkish, and Greek... with some English thrown in.

We have been given a rare opportunity to live in a very foreign environment and the magic of it has not missed us. We have a few weeks left here in Morocco and most of that will be spent on the beach... plans yet to unfold there. We have seen many places in this country and the landscape is amazing. The real gem however has been getting a larger perspective on the world and some of its most resourceful people.

Chi Gaga to Amzuzette

Marrakech is real nice but Morocco is big, topographically, and linguistically diverse with people speaking Berber dialect, a mix of Arabic as well as French. We found out how true this is on our recent tour of central Morocco.

Our first destination was a gate to the Sahara, M'hamid. This border town sits at the very edge of the desert at the end of the Draa Valley (and the end of the road) about a 7 hour drive from Marrakech. Along the way we passed all sorts of towns during an extremely varied geographical drive.

The Tizi n' Tichka pass was our first crossing through the Atlas heading south east towards the movie town of Ouarzazate, pronounced, "wharsa zat." This pass boasts some of the tallest peaks of the Atlas and makes the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier look like a freeway. The tips of the snow covered mountains were stunning: reds and purples with patches of snow. It was a very rugged landscape that at times reminded me of parts of the Rockies. The road eventually dropped us into the valley of Ouarzazate. A busy town with two movie studios and lots of people.

Further along we crossed the smaller Anti Atlas and into the Draa Valley. The Draa is an oasis valley with towns like Agdz and Zagora spaced along the Draa river. You can follow this river all the way to the Atlantic but we headed the other direction into the desert. This river valley owns about 95% of the greenery around, as up into the mountains it is mostly scrub bushes that eventually give way to rock and sand.

After a quick stop in Zagora for some lamb sandwiches we were ready for the final stretch to M'hamid. It was dark at this point and the one lane road gave very little room for one car much less two. But luck was on our side as we rolled into M'hamid around 9 or so and were greeted by the owner of La Perle Bleue du Desert.

If M'hamid is an outpost town, this was its satelite. Set in the desert about 3 km past town and the end of the road, and consisting of about 7 or so mudbrick buildings, it was a welcome retreat after a long day. We were given food and warm beds to sleep in and treated to some very nice nomad hospitality. We slept well and in the morning were ready to see where we had landed. It was all small dunes and scrub, some stunted trees and rocks with far off mountains visible beyond palms and camels.

After exploring around the camp for a few hours in the hot sun, we piled into a land rover and headed south about 60 km into the Sahara to a sea of dunes, the tallest of which is named Erg Chi Gaga. The drive out took about 2 hours and was incredible. No roads out here just tracks through the many different kinds of desert landscape. Sand, sand with rocks, rocks, scrub and washouts. We stopped at an oasis to drop off a local shepherd who had hitched a ride with us and I thought how incredible it is that any people or towns could survive out here. In the Sahara there are no borders, no police, sporadic water at unmarked sites; it was magical. In the Sahara they say, "water is life."

We reached our destination - a small camp of mudbrick buildings again set at the base of the sea of dunes - just before sunset. We were able to hustle up the largest of the dunes - Chi Gaga with five minutes to spare. This was pretty great; watching the sunset from the top we could see for miles and miles, into Algeria and far out into the desert. We sledded down the dunes and made it back to camp before nightfall. Here we had desert tagine and were treated to a few rounds of nomadic songs to the beat of drums. We said goodnight to the stars and fell asleep cozy and warm in the freezing desert.

Next day we woke to the sun, coffee and bread. After breakfast and a quick goodbye to the dunes we were off again back to M'hamid. We drove back a different way and stopped at a special place where there were fossils lying all over just jumbled around with the rocks. Then we took the desert path back. No GPS required; just make sure your guide was born in the desert and you will be fine. We left M'hamid and the Sahara after a few days and we could have stayed far longer.


Our path took us back towards Marrakech along the same route, and about 170 km shy of Marrakech we took a left up into the mountains. Again it was dark for this part of the drive and we could only see what our headlights would let us, a tiny bit of curvy mountain road. This wound around for quite some time until we finally stopped in the small Berber community of Amzuzette. Our sleeping arrangements were hashed out and we walked the goat path to our little hotel, Hotel Tubkal. This was a friend of a friend sort of arrangement that worked out well.

Morning saw us at about 2000 m in a town of about 250 or so, almost certainly all family. A small river ran right through the middle of the lower and upper sections of town. The roads are pretty rough up here and a 4x4 would have been helpful. There were plenty of kids and animals around and the almonds were just starting to bloom. Snow remains on the highest peaks and the chill of winter could really be felt in the shadows where the ice doesn't melt despite the warm sun during the day.


We didn't do too much in our couple days here except sit by the river and build towers with rocks, eat tagine and couscous, listen to some Berber music and walk around a bit. Our goodbye here felt premature to me as well - another place we could spend more time at for sure. January is not the tourist season up here and we were the only tourists staying there as our hotel was shut down for the season. We were told by the locals that April and the beginning of May are both really nice with the fruit trees in bloom and a large lake about 2 hours hike from town.


We decided to take a different way back to Marrakech and drove out of the mountains to the foot of the Tizi n' Test pass. It is this valley and a bit up into the mountains that lend itself to the famous Argon tree, which grows nowhere else and has goats climbing in them. Tizi n'Test road is the most dangerous in Morocco, which is really saying something. It also is the most stunning. Over the course of dozens of switchbacks on a one lane road, the elevation rises dramatically. We went up and over the mountains. And the road is only one lane; don't ask me how we passed other cars. I am sure I had my eyes closed.

So up and over we went and ended up in Asni for fish and lamb tagine. Asni is about 30 minutes from Marrakech and a fairly straight shot to our neighborhood of El Fadl. The giant Atlas loom above Asni as this town is a sort of gate to the mountains for trekking and day trips. Mt. Toubkal is visible from the main part of town. We rolled into Marrakech just after sunset and washed and returned the rental car before bed.


All told we covered around 1300 km in 5 days from Marrakech to the Sahara and over both of the major passes in the Middle Atlas, as well as stayed in a Berber town that probably hasn't changed in over 500 years or so. It was a lot of driving to do in such short amount of time but well worth it to see such amazing places. And yes, I am tired just reading this. On a sad note, we may have broken the camera; hopefully it is just the battery. We will post pics as soon as we get it going again.


Next up: rest here in Marrakech and then a trip to the beach!

The New Year

So now it's 2011. Happy New Year!! Hope everyone had a great time ringing in another one. We celebrated here in El Fadl, our little neighborhood.

2010: what a whopper; let's all see how 11' stacks up. I know it is counter to tradition, but I don't dig resolutions and try not to make any, but I think it is important to thank everyone who helped you in the past year. And for us, this was no ordinary one, so a big thank you to all of our friends and family, new and old who have helped us along thus far. It cannot be overstated how much easier it has made our lives to have a bunch of people show us love and support.

As you can imagine Marrakech was nuts at New Year's. All gridlock, all night. Out here in the burbs it was some fireworks from a local hotel, along with all the niehgborhood bombs. The bomb is a clever reusage of any pop bottle with a screw cap, and a little chemistry. Big Boom. We rang in the new year as a family and stayed up late.

We really enjoyed having guests from home and abroad come to visit us. It was fun playing spot the tourist and haggle the babouche man. They proved to be a welcome and entertaining respite in our long/short journey. Thanks to you for trekking the extra mile!

We feel much more confident in Marrakech now, having learned a bit of Arabic and French, as well as navigating around on a handful of buses. Also the eyes in the back of the head are coming in nicely. Our little security crew in El Fadl has proven to be one of the best social clubs around with plenty of tea, sheep head, couscous, and sweets to be devoured during sit around and talk time. This is a regular occurance. Cadence has learned how to cook the tagine and couscous dishes and that is just fine with me. She hopes to add a few more traditional dishes to her utility belt before time's up here, so, sweet.

As we look ahead to the new year we have one clear goal in mind here: to set out and explore a bit more of Morocco. So that is the loose plan. Chill out for a week more or so here and then head out to the desert, mountains, and back to the beach. Plans are best made loosely out here as things can change anytime, although as they say, "anything is possible in Maroc."

All the best from planet Moylandia, hope this post finds you well in the new year.
p.s. will upload more pics soon!