Cape Town
Photos of Cape Town
Cape Town is an exceptionally pretty city, shame about the unpredictability of the weather. It has beaches a harbour and to top it off Table Mountain (a new Wonder of the World). We had a few days to enjoy the Cape Malay cuisine and drive down to the Cape of Good Hope. There weather was excellent for our cable car ride to the top of Table Mountain, which was really the only totally clear day we had (Ra-selin at work). Unfortunately we couldn't do the walk up because we we carrying a few niggling injuries from our ATC tour on the truck. But the cable car ride had some great views as well, you just have to brave the madding crowds from tour buses.
On the way down to the cape we stopped for some fresh seafood at Hout's Bay. It was very fresh as just outside we saw fishermen dragging nets of fish (and the occasional seal) to the beach. Chapman Drive was picturesque and we could see where the cold Atlantic and warm Indian ocean currents mixed and formed cloud that was sucked up over Table Mountain. At the Cape the weather began to turn but we still had to dip our feet in. There was of course a trip to Robben Island where we had ex-inmates give the history of the island and one that pointed out his cell and the conditions there. We had to race to visit the other cell blocks after our tour as the last ferry was leaving in15 minutes. We should have got an earlier ferry and took as long as we wanted. The District 6 museum was small but brought back to life the people who were displaced from the area. Certainly somewhere you could come back to.
Morocco
Three weeks is really not enough time for Morocco; the consequence trying to pack too much in at the tail end of this trip. Morocco had been praised by many of the travelers that we had met and consequently had a big reputation to live up to. We landed in Casablanca, which offers little to the time strapped tourist, and is perhaps not the greatest introduction. It is a city more devoted to getting on with business than caring about visitors. We had long enough to have hot showers and see possibly the only sight - the Hassan II Mosque. We caught the train up to Tangiers and slipped through there even quicker onto a bus and across the border into Ceuta (Spain). It is odd how imperial Spain still clings to these small peninsulas of northern Morocco. Ceuta has an old fort but also alcohol, tapas and churches and lots of ferries across the Mediterranean to Spain or Gibraltar.
After a little taste of Europe and an EU stamp on our passports we headed south to Tetouan. A fantastic low key place with a clean medina (walled city) and what Roselin would from then on refer to as 'the wizards'. These were guys wearing what I can only describe as hooded, ankle-length dressing gowns (djellabahs). Add leather slippers (babouche) and you complete the ensemble. This is a country that has perfected street-sleep wear. It fits in with the observation that nothing really opens until late morning. We were taken in by one such white wizard at the Dalia riad and enjoyed some French wine and flamenco guitar from the only other guest who was there to learn Arabic before heading back to Yemen as a logistics engineer for an NGO. Onto Chefchouan in the Rif Mountains, which has a beautiful blue washed medina. It reminded me of the blue city of Udaipur in Rajastan. According to our guide book this colour was due to the Jewish population that settled here but to our guide it was to keep the flies away. It was true, there weren't any flies, but it was also winter so I reserve my judgement on whether it works or not. We had a day walk in the mountains to the Bridge of God though villages than echoed to the rhythms of kif being pounded.
Our next stop was Fes, which is "all about the medina". Small narrow streets wind past wall to wall shops that overflow out onto the cobblestones. Everything is sold and made in here, but it is the tannery that is the biggest draw card. Leather from camels, goats, sheep and cattle are cured, dyed and fashioned into handbags. It harks of days from centuries before and could be Varanasi if you replaced the cats with cattle and filled the streets with the detritus of all those that live there. The drinking fountains of Fes are testament to the Fassi fascination with harnessing water. Yet the state of plumbing in today's Fes would surely make a Fassi engineer tun in their grave. Meknes was a stopping point to visit the Roman ruins of Volubilis, but we did have time to see the tomb of Moulay Ismail. Then it was to the Saharan dunes of Erg Chebbi in Kamlia. We rode camels, camped in a Berber tent and watched the international gnaoua act Les Pigeons du Sable. The houses at Kamlia stand like sand castles in the desert, made of the earth they stand on, embellished with crenelations and occasionally outlined with the blue of a clear sky.
With it being winter, we had to find somewhere else to walk besides North Africa's highest peak Jebel Toubkal. With limited time we decided on only day walks within the Dades and Todra gorges and also Jebel Sarhro. They were places of dry rocky mountains with the occasional Juniper tree and nomads herding sheep and goats, but with the golden rocks and distant snow capped peaks it was hauntingly beautiful. We walked with a guide in Sarhro and the Dades who cooked for us on a borrowed tajine. The food in Morocco is excellent, and the citrus is probably the best we have had anywhere in the world. There are many walks in the are if you have the time. You can walk from between the Todra an Dades gorges as well. The Dades glows red and gold in the evening light and the pink house fade into the cliffs, the only contrast is the olive groves that grow along the rivers.
We made it to Marrakesh on Christmas day. Djemaa el-Fna is Marrakesh's main square has been a centre of hustle and bustle for just shy of 1000 years with snake charmers, fortune tellers, musicians and all manner of other entertainers. We dined in the market stalls that are setup and torn down every night, but stayed away from the sheep's head and snails. The night was bustling with people as it was a Sunday night and the sky was lit by points of blue lights as toy salesmen shot tiny helicopters high above the crowd clustered in circles around the various entertainment. It is a carnival that plays every night. To round off Morocco we took a bus to the coastal town of Essaouira where we indulged in seafood and caught up with the Euro tourists who had brought their families away for the holidays. Finally our time was up, it was another bus back to Casablanca for one night before it was onto the next country.
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