Arrived in Lisbon

Besides the smog blocking our view coming into the city by bus, Lisbon
seems like a very beautiful cosmopolitan city, my thoughts might be
skewed by the fact we drove by a Lamborghini dealership within the
first 2 minutes...

The Hotel we're in seems amazing compared to the last one we were in,
mostly because the last one didn't have air conditioning, no wifi, no
phone in the room, the people at the front desk seemed to be a little
slow, mentally, and as Eric found out the hard way by having Jason and
myself throw his bed into the washroom, no lock on the door to the
washroom.

At our new hotel we were greeted with a welcome drink of wine and a
light snack, explained the best places to see in the city, wifi in the
rooms, air condition, and to Erics delight..a lock on the washroom door.

Portimao, Portugal

Definitely a slice of paradise along the southern coast of
portugal..the weather is perfect hovering right around 30 degrees
(although we did have thundershowers yesterday for 20 minutes or so,
then back to pure sunshine) ...problem is everyone is here to
experience it as well, super touristy and alot of people speak
english...a couple more nights here before we head to Lisbon for 3
nights, then jason fly's home for a week.

It'll be nice when jason gets back so that we don't have any
timetables to try and satisfy, it'll be relaxing to come and go as we
wish, and wherever we wish.

Church de Sevilla

Been a few days since wifi but i brought the laptop to a cafe and had
to pay for some. Here are some pictures of the Church de Sevilla..the
3rd oldest Christian church in the world. Doesn't compare to Sangrada
Familia in Barcelona, but still amazing considering when it was built...

The Algarve

As our hotel doens´t have internet we´re forced to go to an internet cafe, hence why there aren´t any pictures, i´ve got about 6 minutes of time before i have to give this up to jason...we´re in portimao, portugal...this place is beautiful...wonderful beaches with massive cliffs that extend out into the water. Playing in the altantic waves is fun, and relaxing on the beach hits the spot after the hectic atmosphere of Morocco. Will update with pictures and more when we aquire internet somewhere...may be a few days...

More pictures of Morocco

We decided to book an extra night in Sevilla, So we're here until
tuesday morning..going to check out the city some more tomorrow. Just
got back from dinner, more tapa's and they seem to keep getting better
wherever we go...

Enjoy some more pictures from Morocco...the picture of the tent beside
the railroad tracks are a common sight....

The picture of the cityscape is the medina of Fes, all those buildings
are just 2 or 3 feet apart from each other...the streets and corridors
are packed with people, donkey's and mules, it's a tight fit...

The kid working the tanneries couldn't be older than 10...such a
contrast from what I was doing when i was 10...

Out of Morocco, To Portugal via Sevilla

Well with Morocco behind us and a bunch of amazing memories there
we're off the continent of Africa and back in Europe. We just arrived
in Seviila, Spain and we're headed towards the Algarve's in Portugal
tomorrow. With only 10 days until Jason returns home for a week to be
the best man at his friend Jamie's wedding we've got a decent amount
of time to relax on the beaches of southern Portugal. I have a feeling
it will be a wonderful break from the hustlers and chaos that Morocco
was. Today marks 3 weeks on the road and it's been amazing thus far,
time goes quick but memories from the beginning of the trip seem so
far away.

Somebody must have packed a horseshoe in our packs...

Ok so where to start....

Our friends from Spain, Tony and Adbul, showed us an amazing time last
night. Taking us to true Moroccan eatery's that we would have never
otherwise found on our own. We shared good times and good stories with
amazing new friends. The tapa's here are just as amazing as in Spain
and they come free with the beers you buy. Abdul, who has a degree in
Andalucia and Moroccan history, told us he'd take us on a tour of the
medina today, his knowledge of the city was amazing. From hills
overlooking the entire city to the heart of the medina, Abdul didn't
disappoint. He took us to the oldest tannery in the world in the heart
of the old city, the smells are overwhelming. They use pigeon poop
(i'm not kidding) in a part of the dying process for it's acidic
properties, so imagine smells that have permeated for hundreds of
years into everything in the city. Kids as young as 10 years old work
the tannery's as their fathers and generations did before. The city is
the second oldest in the world behind Jerusalem, the streets are small
and wind in every direction, filled with colorful characters you could
only have imagined.

Abdul then took us to where Tony does his business in the medina. The
Moroccan government has set up a co-op of sorts that overseas the
sales and exports of the finest Moroccan carpets. 1400 Moroccan
families are a part of this organization that rates the quality of
carpets and provides fair pay to the artist who make them. The
Moroccan government guarantee's the quality of the carpets bought. The
carpet dealer who deals with buyers walks around like he's the king of
Fes, his workers run around doing his bidding grabbing and showing
carpets to Tony as he was the only buyer in there at the time. He
explained to us about the quality of the carpets, the thread count,
and length of time it takes to make. Only carpets that are sold
through him are done by women with more than 35 years experience in
making carpets. He sat down and drank a traditional Moroccan mint tea
with us, and showed us his finest carpets which are in the pictures.
The picture of the carpets shows 2 carpets on top of each other, the
bottom one was pure silk and took 2 and a half years to complete, it
has more than 2 million knots per square meter...the one on the top is
made with silk and gold, it is his most expensive carpet and it was so
amazing to see the craftsmanship of the threading.

After we saw the old city Abdul took us to see his nephew (Emel) that
just arrived from Canada, his father moved his family to Canada 9
years ago and he studied at the University of Toronto and got his
masters in business economics...he said he hired a driver and vehicle
and wanted to know if we could go with him to west out of the city 45
mins to a small ski resort town that Moroccan's nicknamed the Moroccan
Swiss Alps (In the Atlas Mountains). We ended up having a small meal
there and walked around the town, it's like a mini Whilster...just
beautiful...Emel told us on the way back that his father has a condo
in Fes and that we could stay there as long as we wanted to for no
cost...then he and Tony and Abdul invited us to travel with them to
the north coast of Morocco along the Mediterranean tomorrow to spend
the day on the beach, and the next day the driver they hired can drive
us to Ceuta to take the ferry back over to Spain, and then head to
Portugal...so I think we'll do that...

It's been amazing having good people like this show us around a
country that would have otherwise been difficult to see what we've
seen...Emel told us he's got a friend in Switzerland that we could
stay with in august when we go there and he could show us around as
he'll be there at the same time as us...amazing the people we've met
so far and the opportunities that have come up from it...

Fes

Our new found friends from Spain pulled some serious strings for us
and hooked us up with a tradition Riad in Fes to stay at for a
fraction of the price..this place is beautiful. For 100 Euro's a night
instead of 270 euro's a night. This place is massive with an upstairs,
3 beds, a bathroom, and a billion places to sit. We are having showers
now and are going to head out for dinner and drinks, tomorrow we'll
head to the old city and check out whats going on there...as for the
train ride here, we had 3 different people try and hustle us, they
didn't get to far, when we said we're going to meet friends in Fes
they backed off right away and left our compartment, always someone
with their hand in your pocket in Morocco.

You want buy something, we got everything...

Imagine going to a place with thousands of people that want to sell
you something you don't want, and won't leave you alone....well a
place exists and it's in Marrakech...In our 3 hour walk through the
medina(old town) of Marrakech we had snake charmers put snakes around
our necks and demand money, shop owners try to get us in every shop,
and have guys say they'll take us on a tour for no charge, but then
take us to a spice shop their buddy owns and leave us there to get
sucked into shopping...if we were in the market to buy rugs, tea sets,
or wood carvings of camels, then we would have struck gold...but we
didn't want anything...there are more locals trying to sell you
something than tourists in there to buy stuff...so the borage of
hustlers is pretty overwhelming...

We also saw alot of poverty, extremely poor people with what seemed
like absolutely nothing. Cinderblock shacks with makeshift roofs and
outside gardens on the side of the road. The smells are overwhelming
and confusing as well, a real sensory overload...the one picture of
the foundation blocks through the metal gate are apparently from the
12th century, a mosque that was destroyed in war...

Our taxi down to the medina cost us 11MD, or a $1.30CAD...on the way
back the guy tried to charge us 30MD, we said no way, turn your meter
on...he laughed and said ok, ok... 20MD, Jason and i proceeded to try
and get out of the cab, the guy said ok, ok, 15MD, for the sake of 4MD
we decided not to barter anymore....seems like everyone here is trying
to squeeze as much as they can out of you, and are pretty blunt about
it...

Looking forward to Fes in a couple of days....not only because the
heat isn't as bad, but the place is less touristy....

First thoughts on Morocco

The wi-fi finally works on the computer so here's some pictures from
the train this morning. Eric and myself were up early while Jason had
a sleep in. We got up in time to see the sun rise over the rugged
landscape. As we blew by small towns on the train I started to realize
how much poverty is here. Villages that seem to have nothing, with
crumbled buildings and donkey's eating garbage that's all over the
streets, seems surreal at 200km/h just passing by. There are tons of
beautiful Mosques though, no matter how small the village. Marrakech
was cooking today, 45 degrees celsius at the highest point today I
think, and it's not like the wind makes things better either, the wind
sometimes gusts and is hotter that the still air. We spend the day at
the hotel going back and forth to the rooftop pool.

We just got back from dinner out, no alcohol on the menus at the
restaurants in Marrakech. Other than in hotels it's hard to find booze
anywhere. Tomorrow we're going to head out to the old city of
Marrakech (The Medina). Should have some amazing pictures to upload
tomorrow night I think. The people here stare at us as we walk down
the street being 3 white young males, i don't feel any hostility
towards us, more curiosity, the people here seem very friendly and
genuine, and smile back when you smile at them. As for the language
barrier it's difficult to understand their french as mine is very
limited and they speak so fast, as for Arabic....i can't understand a
word...they seem to switch back and forth between the 2...nice not to
have feet in my face tonight though....

Breakfast in Marrakech

730am and already 38 degrees.

On the train

Check out our cabin partner, 4 beds, 3 of us, 1 moroccan with gross
feet in my face.....brutal... train leaving the station now....

Gps finally works

The GPS finally works on my iPhone. I think it's cause I have wifi
now. Alot of hustlers here in Morocco. Always someone trying to make a
buck off you. Jason had a cleaning lady ask his for money when he was
in the bathroom and when getting of fthe ferry porters would grab
peoples luggage out of their hands and try to take it to the port
station for them, then demand money when they got there. More
contemporary then I though I was going to be, not as reserved or
limited by Islam as I thought it was going to be. Have only seen a
handful of women in traditional burquas, most poeple are dressed in
the same clothes westerners dress is. We'll see if that holds true
throughout the country as we get farther away from Europe. By the way
it's hot.

Morocco

Met a guy on the ferry over from Tarifa, Spain, his name was Tony and
he was from Barcelona. He buys handmade goods from Fes and brings them
back to Spain and sells them for double the price. He gave us his
number and told us to call him once we got to Fes after Marrakech.
After we left the boat and took a taxi to the train station which cost
us 60MD. We saw Tony and his brother and his other friend Abdul at the
train station. They quickly let us know that they had paid 10MD for
the same taxi ride. They spoke Arabic, and we did not. Our taxi fare
still only cost us the equivalent of 8 CAD. So we didn't feel too bad.
Tony and his friends had missed their train so we shared a taxi(yeah
that's 6 full grown men in a cab) to a local moroccan tapa's bar. We
sat and drank and shared stories. Our meal which was 10 beers and more
tapas than we could count cost us 200MD which was about 20 euros. They
told us to call them before we get to Fes and Abdul who works in the
hotel industry will get us a good deal on a nice hotel in Fes. They
also let us know about various scams in Morocco to be weary of while
in Marrakech. Super good food and times with new friends. They said
they will show us around Fes and travel with us around the city and
it's surroundings. As for Morocco as a country, First impression are
everyone wants to rip you off. But having the right people by you
definately makes things easier. I think we're all in the mood to sit
by the hotel pool for a good day in the sun. First an overnight train
ride from the coastal city on Tanger to Marrakech.

Sent from my iPhone

That's Hot.

Packing our things now to head to the ferry. That's gonna be a hot
day...

Gibraltar

Went to Gibraltar today, wonderful views of the Atlantic,
Mediterranean, Africa and Europe all from one vantage point. No wonder
the British have held onto it for all these years, such a good
military vantage point. The monkey, or apes, whatever they're called,
are hilarious to watch. Within the first 5 minutes of being at the top
this russian tourist decided to eat an apple, one of the monkey's
jumped right up and tried to grab it out of his hand. We took a cable
car to the top which was a cool experience, there are all these old
military bunkers and places that would have kept cannons and housed
soldiers back 400 years ago. Down the main stretch there are all these
shops that sell liquor for cheap, and i mean cheap, check out the
picture of the vodka and gin i took, if you're unhappy paying
$13.00CAD for a liter of vodka, you can opt in for the $5.50 Liter
bottle of gin. Tomorrow we're off to Morocco, the plan is to get into
tangier during the day by boat from spain, and then take an overnight
train to Marrakech.