Larache, Morocco

Moulay-Idriss, Volubilis

Merzouga, Sahara

Meknes

A hot spring - but where was it?

Somewhere about 30-45 minutes North of Er Rachidia, 30 minutes past the lake Barrage de Hassan Addakhil, where the road curves left along the North-East bank of the river (probably not far from Kerrandou), a lot of people (and goats) where gathered. Anders pulled over instantly and went to have a bath. Some old people (men only) where having a cure bath in a hot source next to the river.

Marrakesh

Colonization... The British write souks, Fez, and Marrakesh. The French write souqs, Fes, and Marrakech.

Anyway... We have spent hot days and nights in hotels and car seats without air conditioning, and strolled through the busy alleys of the medinas of Fez and Marrakesh. We had a lunch break in Rabat, the capital, which is the cleanest city we have seen so far, and by far the one with most police in it.

We decided to spend another night in Marrakesh - partly because we needed some time off the road, and we checked into a hotel with cold air this time. We had a much needed nap - no sweat - and we are walking around in Ville Nouvelle right now - where there is a lot less hustle and no bargaining compared to the old town.

Tomorrow, we plan to drive to Sahara, or at least to the outskirts of the vast desert to see some sand dunes.

Rabat

We left Fes in the morning, after a quick breakfast consisting of orange juice, coffee, and croissants downtown. Of course, we started out in the wrong direction, inched our way through some back-alleys with workshops, small markets, and poor and rich neighborhoods, but some helpful men pointed us in the right direction and we were off to Rabat, the capital.

We stopped in Rabat for lunch - it's funny how the main roads almost slow down to a halt when they enter a city (and they always do). The speed limits vary between 120 (toll road), 100 (highway), 80, 60 (getting closer to a city), 40 (in the city), and 20 (near a control post) km/h.



Rabat must have been the cleanest city we visited, and they had nice beaches, altough the beach was a good 100 m from the sea, with rocky cliffs in between.

Fes, Morocco

We arrived in Morocco yesterday night, a couple of hours behind schedule, and spent the night in Tanger. I guess the highlights of the day were the ferry and the bus ride through Costa del Sol. Costa del Sol must be its own shadow today, compared to the 80s. It looked relatively deserted (in retrospectiv, we found that it was not - A). Today we picked up a rental car and drove to Fez. Anders was pulled over for speeding, but talked about the hot weather (it was 49 C, according to the officer) and was forgiven. We have found a hostel in the Medina, and plan to spend the night wandering around in the souks :0

After posting this, we bought a spice mix (chili and bell pepper or something like that) from an old chap who was actually in a former version of Lonely Planet, and who claimed that the price was fixed (50 dirham per 100 grams) - so we only bought 50 grams (a few days later, we found that spice was about 80% cheaper at the supermarket). The spice was rendered useless by heat and humidity after a few days...



Later on, we tried a round of water pipe and mint tea. The tea was great, and the water pipe was... smokin'

Not gonna miss this...

Oslo, Saturday @ 5:30 AM. We're clean. I've got hickups. Astrid is putting on makeup while sighing deeply. It's raining outside, and we're leaving Oslo's lows of 11 degrees C and highs of 22 for Marrakech' lows of 22 and highs of 44!

We've reserved a car through Avis - it should be 3500 dirham for a week including free mileage, theft protection and insurance, plus an eventual super collision damage waiver which sets the liability to zero. Kinda sounds nice.

We'll be in Malaga, Spain around noon, and try to make it to Tangier as soon as possible after that. The time difference is one or two hours from here. One. They're one hour behind us. Same as GMT, in other words.

Uuuhhh... my body is not ready for breakfast, or anything, really.

We're leaving Norway in 12 hours! Time to pack?

Astrid has got all of her stash ready and her backpack is ready to get stuffed. I have not. I'm going to, though. Just need to find something to pack in first. Well, since we need to get up at about 5 am on Saturday morning, I don't have any excuse for a nap right now, so I guess I don't have any excuse for not packing, either. Here we go...