The Scottish circuit has been an arduous one.  Since we picked up our car (her name is Whinny) in London we have traveled nearly 2000 miles in her.  She has started complaining in the morning that she's tired and would like us to slow down.  While our bodies occasionally agree with her, we press on, intent on seeing as much of Scotland  as we possibly can.  I think we've done pretty well.  Don't get me wrong, one could easily spend several weeks or months here and not see everything, but we've made at least a decent dent.  

We started our tour in Edinburgh.  It must be noted that Edinburgh is pronounced 'Edin - buruah,' NOT 'Edin - burg.'  A lovely young Scottish man at the gate to the castle wouldn't allow us to enter until we had learned to say it correctly.  However you choose to say it, Edinburgh truly is a magical city.  Edinburgh castle towers over the city,  and the city center is rich with the history of 2000 years of inhabitants.  We spent one morning wandering around the old city reading the plaques on the walls telling of people who had lived or died in particular buildings or on street corners.  We saw the markers for where the city once ended, at a place called 'World's End,' and we even took a tour of the oldest part of the city, the underground.  Apparently during the Middle Ages in Edinburgh, the Crown sought to remake the city, and instead of tearing down the existing buildings, they just ripped the roofs off and built new buildings on top of them.  This basically put all of the old inhabitants of Edinburgh into the basements of the new and grander buildings built above.  It was a bit claustrophobic to tour the old houses, let alone imagine living in them.  Our tour guide (dressed as a plague cleaner...totally cheesy, but our only option) explained how the people lived in those houses.  They heated with fire, so the rooms were filled with smoke with no ventilation, there were no bathrooms, so the 'toilets' were in buckets, which were emptied out onto the alleyways at a certain time of day, everyday, and the best you could hope for to get rid of the smell would be rain.  Nearly impossible to imagine how badly that smelled.  I felt a little claustrophobic just thinking of it.  

After our tour of the chambers, we took in another attraction that was a 'must-do' in Scotland.  We went to a rugby game.  We saw Scotland vs. Italy at Murrayfield - which is Edinburgh's giant rugby stadium.  We walked in just as the opening cannons were firing, and it was all I could do to keep up with Steph as she charged into the stadium, intent on not missing a moment of the action.  It was quite exciting to watch, there were some great plays and some very bad plays (those are usually more fun to watch, in my opinion) and the game ended in Scottish victory.  Thank goodness.

Originally, when we were deciding when to come to Edinburgh, we didn't really plan for much, except to come in the summer when it is warm.  Not that it's all that warm anyway, as we have both been wearing ALL of the layers that we brought with us on the trip.  It's damn cold up here sometimes.  And, regardless of whether we planned for it or not, we arrived in Scotland in the heart of festival season, so everywhere we have been in the country we have run into a festival.  The biggest of which is the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.  At first when we arrived we didn't understand what it was, tried to find more information which made us more confused, and did not make it our top priority to figure out.  (Now that I know, basically for the month of August, the entire city turns into a festival venue, and each pub has a different act performing at it each night)  In the end, after the rugby game we decided to try to catch a show, chose one of the (thousands of) flyers that we had been offered while walking around the city, and set out to see a delightful all-female comedy trio.  Still not understanding how the festival worked, we showed up right on time, but with no tickets.  By the time we figured out where the box office was, we were late, and were not allowed in.  Desperate to at least see something, I bought us tickets to a show that the lovely young woman at the box office recommended.  She said the show was funny and that she had enjoyed it.  Hmmm.  I wish I could find that young woman again and ask which part of the show she had enjoyed.  It basically consisted of three Australian men screaming and running around on a cardboard set of a mock trailer park that had been infested with zombats.  Yes, you read that right, zombats.  A cross between zombies and wombats.  Maybe the highlight was when one of the men dressed in a full-size 'zombat king' costume and tried to eat one of the other actors.  A few people got up and left in the middle of the performance, but I was pushed to stay by the promise of the young woman who had enjoyed the play.  And maybe by the fact that we were seated directly in the middle of a row.  The latter was definitely the deciding factor.

The next day we left Edinburgh, stopped for the day in a small town to watch an afternoon of the 'Highland Games'.  The Highland Games are basically a track and field competition, with a more interesting round of 'field' events.  In addition to the usual shot-put, there is also the hammer throw, tug of war (this is a very serious competition.  Teams of 8 men each complete with uniforms and special equipment to avoid rope-burn), and the most exciting, the log toss.  A huge 150 pound log has to be tossed by the competitors end over end and land at exactly 12 o'clock.  The crowd gets quite into it, and it's pretty fun/interesting to watch very large men in kilts running across a field carrying a log.  I tried to figure out how exactly they practice for this event.  Do they have a log at home that they keep in the shed?  Has anyone ever accidentally thrown one into the house?  One man dominated the games, and I imagine he looks forward to games season all year long.  

After spending the night near the games (wild camping adventure previously explained) and doing a thorough tour of Stirling Castle, (Steph was disappointed at the lack of information on Robert the Bruce) we headed on towards St. Andrews.  We stopped along the way to try out the 'best fish and chips in the UK', and see a harbor fishing village.  Then, after arriving in St. Andrews and doing a quick tour of the castle and cathedral, which used to be the home of the Christian faith in Scotland, we decided that we had to do a quick round of golf.  When in St. Andrews, THE city where golf was invented you simply have to play a round of golf.  The trouble is, playing golf at St. Andrews requires both a lot of money and at least a basic knowledge of how to play the sport.  I imagined myself slicing my way through the course, hitting nearby people and cars, or sending my ball directly into the ocean.  Then, when I thought about hitting Prince William in the head with a misdirected golf ball (St. Andrews was where he met Kate), I decided that real golf was out for me.  Luckily, we weren't the only skill-less golfers to want to try their hand at the course.  We were able to putt our way through the 'Ladies Putting Greens', a 9-hole mini golf course, which also happens to be where the pros practice.  I have to say, I think I have a few more golfing skills than I had originally thought and ending up pulling out quite a few good putts.  AND I beat Steph.  She doesn't win at everything.  Yay.  

After leaving St. Andrews, we made our way around the country, stopping at castles and abbeys and stone circles created thousands of years ago to predict the moon cycles.  We drove down the coast of Loch Ness keeping a carefully eye on the water, hoping the Nessie would make an appearance.  We drove out to the Isle of Skye and had a delightful seafood dinner, and attempted a climb of Ben Nevis, Scotland's highest mountain.  But, for this we showed up rather late, and with afternoon storms threatening to roll in, we chose a slightly shorter and lower trail.  When we reached the top of the trail, we both considered continuing on with an attempt to reach the summit, which was completely clear and sunny at the time. However, the idea of getting to the top and being caught in a storm with freezing temperatures and no food was a bit too scary for me, and I convinced Steph that we didn't need to keep going.  Within 45 minutes, as we made our descent, a dark cloud rolled in and covered the mountain.  Ben Nevis (possibly derived from the Gaelic words for 'Terrible Mountain') is not going to fool me.  Not today.

That was yesterday.  I'm now happily perched in a cafe while Steph attends the lectures at the Bruce Festival.  Hours and hours of lectures about the family tree.  Fun if you're a Bruce, maybe not so fun if you're a Cochran.  In fact, after learning a little bit about my clan, I'm not positive I would want to hear about my entire history.  Steph comes from a very noble 'save Scotland from the English' family, while I come from the MacDonald clan, mostly known in the Western part of Scotland as 'we're out for ourselves and we will raid your pesky village at least once a year' sort of family.  Not quite as exciting to hear about.  

I have already made this post WAY too long, and it's about time to think about attending the fun part of the festival, joisting competitions and beer gardens, not complete without cooked turkey leg in hand.  I'm quite glad I've gotten to see as much of the beautiful country as I have, and hope to someday come back and explore it further.  Until then, I'll have to be happy with my slightly harried surface dip into Scotland and its rich history.  I've learned a lot in the ten days though, and if anyone has any questions about the Kings and Queens of Scotland over the least several centuries, I'd be happy to fill you in.  Exciting stuff full of great men and women and not-so-great men and women.  My favorite is probably Mary Queen of Scot's French mother, who instead of abandoning Scotland when her husband, James V died and returning to France, she chose to stay, and laid the ground work for her grandson, James VI to unite it.  Strong lady.  

I hope that Steph is learning that kind of stuff about her family right now.  Time for me to go get a turkey leg.

-EC

Holy crap it's hard to keep up on the entries when you're camping.  Your life is spent in between internet hotspots, the occasional technically advanced pub, tourist information points, and random Starbucks and McDonald's locations.  Like right now, for instance, we are at a pub in Aberdeen, Scotland, and I have realized that the gaming consoles (the ones that sit on the bar that people can play photo-hunt on for hours) actually emit a wifi signal.  Which means wherever we can find photo-hunt, we can email.  Lovely...and goes well with a pint.

The last time I checked in was on a bus on our way to Copenhagen.  Copenhagen was pretty rad, but really expensive.  Thank goodness for having an amazing couchsurfing host in the city, because otherwise we would have completely blown our budget.  There are a few great things to see and do in Copenhagen, one of which is the Tivoli.  The Tivoli is a theme park that is right in the middle of the city and inspired the layout of the Disney Theme parks.  We just so happened to show up for the Tivoli's anniversary, so were treated to a fireworks display every night.  I tried to pretend that it was a celebration of our arrival in Denmark.  Wishful thinking.  Another famous thing to see in Copenhagen is the "little mermaid", which is underwhelming at best.  A life-size statue of a mermaid, sitting on a rock and angstily looking toward the sea, with tourists hanging all over her.  We sat on the rocks near her for thirty minutes waiting for a moment that we could take an unobstructed photo, and it never came.  So we took a photo of the statue covered in tourists instead.  I think that might have actually been more fitting.  Other than riding rollercoasters and seeing forlorn mermaids, we spent our time in Copenhagen riding bikes, seeing the giant city buildings, and trying to keep as many kroners in our pockets as possible.  For the most part, we did pretty well.

After Denmark, we hopped on a plane to London, picked up a rental car, spent a lovely day with Steph's brother, Tony, in the city and then took off for Scotland.  Scotland is one of the places that both of us were really looking forward to.  We both feel an attachment to the country due to distant Scottish lineage.  Steph's is at least a little more easily traced than mine, since she claims Robert the Bruce as her distant ancestor.  This means we see her family name everywhere.  There are Bruce tartans, Bruce pins, Bruce ties, Bruce kilts, Bruce...everything. There is even...pause for dramatic effect here...a Bruce Festival next weekend.  An ENTIRE festival centered around the family lineage.  We have officially changed our travel plans to include the festival, and Steph will be contacting the the festival organizers to see if she gets a special Bruce discount.  

Other than the family finding, we have been seriously hitting as many of the sites as we possibly can.  We have a castle pass, and now have been to nine castles, and have plans to see at least three or four more.  We have seen giant imposing castles on cliffs, tiny castles that look more like summer homes, and castles in ruins.  We have also seen our fair share of palaces.  But perhaps the most interesting part of our trip in Scotland so far has been the lodging.  And by lodging, I mean camping.

Yes, we have been camping.  Camping.  Like, in a tent, in sleeping bags.  I have to say, I have never been a big camper, and I think it showed in my preparedness.  Steph actually brought along a water heater for coffee in the morning.  Which is amazing...if you have cups.  So after the first morning of using an old coffee cup we found in the back of the car, we went and bought coffee cups.  Which was super helpful, and we thought we were all set, until we realized we didn't have spoons.  Stirring milk in with your finger can be very hot.  Luckily my fingers are still pretty immune to burns after my years of cooking.  I'm not sure I can tell you what we used for the cereal.  A day later we collected spoons.  Now we're pretty set (some mornings are better than others).  One night, we even tried 'wild camping'.  

Wild camping is an entirely different animal.  Due to the Scottish 'right to roam' act, you can essentially camp anywhere you want, as long as you inform the owner of the land first, pitch late, leave early, and don't leave a trace of evidence that you were there.  It can save a lot of money, but comes with its own drawbacks.  Early on in the day that we had decided to try wild camping, we went and scoped out a spot for it.  It was a national park, secluded, had parking and a beautiful lake.  Seemed like the perfect set-up.  What could go wrong with that?  Let me tell you.  A) the name of the park was Devilla.  Chop off those last two letters and your imagination starts going crazy.  B) The park had a reputation in the middle ages of having witches. C) there was a grave site with children that died of the plague.  D) with those facts in mind, picture our chosen site in the middle of the woods, next to a lake (bog), a mile off the road.  Eeh.  After having a drink at a pub, Steph and I set out to pitch our tent in the scary forest.  When we pulled up to the campsite to gather our things and head off to our scary site, in my head I was thinking, "this is terrifying.  I don't know if I can do this.  But Steph seems fine, not scared at all....I'm such a chicken.  This is fine."  Then thankfully at the last minute she turned to me and said, "This makes me a little nervous."  THANK GOODNESS.  We both agreed that it was a little too much for our first wild camping adventure, quickly found another way less scary spot up the road, pitched a tent and slept...okay.  She slept well.  I felt like I had to stand guard and every noise the wind made in the trees was cause for alarm.  Needless to say, I slept a bit poorly.  But was still proud of us for giving the wild camping a try.  I'll let you know how the next adventure goes.

And that's where we are in our trip.  We are about halfway up the Eastern coast of Scotland, and are off to Inverness tomorrow to check out some scotch distilleries.  Maybe we can try wild camping on the front lawn of Glenfiddich or Dewars.  A little less scary, I'd say...and maybe coming with some other benefits?


-EC

"Architecture and bikes," says my younger sister, Lauren, "that's what I remember about Amsterdam.  Cute old buildings and lots of people riding bikes."  

This is not actually a bad way to describe Amsterdam.  I might add rain and weird early 90's music.  But really, 'architecture and bikes' just about covers it.  Before we went, Steph had been to Amsterdam three or four times, and had spoken so highly of the city, I was already sure I was going to like it.  I mean, it's hard not to like.  It's a city, that from the moment you leave the central train terminal exudes Europe in all its quaint glory.  

There is the ring of concentric canals around and through the entire city that remind me of Venice, but without the smell.  There are the cute canal houses lining every street, many of them with a slight tilt in one direction or another, making me think of a row of dominoes lined up and ready to be pushed over.  There is the food, which doesn't quite have the notoriety of the food in France, but is good in its own right.  I mean, who really doesn't like little paper cones filled with hot, crunchy french fries and mayonaisse?  There were our couchsurfing hosts, Marc and Marijn, two of the nicest Dutch people you'd ever be fortunate enough to meet, and then of course, there are the bikes.  Lines of bikes as far as the eye can see.  Two bikes for every citizen of Amsterdam.  Maybe three.  

Our arrival into Amsterdam started off with a bang.  We arrived on a Saturday morning.  And not just any Saturday morning, no, of course we arrived on Gay Pride Saturday morning.  Clearly.  Luckily we found out the day before from our hosts that this was happening, or I think we would have been slightly thrown off by the amount of pink in the train station.  Pink clothing, pink hair, pink flags, pink face paint.  

After meeting up with our hosts, dropping off all of our things at their apartment, and having a quick cup of coffee, we all headed into the madness together to see what Amsterdam Pride was all about.  It was pretty much what you might expect from a giant parade in any other major city, with a few minor exceptions.  The biggest being that all the floats were on the water.  Imagine 5th Ave or Market Street as a canal.  Now fill all the boats with drunk dancing people in crazy costumes.  Blare some early to mid-90's classics like "Barbie" to a techno beat, and you have a basic idea of what the parade was all about.  Probably the most interesting part to watch was the very end, when all of the boats and floats emptied into the main canal, with everyone trying to sort out where they were, keep the party going, and not run into each other.  Very amusing to watch.

The rest of the time in Amsterdam we spent wandering the streets eating in cafes, having a competition on who could spot the oldest canal house (I thought I had won when I spotted Rembrandt's house dating at 1606, which held for two days, until Steph spotted an old restaurant with year 1603 on our last morning.  She wins at everything), and trying to figure out which houses might fall down first.  We rented bikes and spent a day pedaling through the streets and the parks ringing our bells at people and each other.  We had one very brief picnic that was put to a quick end with an unexpected downpour.  

And finally, the last thing that we did was pay a visit to the Anne Frank house.  This was the one thing that we both really wanted to do, but every time we walked by during our four days in the city the line seemed to go on forever.  So on the final day, after putting it off for four days, we dragged ourselves out of bed early, dropped our luggage at the train station, and walked to the House, only to find the longest line we had seen yet.  Luckily we had three hours before the train left.  Two hours later, still in line, having braved both the unsupervised children who were feeding pigeons and then trying to kick them (I finally yelled at them), and the two young men who tried to slip into line right next to us near the front (Steph nearly attacked them), we weren't about to get out of line without seeing the house just because of missing a train.  And rightly so.

I didn't expect the Anne Frank House to hit me quite as hard as it did.  Apart from the ground floor, which has been turned into a museum shop and a ticket booth, the house remains nearly unchanged since the day the family was discovered and the house was cleared in 1944.  The German and Dutch Authorities cleared all of the furniture from the house, and at Otto Frank's request, it was left bare.  There were marks on the wall that recorded Anne and her sister Margo's heights during their two years in hiding.  There was a small map in the parents room that was used for tracking the movements of the allies, in hopes that they would move on Amsterdam soon.  There were black and white photos pasted on the walls of Anne and Margo's room of Hollywood stars.  The photo of Greta Garbo above Anne's bed, had the lips tinted a light color of pink, as if someone had colored them in with a crayon.  Walking around in the house, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to block out the thirty other tourists in the room with me, and imagine being trapped in that little space, unable to make any noise all day, unable to breathe fresh air, unable to understand what you could have possibly done wrong to deserve this.  This was something I could wrap my head around imagining.  What I could not do, however, was imagine how humans could possibly inflict this sort of pain on one another.  I'm guessing as we make our way across Germany and visit other places, such as Dachau, I will encounter this same feeling of bewilderment again.  

We finished the Anne Frank house and furiously pedaled our way across town to the train station, split duties (I bought food and returned bikes while Steph bought tickets and figured out where we left from), and made it onto our train a couple minutes early.  We spent one lovely and relaxing day in Hamburg, Germany with some new friends, and now we're off to Copenhagen, and are currently on a "Business Class" bus.  Very fancy.  We have wifi, plug-ins, comfortable seats and plenty of leg room.  It's like we've moved up in the world a little bit.  I'm sure there will be many more less comfortable rides to come, but for now, I'm going to soak in this comfort as best as I can.

- EC  

I love Spain.

To the point that we were going to forgo it because we couldn't dedicate the time to really explore it. But as we left Marrakech and traveled to Tangier to take the Ferry to Spain, we remembered how delicious our first glass of sangria had been a week earlier and decided we had a little bit of time to explore Malaga and San Sebastian on our way to Amsterdam. We did make a few unfortunate blunders that hopefully you can learn from if you're reading this for educational purposes.

We discovered that we got off at the wrong station for our original destination of Algiceres. So we had to take the ferry to Tarifa, then a free bus to Algiceres, finally another bus to Malaga, a seaside city Erin had visited when her friends had lived there. I had never heard of it, but it's apparently a popular town and was nominated as the cultural center of Europe a few years back.

We were saved by the rugby community from staying at an expensive glorified hostel we had been somewhat forced into through airbnb.com (I do not recommend this website. primarily for the $7 a night reservation fee they charge). Mentxu, our hostess, had been teammates on the Malaga women's rugby team with one of Erin's friends and was infinitely gracious and helpful, even though she spoke no english and our spanish seemed to fail us miserably. Although we had only a little over a day to explore the city, it seems worth it to come back through next time.

Sadly, our plan to go to Toledo with our extra night between Malaga and San Sebastian was cut out of our mini-tour because of the price of train tickets. Toledo is a cute medieval town about a 30 minute train ride outside of Madrid, the 'home' of Don Quixote and delicious tapas. Instead we stayed at a hostel in the Chueca neighborhood of Madrid (the gay district), and ate some tasteless tapas in the neighborhood.

The next morning we woke up early (Erin was not happy about this), and went to the station to get our bus up to San Sebastian. Along the way the scenery got greener and hillier as we climbed into the low mountains. It wasn't until we hit the bus stop to our camp that I saw how beautiful San Sebastian is. Enjoying the city had to wait a bit as we spent a very tense 30 minutes in line waiting to see if we'd get a campsite. We luckily got one of the last ones because we didn't have a car. We got settled into the spot which was as wide as our tent, and hitched a ride back down to town from a hilarious retired Aussie couple who were traveling around Europe for 3 months.

San Sebastian is proudly "not in Spain, nor in France, but in Basque country," and is a lovely place to relax for a few days. We went during the high high season, and even then it wasn't overwhelmingly crowded, nor as expensive as we were led to believe. The city is built around a trio of bays, each one dominated by a beach, making it a bit like Monaco or Paris with the beaches of Rio. There is cute old city, where we spent almost all of our time. The pintxos at any of the places in the old city are fairly good, but if you're looking for more modern fare, skip the Fuego Negro, and go to Cuchara de San Telmo. The pintxos are around 3 to 4 Euro each, but well worth the price. it was the best food we had in Spain (though we were trying to keep to a budget).

Not having learned our lesson about last minute planning, we only got down to figuring out our exit strategy the night before we were to leave San Sebastian. Holy hell it's expensive to get out of Spain. I looked at everything - Planes, trains, buses, and ride shares. In the end decided to splurge on an overnight train Paris and then on to Amsterdam in order to catch the Amsterdam Pride festival which is coincidentally happening this weekend. yay. and ugh. I hope we won't have to splurge like that many more times.

-SB

PS - another funny incident was on our first day in Europe we decided to get some tapas and were persuaded by a very suave Cuban to dine at his restaurant.

During our meal, a local TV news crew decided to do a story on this gentleman, got a couple of other tourists to pretend to be persuaded to eat there (again), and then asked me, as a tourist, what I thought of his work. I did such a good job, he gave us a sherry tasting digestif as a thank you. I would have settled for a discounted or free meal, but can't complain.

Last Christmas, my mom, grandma and I went to Cancun. I thought it would be a fun, tropical, Mexican place to escape for the holidays. I was right about only one of those things. Although it was tropical, we could not escape the bubble of tourism no matter how hard we tried, which really took the fun out of leaving the country. We went to cultural centers and ruins but were shepherded in a group from bus to site, with quaint tourist restaurant stops along the way. The closest we go to "Mexico" was opting to take a tour with a spanish speaking guide instead of english. I came back dejected by the idea that I had gone through the trouble of pulling out my passport, shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars to be surrounded by the exact (or worse) people I surround yourself with every day while taking pictures of 'the other people' and their culture.

Erin also prides herself on being able to find her way in foreign places. To the point that, although lost and in 100 degree heat walking around the streets of the Marrekech Medina, I was reprimanded for unwittingly 'hiring' a guide to show us to the hostel, so I surrendered all my cash to her as I was not equipped to deal with the barrage of 'help' that was offered to us any time we paused on the street.

At the Riad (Pension/hotel) we once again blundered into the tourist trap and opted to join two other travelers on a three day tour of the desert. We were in Morocco, shouldn't we go see the desert and take a camel ride? But as soon as Erin gave our money over to the tour manager, her face wrinkled in pain as she realized what we had gotten ourselves into. Three overpriced days of being carted around in a safe bubble, being shown things that white people find interesting, surrounded by other white people.

Resigning ourselves to our fate (mostly) we were somewhat saved by the intimacy of the group (only two other tourists), and our earnest driver, who we defaulted as our guide over the appointed one. His name was al Abdul, which means Believer in God in Arabic, but having lost his faith he renamed himself Ziri which means Moon in Berber (mind you, we were the only ones that called him that. Everyone else still called him Abdul). What we also got was a side of Morocco that we didn't expect. The native people of Morocco are called Berber and while they have been assimilated into the Muslim state (as all the Natives in the Americas were assimilated to Christianity), many still practice Judiasm, Christianity, or, like Ziri, some non-denominational spirituality.

Our trip coincided with the week leading up to Ramadan, The Holy Month, in which no citizen of Morocco, whether they are Muslim or not must fast from 4am until 10pm.  If they consume anything, including water, they can be imprisoned for 6 months.  Muslim or not. Ziri had gone to prison for drinking water, but was released when he had paid the requisite bribe to the police. Because of this, both of our guides spent their time with us prepping their bodies.  At meals they would have two to three spoonfuls of food, and spent the rest of the time chain smoking cigarettes.  What must it be like to be forbidden from drinking water for 18 hours in 100 degree temperatures when you don't even believe in the religion? 

The highlight of the trip was in fact our excursion into the desert. We arrived at our hotel on the edge of the sand dunes, swam in a surprisingly cold pool, showered and an hour before sunset met our four dromedaries. We rode for an hour in the desert, where the colors of the dunes were brilliantly orange and watched the sun go down. When we arrived at camp, our butts a little chaffed, we dropped our bags off at the tents and hustled up the hill to ride snowboards down the sand dunes in the dying light. We ate what I think is the most delicious meal we had in Morocco, and then danced to the drums of the two hosts (sounds corny but they actually made us dance). After dinner, the host took us up the dune to look at the stars. He showed us many constellations and we waited for about 30 minutes for the clouds to clear over the Scorpion constellation, which ended up never happening. We then dragged our sleeping mats out of our sleeping hut and slept under the stars. That was a pretty amazing moment (before i took off my glasses and saw only smudged light).

The next morning we were awakened at 5am and grudgingly mounted our camels for the hourlong ride back to the hotel, pausing to watch the sun rise. nearby we saw stream of locals the size of ants climbing the highest sand dune for morning prayer.

Day 3 of the tour was supposed to be as simple as being dropped off at a bus station on the way to Marrakech, where we would split with the other travelers and head North to Fez.  However, after four bus stops and a taxi stand with no potential options to get to our destination, it became clear that we would be staying with the group all the way back to Marrakech.  Eight more hours in a van and one more overpriced tourist restaurant later, and we were back in the our hostel, preparing for another night in the main square of central Marrakech.  Along the fifteen minute walk, in an attempt to take a short cut, we took a side street and were immediately approached by a man insisting that the markets are closed, and that we should consider buying things in his shop instead.  With him following us around insisting and insisting more that we buy something, that we had to buy something from him, a decision was made clear. 

It's time to get out of Morocco.  No more overpriced white people excursions, no more separate menus for tourists, no more triple and quadruple pricing.  We've been told that there is a real Morocco out there, and we're willing to come back to find it. But we'll be avoiding Marrakech at all costs.

in case you do go to Morocco, here are some useful phrases (written phonetically):
Schuckran - Thank you (Arabic)
Azuul - Hello (Berber)
Tan Meert - Thank you (Berber) <- locals will be impressed if you say this
Sah Fey - Enough, no more, done (Berber)
Oh ho - no (Berber)
Oh ho yeh - Never (kind of sounds like "Oh hoy Matey!"

'It is only 9 hours by foot. Very close.'

This was the response I got from our guide in the middle of the Moroccan Sahara when I asked how close the border to Algeria was.  Yes yes, very close.  Oh to be a Nomad Moroccan and to not only measure by foot distance, but to think that a 9-hour walk is a reasonably close distance.  This basically describes how things move in Morocco.  People seem unconcerned by hassles that Americans might consider unbearable.  Scorching temperatures with no air-conditioning, insane traffic, no real system of lines - just people pushing toward the front.  Consider for example, our three-day two-night excursion from Marrakech into the Atlas mountains and the Sahara.  

After spending a somewhat sleepless night in Marrakech without air-conditioning (Steph slept just fine.  sigh.) We woke at 7am to a quick cup of coffee, a piece of bread with jam and then jumped into a van on a tour of the areas surrounding Marrakech.  And by surrounding, I mean within a 10-hour drive.  I wonder how far that is by foot?  On the way to the desert we stopped at several places, the most memorable being a Casbah (read: fortress),  which to me seemed to be akin to a sandcastle straight out of a movie.  Funny thing, it kind of was.  It was the 2000-year-old Casbah where the movies Gladiator and Alexander (among others) were filmed.  We walked through the narrow streets on our way to the hilltop in the middle of the Casbah, and our guide explained about all of the families that had once lived there, and why certain buildings were here and there.  I passed posters of Russell Crowe and Colin Farrell, and I declined a chance to see the 'artifacts' from Gladiator for 5 extra dihrams.  It reminded me a little of a trip to Scotland I took several years ago with some of my best friends.  On that trip we visited the William Wallace monument only to find a statue of Mel Gibson at its base.  Hollywood really has quite the influence.

After the Casbah we were back into the van, back an endlessly repeating Moroccan soundtrack, back to winding narrow roads with too many close calls to count, back to weak air-conditioning.  Our two guides for the trip, Ziri and Rasheed, were somewhat hapless, but they tried hard.  Or at least one of them did.  Ziri was a very nice man from a small village outside of Marrakech.  His given name was Al Abdul, meaning 'believes in God,' but he changed it to Ziri, because he didn't.  He told us of an occasion during Ramadan where he drank water in the middle of the day (during Ramadan it is illegal for all Moroccan citizens to eat or drink from 4am to 10pm.  Even water.  Even when it is 110 degrees outside.) and was arrested.  Luckily he was able to bribe the police into letting him go, or it would have meant a six-month prison sentence.  Yikes.  

The highlight of the trip for me was a side trip via camel into the Sahara desert.  Having never been to a real desert before I was very excited to feel the sand between my toes and feel the enormity of the Sahara.  I was not disappointed.  We were only in a small tiny corner of it and it seemed as though we were in the middle of an ocean of sand.  On a camel.  I must note here, that riding a camel is not the same as riding a horse.  My butt bones were never this sore from riding horses.  After getting to our camp an hour and a half by camel from the main road, we were given time to sandboard (think snowboarding but with less control and a small collection of camel poo at the bottom of the hill) while dinner was being prepared.  

While waiting for dinner I let the rational part of my brain take over, and started to think about all of the food poisoning we could get from a meal that was cooked in the middle of the desert.  Had it all of the food been properly refrigerated on its trek to our table?  Were the Nomad cooks cross-contaminating?  Had our plates and silverware been properly sanitized?  Ridiculous.  After spending most of my life thinking about the 'temperature danger zone', I have a hard time turning it off.  But as soon as the food arrived in all of its glory (we hadn't eaten in nearly eight hours) I forgot everything, and even managed to ignore the small insect that crawled out of my salad, onto my fork and up onto my hand while I was eating.  The meal was amazing.  Moroccan salad followed by chicken and vegetable tagine and casaba melon for dessert.  It was hands down the best meal we had in Morocco.

The next morning we woke before sunrise to jump back on our camels (my butt was almost unbearably sore) and head back to our van to take us home.  About an hour into the ride our guide stopped us on the top of a sand dune so we could all watch the sun come up on the horizon.  One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

After a quick breakfast and shower to wash the sand off, we headed to the bus station to begin our journey to Fes, a city 8 hours North.  Fate thought otherwise, and there were no busses.  "No matter," said Ziri and Rasheed, "we will just go to the next city and you take a bus from there." Next city = no bus. Try the next city.  No bus.  In the fourth city we tried two bus stations with no luck.  Then we inquired about a taxi.  Not unless we wanted to pay 10 times the normal price.  Apparently with Ramadan around the corner (it starts tomorrow) everyone in Morocco is trying to get home.  So every bus in the entire country is full and no taxi driver is interested in leaving town unless we seriously made it worth his while.  So back to Marrakech we went, for another night of haggling.  Luckily, the hostel owner felt so bad about us not being able to get to Fes as he promised when he sold us the excursion that he upgraded our room to one with real working a/c.  Amazing.  I slept like a baby.  Maybe even a slightly chilly baby.  But a baby, nonetheless.

So now, after spending the day sending off couch requests and securing lodging for our next two weeks, we are on an 11-hour overnight train to Tangier, where we will hop on a ferry to Spain.  The land of Sangria and Pork.  Just in time to avoid Ramadan.  Nobody wants to go to jail for drinking water, especially two white girls from California.  The train left the station one hour late, and so far has stopped twice in the middle of nowhere, once completely shutting off its engines (and the a/c) for several minutes.  Steph and I both just sat and crossed our fingers that the engine would start back up again.  Hopefully it will stay 11-hours and not turn into a 16-hour trip from hell.  Though I guess if we were Moroccans we would be unconcerned.