Back to the Right Kind of Traveling

I´ll admit it. Being in Europe the last couple of weeks I´ve gone soft. I´ve been used to hot showers, drinkable tap water, expensive and non-bargainable prices, and acceptable sanitary conditions. So we went to Morocco, and all of that changed. Arriving in Morocco these differences are quite noticeable, however, the main way I knew I was back to a ¨developing¨country was that I was using squatters instead of toilets, and squatting I was doing a lot. Now, this reappearance of my old bad bathroom habits could be attributed to the fact that I ate tajin, a thick, delicious and heavily spiced Moroccan stew, every single dinner for 9 nights straight, but I´m not sure. All I know, and this is perhaps a result of the lasting amoebics and ghiardias in my stomach, is that developing countries and my stomach don´t go well together.

But I learned that a while ago, and I´m still traveling and having the time of my life! So we spent a couple days after hanging out by the beach in Malaga in Granada. Granada sucks. I had a lot of fun there, hanging out with one of my best friend´s sister, Dana, and a bunch of study abroad kids from the big ten schools. But to me, Granada is the epitomy of the thing I hate most about Europe- graffiti. And not just the usual anarchist and soccer team graffiti that you see in other places, but Granada is completely polluted with anti-semitic images. Literally, all over the city, there are stars of david drawn equaling swastikas. We walked 15 minutes uphill from the bus station to the hostel we thought we were staying at, and after winding around turn after turn, and seeing over 10 of these not inviting images, we decided to turn around (we ended up staying in the same hostel Dana and all her friends were at, which probably housed more Jews than have ever been in Granada since the Spanish inquisition). The grafitti´s presence was disturbing, yet was nothing compared to what we were about to experience. On the 2nd night we were there, a protest of 5000 people against Israel walked through the streets, protesting the same way that you´ve seen all over the world; holding signs for peace yet chanting death to Israel, accusing Bush and Olmert of being communists, and showing off their ignorance while preaching hatred. I don´t really feel like writing about my reactions to the protest (this is my travel blog), but as you can imagine, it was disturbing.

So that part of Granada sucked, but going out and partying was a lot of fun. Al Hambra was also really cool, an old muslim palace which I didn´t even know existed until my friend Molli IMed me and said "you haven´t been to Al Hambra yet?!" (to which I replied "What´s Al Hambra?" silly me. (this is the problem with not traveling with Lonely Planet)). Really though, Al Hambra was up there with Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat. Back to Granada...Sam blacked out one night, we caught some funny pictures of Matthew at the club, I was on fire, and we blew through or money quick. So, it was time to head South to catch the ferry to Morocco.

Because of what was going on in Gaza, and the warm reception we recieved in Granada, we decided to keep our nationality, and especially our religion, to ourselves. My dad asked me a couple days ago how it was being American right now, and I responded ¨I wouldn´t know, I´m Canadian.¨ We held that line for a couple days, but honestly, it sucks hiding who you are, so we decided to ditch our Vancouver story and just say we were Americans. And no one cared, probably because we had arrived to what is THE most chill city (more so than Pushkar, India) ever. This is a city where really, no one does anything all day. In Pushkar, most of the tourists sit around and smoke all day and hang out. In Chefchouen, all the tourists sit around all day and smoke, and all the locals sit around all day and smoke. I watched some guy selling bread in the main square pull out his pipe, smoke some kief, and pass out with his bread just sitting there. I was hungry, so I decided to try to wake him up and buy some bread. It sort of half worked, so I just left him his dhiram and took my bread. We spent 5 days in Chouen, drinking lots of tea, reading and playing chess, meeting lots of funny hippis, and hanging out. We then headed down a couple hours to Fez, which has a similar Moroccan hospitality feel to it, except it´s the second largest city in the country. The entire city is lined with massive and ancient castle walls, which in the summer (and sunlight, something we hardly saw because it was raining non stop) makes for a golden aura around the city. The walls are lined with Moroccan flags (the king is staying in Fez for the month) in a display of nationalism which I haven´t experienced since Vietnam. The streets are wide and clean, and it seems like a regular city. However, on the inside of the walls lie madness. Fez claims one of the largest Medinas in Morocco, and I would not be surprised if it was one of the largest in the world. It is several kilometers of windy, crowded, unnavigable market with tight streets and lots of stimulii. So in our two days in Fez, we walked through the medina, absorbing the smells of various types of spiced olives, rose waters, dates and nougats, eating our way through and stopping for mint gunpowder tea at several small, non-revealing shops. Sam bought a lot, half falling victim to the world renowned Berber bargaining skills, and half just really enjoying the items we passed; carpets, leather (we watched the leather making process from a rooftop, pretty sweet), teapots, hookahs, and jewelry. Fez used to be home to a large Jewish population, so we saw many beautiful pieces of Judaica, pieces that were probably stolen or left behind in the little time Jews had to leave.
We left Morocco yesterday for Madrid, and are heading today to the Canary Islands for the last 10 days of our trip today. I have no idea what the Canary Islands are like, but we plan on staying in Fuerteventura for the duration of our stay there. As long it has beach and cool places to explore, we´ll have fun. Talk to you from the island! Here´s a Helen Keller quote I enjoy. Surprisingly, it´s not maghbahlalaaaaah.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
-Helen Keller