And then there were two...

There had been a vital component missing to our trip the last couple of days. Kate. She has returned to Blighty where I hear the sun is shining for once and left Ellie and I to fend for ourselves. What with my very basic French, our inability to make decisions swiftly and diminishing funds confidence was high. We were going to be just fine.

Thankfully we had a great city within which to start our journey Kate-less. Fes is by far the best that Morocco has to offer. The hassle is low and everyone is very chilled out. It is a city that does not have to prove anything to anyone and is everything Marrakech isn't. It is the largest car-free area on the planet and so all you really have to watch out for are the donkeys, which Ellie often did for me because I was so engrossed in the amazing sights, smells and people of Fes to pay any notice to the cries of "Attencion!" To top it all off we were unable to get the Aladdin soundtrack out of our head for the first few days, something we welcomed.

The Fez medina is notorious around the world for getting lost in, it is far more confusing that the Marrakech souks and seems impossible to map. It was time to put the Lonely Planet down. And so, we got lost. Not just a "I think it's this way" lost but a "I dont have a clue" lost, in the mid day heat, with our old friends the sweat tashes. That's just the way we roll.

Thankfully Ellie has an incredible inner GPS system that hunts out ginger English men. And so we met Mike (a cross between Will Young and Griff Rys Jones - we liked him immediately) and he pointed us in the right direction home via his business Cafe Clock where we stopped for an iced coffee and waited for our upper lips to dry off. What a haven. It served non-Morrocon food i.e. not tagine and was the centre for Fes' artists. It was here we met Abdul and Omar, photographers and all round good guys. But more on that later.

The next day was possibly one of the most important of the trip so far. Fes is world renowned for its leather and tanneries and we were going to buy the dream leather bag and haggle like we had never haggled before. The good cop "Oh, I really like it" bad cop "but it's way too much let's go" routine was well rehearsed and we had picked up a few tips from various people. The leather merchants, alongside the carpet sellers, are notorious for their haggling skills and it was a battle. Ellie's was discovered quickly but we haggled for over an hour and had to leave and come back five times before they settled on a price. Then, ofcourse, they were our best friends. My dream bag was far more elusive and wasn't found until late in the afternoon in this old man's shop where he sewed them himself. Now I am a sucker for old people so Ellie i.e. bad cop really had to be on her game here because I would have paid anything. But we managed to get a good price for it and walked home to the sounds of "beautiful leather bags for beautiful ladies". Quite right.

The next day Abdul invited us round to his for tea. He lives in the Jewish quarter and has 14th century holy books and so it was too good an opportunity to miss. We had a wonderful afternoon with him and Omar drinking tea and learning classical guitar. They told us about how difficult it is to travel if you are Moroccan, how much they longed to see different parts of the world and their various run ins with corrupt police officers. The night before Abdul had his laptop/mobile phone etc. stolen at knife point. We realised their was a lot more to Fes outside of the medina's rose tinted walls, away from the tourist's gaze.

We organised to meet them at Cafe Clock later that evening but unfortunately it turned. Let me explain. Most men who seem completely harmless and refreshingly unpervy in Morocco always end up becoming, frustratingly, creepy. Ellie got some wierd texts from Abdul and we decided we shouldnt meet them. Maybe what he was saying was lost in translation or maybe our friendliness was misunderstood in a country where boys and girls generally arent just friends. Either way we feigned sickness and retired to our hostel where we met a Mancunian photographer called Simon and spent the evening being classically British over some beers and chocolate pancakes. It always turns in the end.

Never cry wolf. That night we fell ill, seriously ill. We had eaten a sandwich from a street stall that day and it poisoned us. I woke up in a delirious state not really knowing where I was and ended up on the floor of the bathroom (in a cheap hostel where men cant aim) cursing the meat butty. Ellie joined me after a few minutes. Lowpoint.

The next morning we awoke and decided to gamble on our guts and get the bus to ChefChouen. Thankfully we made it and it's is a beautiful blue city flanked by the Rif mountains. The best place to take a breather, recover and think how best to spend our last week in Morocco.

The Sahara...

Before I attempt to tell you about our desert experience there is an incident that occured in Tarouddant, a small city between Agadir and Marrakech. (Ellie has also just asked me to inform you all that we did go out dancing, got very drunk and requested Beyonce a number of times so we are not massive losers, just so you know).

We read in our trusty Lonely Planet about a Sunday morning 'souk' - market - just outside Tarouddant and in open air. Our previous experience of Souks had been mixed, they are simultaneously enchanting, confusing and the sight of most harrassment. But with renewed faith we set off for this souk and brainstormed about the beautiful silver Berber jewellry we were going to buy. It was going to be lush. We were dropped off by our taxi driver who proceeded to rip us off. Not a good start. We started to walk through the souk and was reminded of the Kassam stadium car boot sale, wierdly. No jewellry in sight.

We turned a corner and quickly realised we had misunderstood. The clue being when I turned to Kate and said "Kate, dont look over there, there is a pile of dead goats...oh and there, and also over there..."

Death was everywhere. We backed away, turned and fled. Jumping back in the taxi we careered away from the sound of bleeting and snapping necks. If Morocco didnt have a non drinking culture, now would be the time for a strong one.

We went back to Marrakech excited about our next trip, the Sahara in our sights. We had decided to go on an organised tour for this part as the last thing we wanted was to get stranded in the desert which we agreed was a real possibility.

Having travelled round Morroco on our own for the past two weeks the organised tour did not sit well with us. We found stopping and being sheperded around various places more tiresome than doing it ourselves. The fossil museum was a particular highlight. We fell out with our guide after he berated us for not buying a Saharan scarf - cue Kate "Youre being very unprofessional" - and our driver had taken a particular shine to me, constantly glancing in his rear view mirror and attempting to grab me at any moment. This culminated in an unsavoury incident in a pool resulting in Kate digging her nails into him. He walked away confused by what had just happened, rubbing his arm and with his tail between his legs.

Then we saw the desert. The sand dunes rise out of nowhere and you can see why it is known as the ocean of sand. Then we were introduced to our camels. Sorry, I mean mutant camels. They were huge. But we managed to straddle them and ride off into the Saharan desert, surrounded by golden dunes and cloudy skies. Stunning. Half an hour in we realised what people had meant when they called them "ships of the desert". You rock back and forth, bouncing up and down and there is nothing you can do about it (I attempted side saddle but got too scared and had to straddle once more). You are supposed to "dance with the camel" but this is as hard as it sounds. Ellies camel had diaretic issues and all of them had very loose bowels. The silence of the desert was hard to appreciate through the giggles.

We eventually arrived at our camp and took a night time walk through the dunes with local Berber men who entertained us with riddles and drumming. We settled down in our tent and began to fall asleep after a long days drive and camel ride until...

Ellie: "Oh my god guys, there was something on me, something little and black and it gripped me with its claws..."
Kate: "Well where is it now?"
Ellie: "I lobbed it onto our stuff, over there..."
Grace: "(sigh) someone find a light"

After thorough riffling and shaking of our things the bug remained elusive resulting in a nervous nights sleep.

We were woken before dawn and rode the camels back across the silent desert as the sun rose. Very special. The pain got a bit much for me towards the end and I had to alight my camel and walk. I thought I saw a slight smile on its face. The down side of being tall and lanky? A boney bum.

We were dropped off at Erfoud to get a bus to Fes. I asked the ticket seller how long it would take. "7 hours, inshallah." Inshallah indeed. 10 hours later we arrived at Fes, restless, with numb bums and walking like John Wayne for the forseeable future.

ShAgadir

First of all, let me explain the title of this blog.

Agadir is no cultural oasis. The old city was detroyed in an earthquake in the 60s (cue Ellie "oh dear, are they due another one soon?" Simpson). Since then it has been rebuilt as a beach resort and has certainly lost all of the "medina" charm characteristic of Moroccan cities.

It has been tailored to all the needs of tourists and our beloved "Brits abroad". It even has an English pub. Enough said. And so we have affectionately renamed it ShAgadir and we are very grateful to it for our week of lying down, sunning ourselves, burning ourselves and generally being very lazy. It even resulted in a ShAgadir photo shoot triggered by some dodgy tanlines.

But rather than start with what we have been doing, maybe I should begin with how we got here. In an attempt to save money we laughed at the prices of Moroccos official bus company and boarded a bus packed with locals and some less obvious passengers in the hold. But more on that later. It took double the length of time it should (we appeared to have boarded the local stopping service), a bad smell eeked along the coach as a woman near me began to change her daughters nappy and an albino man enjoyed sitting next to me a little too much. We got off at Agadir and found that our bags had the company of a bag of chickens, a box of sardines and a tied up turkey. Crossing the road we saw a dead kitten. Welcome to Agadir.

We eventually made it to our hotel and since lying down that afternoon it is fair to say that not much has happened, we havent really moved, but our tans are looking cracking. Ellie has changed race. We are getting fed up with men leering at us and have been heckled for days by the builders opposite (nothing changes). The first tactic was to ignore them, until Ellie jumped, unexpectantly to the next extreme and shouted "Fuck off!" Sunbathing was over for that day. A fair few debates have been had around "what tattoo/ who/ what would you rather?" and the Klondike (Solitaire on the Ipod) convention was held until the small hours. Party animals.

This comes in stark contrast to what has been happening at home. We went out for dinner one night and came back to a new prime minister, a new coalition government, the realisation that we miss Newsnight and that we all fancy Nick Clegg, the winner of "Who would you rather? The Politics Edition". Unsurprisingly, William Hague did not fair as well.

Now I have started a new paragraph because what I am about to say deserves it. I had a cup of tea. Now, for anyone that knows me will understand the gravity of this. Admittedly it was with some "dont smell it when you taste it" milk so wasnt quite up to scratch but having gone more than two weeks without one (mint tea is lovely, but its no substitute) it tasted much more golden than it looked.

So as you can see we have been very busy debating important political matters, moving our sun loungers around and changing rooms so that we could have BBC World News. But we are getting a bit boried now so we are going to move on to the dessert to quench our cultural thirst. Time to tackle the camels which, in my imagination, will make for some great blogging.

The Party Hostel

At the time of writing the last blog we were staying in a hostel we had stumbled into after our walk which was, amazingly, about 2.50 a night. Bargain. Unfortunately we later learnt that sometimes sleeping that cheaply just isn't worth it.

It started innocently enough. They brought in an extra mattress for us and nice blankets to the sounds of 'aaaawww how sweet.' We had a little nap and woke up to the smell of damp and wet dog. It must be us - post walk - we thought. We then climbed up the waterfall which Setti Fatma is famous for, pulled groins and all. We could barely laugh we were in so much pain but refused to miss out on the one reason we had walked that far. We spent the afternoon being typically British and getting in the freezing waterfall when no one else would dare.

When we returned we noticed that there were no other guests in the 'hotel' and that the Arabic hip hop was gradually getting louder and more offensive. Shrugging it off as 'the party hostel' we continued considering it a bargain.

As dusk set in things began to turn. Slowly the place began to fill with boys offering us marriage, but not in a funny 'i'll give you ten camels' way but in a 'you come back to mine, eat cous cous and ...'. We stopped them there. When the realisation dawned on us that this hostel was run by the local 'hashish' dealer no words were spoken, we simply knew it was time to go to bed and lock the door.

'Girls, don't they have a master key to all the rooms?' Ofcourse they did. So we did what any North Oxford girl would do, we tied Ellie's pashmina through the door handles. Triple strength. There was a hole in the door which I feared they could look through. A plaster was quickly whipped out and the problem was solved. Our bum bags were clipped to us for a swift exit through the window, the Sanex and bug spray were held tightly and head scarfs were wrapped round us for extra protection (not entirely sure how this would work but it felt great). We were the safest we could possibly be. Clever girls.

Midnight came and went and we heard a banging on a door. I thought it was our door but we are still not sure. The Sanex was grabbed but thankfully nothing came of it. What with the pashmina and the plaster we felt totally safe and were able to nervously giggle throughout the night. In the early hours of the morning the hip hop stopped and Ellie began to snore. We had got through the worst of it. That was until we heard tapping at our window causing us to sit bolt upright in bed but it was just a confused bird.

In the morning we snuck out with a very feeble 'shukran' and jumped into the nearest taxi bound for Marrakech. Looking back, we definitely, unhelpfully, syched eachother up ('girls there are markings on the wall, do you think they are the names of all the people they've captured?', 'what if they get a tiny pair of scissors and cut the pashima?' 'what if they make a hole in the plaster?' and the classic 'what was that, did you just hear that?') and can laugh about it now. But there was a lesson learnt: don't lose your sanity and sleep just to save a few pounds.

Essaouira has been just what we needed. The chance to read, lie, sleep and do very little walking. The 'windy city' has blown the bad memories away. Unfortunately it also blew something bad into Kate's ear and she has developed an ear infection as a result but is on the mend. It's time to go to Agadir where we can do more of the same, without the wind and in a hotel exceeding our budget. Perfect.

La Passe

"Guys, do you want to go on a trek? There is a three day trek here from Imlil to Setti Fatma in the High Atlas mountains... it says easy to medium, we can handle that right?"

"Yeah, definitely."

How very wrong we were...

Day 1 Imlil to Tacheddirt

We set off bright and early with our small rucksacks and our faithful guide Houssain, a man of indeterminate age but with scarily youthful legs, for the first day of our trek, drugged up with imodium after a night of jippy tummies.

Bounding up the path out of Imlil we felt active, excited and proud of ourselves. We started to ascent sharply and it began to feel more medium than easy but refusing to be phased we struggled on regardless. Half way through we started to feel a bit sorry for ourselves until a little mule heavily loaded with other trekkers belongings passed us being smacked by the muleteer. Life could be worse. Tired, clammy and with sweat tashes all round we started telling eachother that it was all worth it. With the surrounding scenary it didnt take much persuasion. Craggy, snow topped moutains flowing into lush green river valleys made for some very dramatic scenary and trekking with Jebel Toukbal in sight , North Africas tallest mountain, was very special but we were content with walking in its shadow.

When we reached the top we felt pretty good, except that Ellie had a twinge in her groin and Kates knees were playing up. The hard part was surely over. Then Houssain pointed out our destination for tomorrow. It was the Tizi n Tacheddirt or "La Passe" as he called it and it is safe to say it struck fear into our hearts. Rising to 3200m we realised that tomorrow would be the "medium" day. Maybe we should have turned back then.

Being the stubborn and optimistic girls that we are, we continued the rest of the days trek, trying not to look directly at it. Ignorance is bliss.


Day 2 Tacheddirt to Timichii via "La Passe"

We knew what we had to do, we could see it laughing and pointing at us. It was now just the small matter of actally doing it. Despite syking ourselves up mentally we remained extremely unprepared for what was about to happen. We set off at 7am, quickly began to ascent and it stayed that way for the next three and a half hours.

Half way up things had taken a turn for the worse. Ellies groin injury resulted in her dragging one leg behind her, Kates knees refused to let her put any weight on them and I was unaware of gradually getting extremely burnt. The air got thinner, we were finding it difficult to breathe, and morale was extremely low, this was and would continue to be the most difficult physical test of our lives. The silence and the surroundings were beautiful but it was difficult to enjoy them when all you are concentrating on is putting one foot in front of the other, all you are thinking is "just one less step" and all you can hear is your heart thumping in your ears.

But we made it and enjoyed the biggest feeling of relief and the best Coke of our lives in front of breathtaking views.

Assuming downhill would be easier was foolish as we stumbled and skidded our way down paths clinging precariously to the moutainside. Eventually, three elderly ladies arrived at Timichii, dragging their knuckles on the floor and their sorry arses to bed for the rest of the afternoon.

Day 3 Timichii to Setti Fatma

Woke up to find that we could barely stand let alone walk. Despite this major problem, we set off. The walk was a lot easier but our hearts, minds and legs had officially given up. We weaved our way through the river valley, passing through villages that seemed to be built out of the hillside and lost in time. Four hours later we arrived in Setti Fatma and stumbled nto the nearest hotel whch thankfully was cheap because I believe that we would have paid anything. We dipped our swollen and blistered feet into the river that meandered through Setti Fatma, the river that we had followed all the way from its mountain source and agreed that that was definitely medium to hard.