Nov 2008

Morocco

The ferry trip to Tangier proved to be somewhat of a challenge. We had bought a ferry ticket from a guy in a booth at the port town. Only to discover that by the time we arrived at the ferry terminal (about a 5 minute walk) that the ferry was full and we would have to wait another 2 hours for the next one. So we waited... and waited... eventually our superfast ferry arrived and we boarded.

I reckon it must have taken about 30 minutes, just as we drew alongside the Rock of Gibralter, and things started to go bad. The port rests in a sheltered bay and as soon as we hit the swell outside thej bay, things started to change. Initially, the hundreds of kids on board got a little restless. The percentage of the population that are under the age of 15, in many developing countries is high, in Morocco it is really high. So we had kids running around shouting, spilling food and drinks and generally being pains in the but for about half an hour – which wouldn't have been a problem if

1.Our superfast ferry was superfast
2.They had continues to be peppy and up beat

Instead, they turned various shades of blue/green and crashed into nausea and vomiting, causing their parents to do the same. Within another hour we were on the set of some low budget hollywood sicko film about disease epidemics. It was truly gruesome.

Now, the distance between Spain and Morocco is small and superfast ferries can cover it in about 2 hours. I have told you that it took half an hour to leave the harbour, half an hour of yelling and screaming, and one more hour of chuck fest 2008. Here is where the story gets really fun.

We sat on the ferry for another 3 hours in rolling swell dry retching our way to the port of Tangier.
Superfast my arse!!

As we were leaving the ship of sick, we overheard a rather distressed woman concerned about the theft of her passport whilst on board – checking and rechecking our passports as we left the ferry, we braced ourselves for the shock of Tangier.

Tangiers from the beach

Spain

Arriving in Malaga we started sweating and didn't stop for 3 days. Malaga is in Southern Spain and if not for anything else it should be known for its heat and its bullring. The ring is right in town, edged between the lookout hill (With an ace castle on it) and the beach. We watched the last stages of the Tour De France (Though proving himself yet again to be one of the gutsiest performers in the ride, Cadel Evans again was left wanting just a little more from the race, coming in Second this time).

After a couple of days resting in Malaga we caught a bus down to the southern tip of Spain, a place called Aljeceras.
Here we caught the "Super fast ferry" to Morocco - the Kingdom of our dreams.. and the home of Louwrens of Arabia...

Leaving Turkey we were both a bit sad as we reflected on our time there. We had met a bunch of good people and had enjoyed a wonderful 6 months with our buddies in our Istanbul flat.

First stop on our trans Grecian odessy was a small Island off the coast of Turkey called Samos.

Samos was ok as far as Greek Islands go, but, having tasted the unspoiled nature of Samothraki, on the Northern Turkish border, it proved a little disappointing. So we stayed a night in a cheap (50 Euro – cheap hey?) and decided to make tracks. The beach was ok – rocky bottom so the water was crystal clear.

Samos did have a couple of small towns that really have retain some of the old world charm.

Beach at Samos

Before leaving Samos we were advised (By the guy who arranged our Cheap (50 Euro) hotel that we could indeed travel Samos – Mikonos – Naxos, in one day. This proved to be almost right... almost – except for the bit about being able to get to Naxos from Mikonos on the same day.

We arrived in Mikonos at “the new port” and were immediately advised that the ferry to Naxos leaves from the “Old port”... some 30 mins walk away. Having only 10 minutes to get there we set off at a trot. About 9 and a half minutes after we left the new port area, we turned to see a large super fast ferry leaving... it turns out, that it was headed to Naxos and we had in fact missed it... by minutes and about half a km.

So we headed into Mikonos town – which although being accurately described as beautiful, scenic, picturesque – had a serious lack of Ethnic Charm. It seems that every inch of Mikonos township has been bought, rented, traded or otherwise owner occupied by England... with more money than manners.

Naxos, however, was a real treat. We quickly left the main port area and found a campsite 200m walk from the beach – and when I say beach (Australians) I actually mean beach – we found one... a real one. Naxos was a compromise between the unspoilt nature of Samothraki and the heart throbbing, made up, heavily accented, new money Mikonos. And it was affordable. We camped for 13 Euro a day and spent most of our time on the beach. We did have a small run in with the guy that rented us 2 bikes which turned out to be somewhat less than mechanically sound, but overall Naxos gets the big thumbs up!

Athens

Following our time on Naxos we headed up to Athens for the last few days in Greece.
Athens is amazing. It has a bit of a Melbourne feel to it and is in no way as intimidating as we were expecting. It is quite possible to walk around the major sites in a couple of days.

Our last hours in Greece were spent at Athens airport – we had decided to get to the airport early to avoid the need to pay for the final night accommodation. This proved to be quite an adventure. We set up camp pretty much immediately by rolling out our mattresses and getting into our sleeping bags – this takes us about 30 seconds. Shortly afterwards, we noticed that there was a growing number of travel buddies starting to do the same thing. Not really thinking anything of it, we got some quick ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZs. At about 5 am we were woken up by a rude security manager telling everyone that they were not allowed to sleep and that they were to get up immediately. Looking around we had started a sleep in that John and Yoko would have appreciated. The upstairs area that we had found now looked like a refugee camp, with travellers from all over the world rugged up like homeless people waiting for the soup kitchen. Appreciating the early wake up call we packed up our gear (30seconds) and headed off to check in.

The flight from Athens was uneventful and soon we were in Malaga.