It's warmer in Seville...

We are finally in a land with climate-controlled indoor spaces. It was just too damn cold in Fes and we ended up leaving Morocco 2 days early. What a day of travel it was - a taxi, train, ferry, bus and long walk until we were in a hostel in Seville. Yesterday we did some shopping and went to the huge cathedral and ate some tapas and got a little drunk. Today it's raining and we haven't done much...although I did convince Cam to accompany me to the grocery store. How I love the grocery store.

I got an annoying letter from Peace Corps saying that my schisto test was inconclusive. Then I got an annoying email saying that I might not be able to be medically cleared in time to leave this July. I have no idea what I'd do if that happened and am going to plan on the best-case scenario instead of stressing about it. I'm looking into getting my schisto test here in Spain or in Portugal so I can get the results sent ASAP...unless my mysterious illness in Mauritania was schisto I don't think I have it and would just like to get this all over with.

Monday night we are headed to Portugal for 10 days before heading back to Spain and meeting up with Cam's mom for the last leg. Europe is so expensive!! But we are doing the best we can to stay on budget(ish).

More photos on Cam's account

Check them out...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/camilo11/

It just takes too long to load them with blogger, sorry for making you switch pages!

Casablanca

Not as nice as Marrakesh, Cam and I were both ready to leave Casablanca today for Fes. It was a dirty city with few sights - we'd been warned about that, but wanted to see the Hassan II mosque. It did not disappoint. It's incredible and huge (can hold 20,000 worshippers) and is one of the few mosques that allow non-Muslims to enter...for $14.

Highlights from Casa:

• The mosque - we went at sunset and again for a tour the next day. Gorgeous. I'll link to Cam's pictures once he loads them.
• Realizing that we are such lightweights we can now get drunk off of 1.5 bottles of wine. Total, not each.
• Going to a real movie theater. We watched The Queen, dubbed in French. I'm pretty sure I caught the gist and missed a lot of the details.
• Walking in the "suburbs" of Casa, where the rich people hang out and all the beautiful beaches are.
• Having a hotel with towels and a TV.
• Eating tomato, basil and mozzarella salad. Yum.

Lowlights:

• While walking to a restaurant on the port I almost got punched. Some Moroccan guy came up to me, really slowly, and actually put his fist up to punch me. Luckily, my gallant boyfriend blocked it. It was really weird. We decided not to go to the restaurant and found a better-trafficked place to eat.
• Everyone ripping us off. Cab drivers not giving correct change, not using the meter, whatever. Everyone, everywhere asking for stuff and expecting us to just hand our goods over or buy their stuff. It's officially driving me nuts - I've turned into a bitch, constantly referring to menus to get the official prices, checking about the meter in every cab, counting my change, etc. Just this morning our hotel tried to charge us for 2 days breakfast that we didn't eat and I complained and got it fixed.
• Everything being expensive.
• Not that much to do. We did a lot of walking, but Casa is a bit like going to NYC and only walking around the Port Authority. Lots of crap to buy and people, but they are all just coming and going, but you don't want to hang out there.

Now we are in Fes, which is pretty cool, it has one of the oldest medinas and is considered the "cultural capital" of Morocco. It's freezing, though, so we haven't actually walked around! And it's really windy and a little rainy, which is the first time we've seen rain since October. We are so cold! According to the guidebook Fes is the hassliest place in Morocco, cause it's easy to get lost in the medina and anyone who gives you directions wants a prize. We'll just have to see. There are yummy restaurants and good hiking, so that should keep us occupied. Perhaps we'll be properly cultural and go to a museum.

After 3 days here we head to Chefchaouen, then to Seville for the last leg of the trip. I think it's been a good transition back to the developed world, one baby step at a time. Once I hit Spain I should be able to handle the US and all it's developed glory...I see Chipotle and malls in my future.

Marrakesh is beautiful

Camilo and I continue to shop and eat our way through Morocco. We arrived in Marrakesh after a painless bus ride (no goats, crying children, chickens, breakdowns or large African women taking up 2 seats). Our hotel is really cute - a beautiful terrace and actual furniture in the room. A maid brings us each a towel every day. It's glorious. And $25 a night.

We've done a lot of walking and spent most of the first day walking through the souks, looking at everything from leather bags to lanterns to silver platters and woven blankets. Since I'm not going to be back in the US with an apartment for a couple years I have resisted the urge to purchase everything in sight. Also, I decided not to bring souvenirs home for everyone. I started making a list of people I wanted to get things for and it got to be really unwieldy, at which point Camilo (correctly) pointed out that it would be cooler to get people souvenirs from my next PC country, where the trinket will actually mean something. So souvenirs will have to wait until 2009, y'all.

Yesterday we went to the new part of town, where there were real shops and Cam bought some pants and I bought a sweater. They had changing rooms and everything - the salesman got a kick out of us explaining how you had to go to the market and bargain for fabric and then go to a tailor in Guinea. We were just so excited about buying ready-to-wear clothing! Thank goodness it's not so cold here, because we were both frozen the first couple days.

A highlight of both days has been the fresh orange juice. They have all these carts in the middle of the square where a big glass of fresh squeezed oj is 30 cents. Yum! And, embarrassingly enough, we ate at a Pizza Hut yesterday. It was delicious and I refuse to feel too ashamed about it.

Today we decided to be a little cultural and went to the Jardins Majorelles. They are owned by Yves Saint Laurent and are very cool, but small and packed with tourists, so we didn't stay long. Cam, of course, got some great photos and I hope he'll get them posted to his flickr site soon. This afternoon we headed to the Palais Badii, which was mostly in ruins, but you could walk around the underground prison and through the grounds and it was pretty interesting.

One thing that's made me laugh about Morocco is the stray cats and dogs. They are so cute! And well-fed. I think it's hilarious that there are still all these stray animals, but they are just in much better shape than their counterparts in West Africa. I wanted to play with these kittens today, but Cam reminded me that just because I'm vaccinated against rabies doesn't mean I should test my luck.

The PC medical office says I should be cleared in 2-4 weeks and then I just need to wait for an invite. I know I'm supposed to be flexible about my assignment, but I'm not. I want to continue teaching English in West Africa. F*&k flexibility. I've been really flexible about being evacuated and having to restart my service and everything and I see no reason why they can't accommodate me a little. But it's Washington, so I guess I'll just have to hope for the best. The good news is that PC Guinea says they can hold my stuff until we hear if the program will reopen. If it doesn't they will arrange to ship my trunk to my new country of service. Effectively, that frees up about 80 pounds worth of junk that will now be food products. Because that is what every PCV should pack.

Tomorrow we take the train to Casablanca for 2 nights and then head to Fes. Whoohoo.

Morocco at last!

Hi everyone - Well, we finally made it. Only 48 hours crossing the Western Sahara. Seriously, it was a bitch. On the way from Mauritania to Dakhla we sat in the back of a truck on top of crates. It was insane - one lady got into a fight with these two guys - she was completely in the wrong and taking up a ton of space and got mad when one of them touched her foot, even though there was no where else to go! It really escalated and she threw her purse and it was just chaotic. We finally got to Dakhla at 3am, ready to fall apart. The next day we got up at 9am (whoa, it was actually just yesterday, but feels like a billion years ago) and we arrived in Essoauria today at 11am. Phew. Oh, and I'm spelling all those names wrong but don't want to look it up.

Anyway, Morocco is awesome! We are staying at this cheap place called The Cave, run by a guy named Biz Biz who smokes too much pot. But it's about $8 a night and central to the market and everything, so we are happy there. Today we just walked around and bought things and ate food. In the picture above I'm wearing new sunglasses and a new shirt! Yay! I'll post more pictures later, but for the moment we are just walking around (it's COLD here, but people are in tank tops!) and eating and finding souvenirs. Oh, my gosh. It's incredible. The blankets and bowls and woodwork and clothing and metalwork. And the market is kind of hassle-y, but not nearly like West Africa, so we are expert bargainers. The food options are delicious, we ate sausages and fries for lunch and had ice cream and now I'm eating Doritos with a Diet Coke. Goal for the next 5 weeks is to not turn into a beluga whale.

Still not sure what I'll be doing as far as Peace Corps is concerned. For the moment I won't stress about it, I'm sure it will all work out. They did get all our stuff, so now I just need to find out if it should be sent home to Wisconsin or kept in case the program opens or whatever. I did buy my ticket to Zach's wedding, so that's something to look forward to...hopefully I remember how to dress up!

I'll try and update again soon...

Cam on a camel

Almost to Morocco

I recovered from the mystery illness and Camilo and I had a lovely night in Tergit - it was this oasis of palm trees and water in the middle of the Sahara and lived up to our expectations. We were there on Tuesday and were the only tourists, which made it even cooler. We slept on mats under a tent and didn't even freeze our butts off because we were in a valley and it stayed warmish...now that I get cold when it's 80 I have no concept of temperatures.

We woke up and packed up and headed back to Atar, beginning 24 hours of travel. It was a bitch. We took a car (sat in the back of a pick up with an impossibly old man) to Atar and another to Choum, where we waited for the train. We ate some overpriced sandy, rocky rice and sauce and hung out with some people. I played with this baby and then the mom asked me to give her my skirt!! That just pissed me off - what did she possibly think I would say? We piad to sit inside the train instead of riding on the coal, but they sold too many tickets and we spent most of the 13 hours trying to sleep in a tiny hallway on top of our backpacks.

Our first stop in Nouadhibou was a cafe for pain au chocolat and fresh orange juice. We also used the incredibly clean bathroom to brush our teeth and clean up a bit from the dirty journey. Then we called a married couple who are PCVs here and they immediately invited us to stay with them and turned on the hot water heater for showers. Cam and I have been amazingly fortunate in that the Mauritania PCVs have been cool as hell and incredibly nice to us. After a day of relaxing and doing laundry yesterday, we planned to leave for Morocco today. However, we went out for Chinese food (fried noodles with shrimp and spring rolls, I was in heaven) and drank a lot of wine and watched some Lost and it got late and we decided to stay another day. Erin and Sam are a good time and don't seem to mind hosting us, so here we are. We walked to the ocean and bummed around all day. Our car to Dakhla leaves tomorrow at noon (so anytime before 5pm) and we really aren't sure how long it will take to get to Morocco. I'll keep you all posted - it's gonna be a long, long ride, but I can't wait to see the semi-developed world again!!

I am truly in the middle of nowhere

Hi everyone - Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, it's been tricky finding internet and my time here is limited so this is gonna be short.

To answer the previous 2 comments re: me being in NYC, I'm planning on going through for about 10 days (I need 2 weekends of going out!) in mid to late May. So I hope to see the Perry crew as well as the STBers...

So Camilo and I flew to Nouakchott and spent 3 nights with the PC country director, an amazing guy who was so nice to us. His house was beautiful and we ate some good chwarmas and walked around and relaxed and met some really nice 3rd year volunteers. We decided that, although we were extremely happy mooching off him, it was time to move on. So we traveled north to Atar. When we arrived in Nouakchott it looked like there was no town - just sand. We were laughing about how ridiculously in the middle of nowhere we were. But that feeling has only gotten more pronounced in the last couple days! Nouakchott was an interesting place to stay - the streets are a lot more calm and manageable compared to Conakry. And it doesn't smell like a cesspool, which was also a nice surprise.

Anyway, we made it to Atar and met a couple PCVs, one of whom let us crash at her place. We spent a night eating camel meat and hanging out (we also brought a bottle of illegal Absolut for them, which made us huge hits) and the next day we headed to Chinguetti, a touristy town known for camel treks. Another volunteer found us a guy with 2 camels and we took a 3 hour trek to an oasis, which was so nice. I wish I could post the photos that Cam took, but that will have to wait until I have more internet time. We spent the night out at this oasis under the stars - it would have been impossible to get a picture, but they were incredible. The next morning we headed back to Chinguetti and continued back to Atar and crashed with Ellen again. And I discovered that Camilo is afraid of horses and heights - a camel is like a horse, but higher and scarier. I tried to be supportive, but it was pretty funny to watch. It's really difficult to get up on a camel, because they move a lot while getting up from their knees and you have to hold on for dear life! Again, I'll try and get the pictures up soon so you can really appreciate it.

Sadly, I got really, really, incredibly sick the next morning. I'll spare you poor blog readers the gory details, but it involved a lot of bathroom time, aches, a 103 degree fever, and deliriously telling Camilo about how my dad brought me a plant one time when I was 5 and sick. Luckily, most of it passed within 24 hours and the PC doctor was really helpful. Thank goodness we packed a bunch of medicines when we left Mali!

So it's now day 3 of being back in Atar and we are headed to Terjit, apparently this magical waterfall-filled oasis in the middle of the desert, tonight. We'll spend the night and then travel on to Choum, where we catch a train overnight to Nouadibou. I don't think any of those names are spelled correctly.

Okay, will update again when I can! Miss you all and can't believe I'll be home and able to tell you this stuff myself in a little more than a month!

PS - Heard from the missionaries in my town that things in Mamou are totally normal. Now that they announced a new Prime Minister I wonder what the PC will decide to do about the program...

And I'm back...temporarily

Camilo and I are staying at the Peace Corps compound. Again. After escaping. But it's free and Bamako is expensive and we are currently jobless and traveling, so it works. We are leaving tonight to go to a Catholic mission run by some Colombian nuns until our flight Sunday morning.

Why are we back in Bamako 4 days before our flight, you ask? Well, we'd planned on 2 days here, but after being upcountry and harassed to no end we decided to throw in the towel and just come back. It's really hard being in a place with a burgeoning tourist industry - while Dogon Country was amazing, it was sad to see that the villages receive very little of the money from tourism (it mostly goes to the guides and the lucky villager who has a restaurant in town). In Djenne, home to the world's largest mud structure, the kids begged like you couldn't even believe - which is annoying for us because we know that many tourists give money, thinking that the kids are starving. But, in reality, they are hurting more than helping. It just encourages the children to skip school and encourages their parents to tell them to try and get food on the street instead of providing it for them. Perhaps I will end up as one of those holier-than-thou PCV types who thinks they have all the answers?? Ew. Hopefully the next couple months of traveling will provide a transition to the developed world...

Dogon Country was great. Tony, Michelle (hereafter referred to as Michony) Cam and I took a 12 hour bus ride to a small town where we met our guide and spent the night. Early the next morning we took off and visited one town, where we saw impossibly dirty kids, the oldest looking men you can imagine and some incredible mud buildings. Then we walked 5km to another town, which was even more picturesque. Due to the oppressive heat we spent about 5 hours hanging out on a covered rooftop, eating some rice and sauce with chicken and drinking cold drinks (thank goodness for generators, since there is no electricity in Dogon!) After another 4 or 5km walk we ended up in another village, where we dropped our stuff off and then climbed up into the old village. Dogon is a bunch of small villages strung together and has some really interesting history and traditions. The people actually lived up in the cliffs until 10 or so years ago and we climbed up to look around. There were some really old areas where Pygmy people lived - they must have been so small, because none of us could have fit into the little holes! These structures weren't too high up, but others were ridiculous. They think vines used to grow along the cliffs and that people used them to get up to their homes - there was a lot of fighting between tribes/villages and people needed to be high up to protect themselves.

That night we slept on a roof under the stars - beautiful but cold! And the ladder was scary, so I promised Michony and Camilo that I wouldn't climb down to pee in the middle of the night (my bladder doesn't like me), so instead I went to the other side of the roof and peed into the drain!! I was so happy they all stayed asleep while that happened...and I was happy to sleep on the roof, since I saw a giant rat go into one of the bedrooms beneath us! I hate rats.

The next morning we got up super-early and hiked 11km. It was exhausting and our chain-smoking guide was just zipping along. We kept on yelling at him to wait up! We stopped in 2 villages before lunch and then went to a market after the afternoon heat became marginally less oppressive. Sadly, we realized that all markets in West Africa are pretty much the same and that we are totally used to them - the novelty has been lost. But we did get to taste some millet beer, which was better than I expected. I'd still take a glass of wine over that any day. Or a Milwaukee's Best.

That night we climbed up some serious cliffs (my legs ache just thinking about it) and got to a village at the top, where there were a zillion white people. Or 12. But it felt like a lot! We had some amazing grilled chicken, cold sodas and slept under the stars again. The first night there was a lot of sand blowing around and I felt like my face had been sand-blasted during the night, but the second night was much better and I slept like a champ until a donkey started bleating in the loudest imaginable way. At 4am. C'est la vie. Oh, and we also saw a traditional fetish man's (I don't know exactly what to call this guy) hut, which had headless lizards and monkey skulls stuck into the outside walls and all kinds of other creepy stuff. I'm sure it is all very traditional and interesting, but I just thought it was gross!

Our last morning we hiked another 5km to another small village where a car picked us up and took us to Mopti, a semi-quaint town on the Niger River. We checked into the Catholic Mission there and spent the day wandering around, buying frozen bissap to keep from boiling to death. Camilo bought a boubou and a headscarf and Michelle and I both bought fabric to wrap around our heads/shoulders so as not to be scandalous and considered prostitutes during our travels in Mauritania (me) and Morocco (both of us).

Camilo and I said good-bye to Michony early the next morning as they headed back to Bamako and we headed to Djenne. I won't write too much about it, cause it just wasn't that great. We spent another night on a roof, ate the most fried omelette sandwiches imaginable, met a nice Polish guy and wanted to beat up the kids who wouldn't stop asking us for things. After a 10 hour bus ride and a 4 hour wait for the Peace Corps shuttle we made it back to Tubaniso, where it is annoyingly like summer camp but free.

Sunday morning the Mauritania Country Director is picking us up at the airport. We have an excel spreadsheet of all our plans and have now added Portugal to the trip, which I'm really thrilled about. We have hostels reserved in most of Portugal and Spain and a few in Morocco. I'll be sure to keep updating as we go along. Everyone says the people in Mauritania are really nice and helpful and just as likely to give us something as rip us off, which will be a nice change of pace from tourist-y Mali!

Here are Cam's pictures (he's such a better photographer that I've stopped taking photos and instead just hold his crap while he runs around and gets good shots)...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51956952@N00/sets/72157594510772937/

Oh, yeah, and I bought my ticket back to the US! It's for April 20th from Barcelona to Chicago. I have a couple days before Zach and Kelley's wedding. Can't wait!