Finale

The final morning 

We loaded the bus on our last 4 hr ride to Casablanca.  To everyone’s surprise it was covered with a marine fog.  A full tour of the  Hassan II mosque which I picture on my first afternoon when it was sunny.  This time we toured the interior with our our personal guide and learned a lot about the Islam religion and their relationship with mosque.  This is the 2nd or 3 rd largest mosque in the Muslim world and will hold 25,000 people on the inside and another 40,000 outside in the courtyard.

That evening I had a beautiful suite on the top floor of a Spa hotel and took it easy.

So Morroco as a new experience for me and I must admit, even the experienced traveler that I am, I could have never made it without a group and guide.

I think 8 full days were  a little too much for me, but the highlights of the country are spread out and it takes a while to drive the country.  One could fly in and out of Marrakech, and just skip Casablanca and commute by local air to Fez and or Tangier and see most of the country. But the only way to get to the Desert and dunes is by driving and I would not have given that up.  Watching the sunset and rise over the desert sand will stick with me for a long time.

Our tour director Bren and her company Cherg Expeditions of Marrakech was wonderful handling every little detail. 

Photos Here

The Desert to Marrakesh

We left the desert camp driving south to Marrakesh.  We were between the two ranges of the Atlas Mountains which contains an elongated oasis.  Oasis are areas of vegetation in the middle of the desert where there is a water table running bellow the surface that the vegetation has found.  These appear near mountains as they contain the runoff from the snowpack.

The largest film studio in Africa is along the way and we stoped for a quick photo op. You can see the list of films and tv shows that were produced here.  Then onward to the Kasbah where the film people stay.  This is a very historic Kasbah as it is the oldest documented one in the desert of Morocco.  There is a small structure built at the top of a 300 ft hill which we climbed.  This had been constructed as a money exchange when built thousand years ago.  Recently it suffered damage due to the earthquake.  You can see the damage and we saw more damage along the roadway as we crossed out of the Atlas range into Marrakesh.  There we checked in to a wonderful riad for a 2 night stay.  We had a big group dinner of Tangine and Couscous which is the native dish.

The following morning we were the first to visit a Berber pharmacy.  This would be what we call naturopathic and they put on quite a sales demo.  It reminded me of the “sham-wow” commercial.  The guy must have sold us 2-5,000$ worth of product in 45 minutes.  The Jardin Majorelle which is a beautiful man made garden which reportedly was a favorite spot of Yves St Laurent.  Another historic riad and then lunch near the town square.

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A Camel Ride

 Possibly the highlight of the trip    

Was a camel ride through the dessert to a camp in an oasis. First we drove south and crossed  a branch of the Atlas  mountains.  This mountain chain cross  Morocco from NE to SW and was the source of the infamous earthquakes last month.  We didn’t witness any damage as that was all in the far southern region of the country 

We stopped in a small roadside village for a presentation of Berber music and couscous followed by a large lunch.

Then it was onward to meet Clyde the camel for an hour ride across the desert.

We watched the sunset from a sand dune and then into our camp.  This is a luxury camp with full toilet, large shower and large comfortable bedding.  Dinner was served in a wonderful dining room.  We closed the evening at the campfire listening to some Berber music under the night sky.

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Morroco

 Followings my Lisbon visit,

I boarded a most comfortable commuter jet to Casablanca

Morocco,  a drive to a magnificent hotel; Le Casablanca and a walking tour of Casablanca. The boardwalk at the beach reveals the  massive  waves of the Atlantic ocean.  Then a visit to large mosque.  Casablanca is the largest and commercial center of Morocco with a port that can handle 350 ships simultaneously, but its not the capital. That would be Rabat. The hotel was very luxurious and and opulent.

The following morning we met our guide for the trip; Abdul. In case your are wondering how a bus tour works; one loads up on the bus every day and the guide narrates the entire day.  Multiple stops during the day for attractions, refreshments and WC breaks.  The bus has good wifi and charging ports.  

The terrain inland from Rabat to Fes  is arid and hilly.  Remined me of the Texas hill country.  One main difference; olive groves as far as the eye can see.

When we arrived in Fes, the real adventure began.  We spent 2 nights in a Riad which is deep in the medina.  The baggage  was handled by local porters who met us at the Riad.  We had to walk ~20 minutes through very narrow streets in a line as to not get separated and finally arrived  at our lodging which was through a small door behind the non descriptive walls.  Once inside it was apparent that this had been a family home in the past with multiple bedrooms and open air sitting rooms.  Today riads are used as hotels while in the past they represented homes for the privileged.  The kasbah refers to a walled city typical of ancient civilizations while the term medina is often interchangeable with kasbah..  So, we walked  through the kasbah past several  open markets and merchant stalls to our riad.

How bought that for some arabic.  By the way, the majority of inhabitants are not arabs but berbers. The berbers are the one of the original populations of what is now Morocco.  Followed by the Jews and most recently(hundreds) of years the arabs.

There are only ~4000 jews remaining in Morocco  due to the many that fled during the Vichy occupation of Morocco during WWII.  Most berbers today have acclimated to modern society and are indigenous in the middle class.

I must emphasize before we leave this topic of kasbahs that there is absolutely no way I  could walk through the kasbah independently.  The width of the walkway was about 8 feet and there was 2 way trafic of people, carts and motorcycles.

We left Fes the second morning for visit to the the romain ruin Voulibilis which was a film site for”The Last Temptation of Christ” and a then a visit to a private cave where Mohamed prepared and served us berber tea.

Photos

Lisbon

 Lisbon is the capital of Portugal and is situated at the mouth of the Rio Tagus  which actually originates in Spain.  The river empties into Atlantic ocean and thus is the home of a large marine industry which happens to be the 2nd largest industry in Portugal.   What is the largest, well that would be tourism.  

Since tourism is my new profession and since I have never visited, this felt like the time to book a premium seat and make my way.  It also happens to be on the way to Morocco which actually is the main destination of my journey.  More on Morocco in my next note.

I arrived after an overnight flight on Air France with a 55 minute connection @ CDG.  I cant really recommend that itinerary . It would have been 90 min if the flight had left IAH on-time.

To the hotel and I picked up a SIM card for my phone so I would have all the portable data I require for my Google Maps. First evening was spent in a British Gin restaurant where I dined on beer and Octopus.  I don’t like Gin. I do really like fresh octopus marinated in EVOO.

Tues, I felt fresh and spent the entire  day on 2 different Hop On/Off bus routes.  If you follow my travels you will recall that I am a big fan of these for the fist day In a new town. I don’t get off, I use them for the narrated tour of the city. I didn’t realize how spread out and diverse Lisbon is.  Modern building at the site of the World Expo of 1998, to the cruise terminal on the bay front of old Portugal where the cathedral and Royal Palace overlook the ocean.

Wednesday I was picked up at my hotel and joined 6 other Americans for a day trip to Sintra and Cascais. Sintra is the home of one of the oldest fortresses that the Moors established when conquering the Iberian peninsula.  From there we drove along the coast to the Cabo da Roca which is the most western point in Europe. Then on to Cascais for lunch on fresh Cod and a relaxing afternoon stroll along the waterfront.

The food in Portugal is seafood based with an abundance of Atlantic Cod and Octopus and more pastry shops than banks.

The next day I relaxed, did laundry and got ready for the next leg.

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Boulder Colorado July 2023

 

If you live in Houston Texas and you can afford to take 4-6 wks off, you leave town in the summer for a cooler climate.  For the past several years, Covid excluded, I have gone to Spain and Italy for the Mediterranean climate.  Crisp and cool early in the morning, dry and warm as the day heats up and a very pleasant evening. Last summer was a bit of a disaster.  Oh the weather was fine, it's just that every American who was pent up during Covid decided to visit Southern Europe.  Many of my favorite spots in Barcelona were not even reopened probably due to lack of help.  The airports, all of them, Heathrow, Barcelona, Paris, Frankfurt were all a mess.  Not enough ground crew or security personnel to move the unexpected surge of tourists.

So this summer I decided to stay home; US that is, and rented an apartment in Boulder, CO. I visited my cousin Bruce in the Denver area, who spent his profession life with Regal/UA theaters. He managed to install a home theater and this is the old 35mm Reel type projector.

Now Boulder is an interesting city of 110,000 people, 31,000 of which are Colorado U students who aren’t around in the summer as there is no on campus summer session.  The town is full of nature freaks who love to walk, hike, cycle and just gather outdoors.  The town is nestled right up against the Rockies and there are numerous hikes and paths that I could reach by walking 5min from my summer rental.  I spent every morning on a 3-6 mile walk or hike.  Lots of healthy food but historically warm temps.  I really didn't get to cool down as I had planned. It was cooler than Houston, but I didn’t put on a long sleeve shirt or slack the entire month.

Here are some pics of the scenery in the neighboring area.

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Buenos Aires

 Buenos Aires has been given the reputation of the Paris of S.America.  It has enormous areas devoted to green-space.  Beautiful buildings.  A vibrant nightlife and restaurant scene.  We did not go tango as we had two different shows on the boat. We took the hop on hop off bus on a tour of the city which occupied several hours and ends up in LaBoca which is home to a street fair known as Caminito. We did however eat the specialty of Argentina, steak.  I mean it's really something different.  First of all, the meat is raised differently.  All natural feed on the range.  No antibiotics, cereal or other additives that you can’t get away from in the US.  Then its cooked over a wood embers flame and severed without salt or seasoning.  Just  chimichurri sauce on the side.  “Filete  de Lomo”; what a fantastic piece of meat.  

Buenos  Aires has the look and feel of Madrid.  More parks and monuments.  Too much to see in 2 1/2 days.  This calls for a return trip in their winter.  Just a nice hotel and tour service next trip.

So I board my overnight flight back to Houston somewhat disappointed at the cruise line for many reasons.  I possibly had too high of expectations of this cruise and it basically was a typical cruise with lots of noise.  Heavy on the cruise and short on the history ,terrain and culture of the area. A real disappointment, but definitely a new continent partially explored.

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MONTEVIDEO

is the capital of Uruguay.It sits on the northern bank of the channel from the Atlantic to Buenos Aires and beyond.  The history seems to be that it was settled by the Spanish from Buenos Aires in a blocking effort to keep the Portuguese from traveling from Brazil down the river.  There is a rather large Jewish community there as it was one of the earliest settlements of the Jews leaving the middle east and Europe.  I took a tour with a lady who is of the local Jewish community and learned some interesting facts.  We visited a Holocaust memorial that the city erected on the beach and two different synagogues.

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S.ATLANTIC and PUERTO MADRYN

We sailed northward from the Cape of Good Hope for the next 48 hours.  The seas were not bad.  I 've experience worse on a southern atlantic crossing but I guess the weather is really the determining factor and we had good weather.  We pulled into Puerto Madryn which is a small fishing port halfway up the Argentinian Coast. Not much going on here. I am now realizing that S. America is really the third world.  It just hasn't made it to the rest of European and N American standards. We walked around and found a local restaurant where we order Steak!

Boy do they butcher meat differently down here.  We each were served what looked like 3-4 pound slab of cooked meat.  There was no bone, just a huge chunk of fat.  After slicing off the meat.  It was really delicious and fresh tasting. There was really nothing else to see, so it was back to the ship after lunch.  This time we took a leisure walk down the pier.   No Tenders. 

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Beagle Channel and Ushuaia

There is a 150 km long totally navigational channel on the southern tip of S.America which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.  Named after the HMS Beagle which carried Charles Darwin to this are in the 1830’s.  Midway along this is the Argentinean port ofUshuaia, a port town of a couple hundred thousand.  This is the launch point for all Antartica explorations.  Tied up in port are numerous seagoing exploratory vessels from Linblad, Huntigren and National Geographic.  Also seen was the ill fated Viking Polaris.

I  boarded a enclosed cabin catamaran with a 150 fellow Celebrity pasenges for a 4 hour tour of the Beagle channel.  We saw seals sunning on a big rock.  Multiple flocks of birds and the highlight of the morning, one of 3 different colonies of Penguins.  Theses are the middle size.  We ended back in town and I walked for a couple hours, had a quick lunch and went through the ordeal of lining up for a  tender back to the ship. I felt a cold coming on, so I had a small dinner and went to bed. 

As advertised. We sailed out the Beagle passage to the Atlantic, turned south and arrived at the Cape of Good Horn  @ 6am the next morning.  This is the southern most piece of any continent on earth, Antarctica excluded but thats all ice.  Beyond this is the Drake Passage which before the Panama Canal opened, was the only way to sail from the Atlantic to The Pacific.  The Drake Passage reportedly is the home to more shipwrecks than any other location on earth.  If you have studied the California gold rush and the development of San Francisco, you will recall that the trip from the East Coast to California in the 1840’s took 3 weeks. I was expecting the worse but it was actually quite calm and temperate. A really inspiring site.  There is a metal monument on top of the rock to celbrate "the end of the earth".  Look carefully in the photos and you can barely see it.

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Strait of Magellan and Punta Arenas Chile.

We entered the Strait of Magellan from the S.Pacific open waters about 4 PM and the weather immediately cleared.  The wind died and the sun shined through.  John and I made it to the top deck, open a bottle of wine and enjoyed a good cigar while the mountains of the strait went by.  Dinner was marred again with bad service on the part of our restaurant crew and we vowed to take the remainder of our meals in the Oceanview Cafe; the buffet.  Will see how long that last.

The next morning we pulled into the harbor of Punta Arenas about 7 am.  I was on a tender to the port at 7:45.  Expecting a circus, I had no problems getting to and exiting the terminal onto the streets of Punta Arenas.  The problem was that this little port town was completely closed.  I mean not even a coffee shop.  So I walked a mile or so to the city square where sat looking at a  statue honoring the founding of the town in the 1850’s.  With nothing else to see or do, I walked back to the terminal, boarded  a tender and was back on the ship by 9:45.  What I have realize by now after 4 different cities in Chile is this country is not ready for US tourist.  The cities just completely shut down on Sat and Sun. Of course I am referring to downtown areas but this is where tourist stay and congregate. 

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Puerto Montt

Our first port was this seaside town of 250,000. It was settled in the late 19th century by German immigrants.  It is now a fishing center with no real passenger terminal which meant we “tendered” to shore and our excursions.  We had between 1000-2000 passengers to take the 20 minute ride to shore in 4 different tenders which meant it took about 3 hours from start to finish to get everyone ashore.  Not good planning.  So our excursion was a 90 minute bus ride to Lake Todos 

Los Santos and the Petrohue waterfalls it created.  Beautiful scenery but not sure it was worth the 3 hour ride on a bus, 3 hour wait and round trip on the tender.  The captain and cruise director got an earful all right.  His comment was “this is S America. They don’t build nice passenger terminals here. If you demand nice terminals, stay in the Caribbean”.

With that we opened a bottle of wine and forgot about it.

We then had 2 days of sailing thru the fiords' of Chile.  Very interesting scenery.

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