From the town of Tetouan just south of Ceuta, we caught a local bus for Fez, a mostly picturesque 5-½ hour ride. We were the only non-Moroccans throughout the whole trip.The imperial city of Fez (two others are Marrakech and Meknes). The Fez medina, where we chose to stay is like being at another place at another time. We hired a guide for a 1/2 day and were taken to places in the depths of the medina where no foreigners were seen. We visited tanneries, mosques,...

It was a mad rush from Malaga along southern Spain's Costa de Sol. Ellen and I wanted to make the last boat of the day from Algeciras, Spain to Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on Morocco's Mediterranean coast. A football field-sized hydrofoil jetted us across the Strait of Gibraltar in about an hour. Enclave is exactly what Ceuta is; a police guarded oasis, filled with wonderful little restaurants and cafes on the edge of a precipice that is Morocco. After a mea...

Our return from a kooky trip to Nicaragua.

Our toothy smiles belied our hidden fears. The over-sized customs official stared intently as we presented our passports. After looking at both us, and our documents, for what seemed like an eternity, he said "That will be five dollars, please". We quickly paid, and he stamped our passports.Our Airbus had touched down at Cesar Augusto Sandino International Airport just outside the capital city of Managua, Nicaragua, on route to Costa Rica. Our boarding passes cl...