Hi All

I am now in Lisbon, Portugal after spending two weeks in Morocco which was absoluely fantastic. I was a little concerned about getting to Morocco in time for the start of the my intrepid tour as several people at the hostel in Tafira, Spain had been trying to catch the ferry to Morocco with no sucess due to bad weather. Some had been stranded in Spain for more than 3 days. On the moring that I was due to leave, myself and around 10 others woke at around 6.00am to catch the first ferry from Tarifa to Tangier but once again...cancelled and they weren't anticipating any improvement in the weather. We waited there until around 11am on the off change that one of them would go, but again..no luck. Most of us decided to catch a bus to Algeciras which is another port in Spain that has slower ferries that can operate in poor weather conditions. The road trip although only 45 mins long was really fun, almost like a school trip. When we arrived we were pleased to see that the ferries were going ahead as scheduled so we all got tickets and jumped on a rather luxurious boat to Tangier.

From Tangier we all jumped on trains and went our seperate ways, I headed to Casablanca which is where the tour started. I met a really nice local lady on the train who got a guy (and his family) to sit with me when she got off, she also asked that he make sure that I got off at the right station. The guy went one better and got a taxi for me and told the driver where I wanted to go. This was all very welcome as it was around 11pm and I had no idea where I was going!!

Casablanca was a interesting city, I was suprised by its size and how modern it appeared. I had a free day before the tour began so I used this to explore the old city (medina), which was a crazy, chaotic little place. It took a little while to get used to all the attention again, although it wasnt as bad as Egypt, so that was a relief.

On the next day I met up with Neroli and Sam, two friends who mum and I met in Egypt and had become close with. We had arranged to meet in Morocco and do the tour together so it was great to see them again and to have some familiar faces to travel with. My room mate at the start of the trip was a fellow aussie (Erin from Sydney) who had a bit of a rough start to the trip with her bags going missing, poor thing - it took almost five days to get them back!! We also has three americans doing the tour with us, which made a total of 7, all really cool people.

On our first morning we visited the third largest mosque in the world (Hassan II Mosque) which was really impressive. It has a retractable roof similiar to the Telstra Dome and heated marble floors (I'm still not surehow exactly this works). They also have a really nice pool and these cool fountains for bathing (seperate ones for men and women of course). After visting the mosque we jumped on a train and headed to Rabat for a quick visit and then on to Meknes both of which were nice places but nothing overly exciting. I was a little suprised to see how many cats there are in Morocco they seem to be everywhere...too bad I dont really like them!!

Fes was our next stop and a definate highlight. The old medina in Fes is huge!! It was so easy to get lost. After a guided tour in the morning Erin, Neroli and I set out on our own to do a bit of exploring and shopping. We tried almost all the street food we came across with the highlight being a coconut macaroon which was still a little warm. We bought all sorts of stuff varying from leather goods , rip off sunnies and other random bits and pieces. We had a blast bargaining with locals and got a laugh after a shop ownder told us pretty much to piss off after we ofered him half of his cost price for a number of scarves (it was his fault, he didnt tell us he was offering us the real price). We had a lot of trouble getting the scarves at the guys cost price elsewhere in Morocco, but we were eventually sucessful in Marrakech. We capped of our day with an early dinner at a really small resturant that had only one table and around 8 seats and this really nice Moroccon specialty called a 'pastilla' which is a pastry with chicken, sultanas and spices in the middle and icing sugar on top..mmm.

The next few days passed by with me not having much of a clue what was going on. On our bus ride from Fes to Midelt I was struck with a strong pain in the stomach and had to get the bus to pull over so I could do as bears do and use the woods as a toilet...it wasnt very pleasant that I can assure you. I spent the rest of the afternoon in bed trying to recover quickly as we were heading to the desert in the days following.

The Sahara desert trip was really cool, we headed out on camels just before sunset to a small camp around 20km from the Algerian border. The camp was located amongst the Erg Chebbi dunes which gave fantastic scenery, some of them are around 150m high. We climbed one of the massive dunes to watch the sunset, the climb almost killed us but it was well worth it once we got there. That night we had a loacl meal prepared for us and had some of the local berber people come and play the drums for us. One of the guys was telling really bad jokes which was quite amusing. Although we all had tents to sleep in we chose to sleep under the stars (which we could barely see as the moon was so bright). When we woke we were all covered in windblown sand. We then got back on our camels for the one hour journey back to the small settlement of Merzouga which is where we left most of our stuff. My stomach still wasnt right, but somehow I managed not to go to the toilet in the desert, this made the camel ride back extremely uncomfortable!!

After visiting the Sahara we headed to Todra Gorge which was a really nice place, the weather was also nice which was a bonus. I didnt do too much here other than lazing about and reading. On the second day at Todra we went for a guided walk amongst the palmeries and then into the gorge which had a real party atmosphere. There was school kids everywhere chiling out, playing drums, dancing and swimming. It was really cool to just wander around and soak up the atmosphere. We also seen the cliff face that Tom Cruise hangs from at the beginning of Mission Impossible 2, the guide said that he wasnt very strong so struggled a bit.

We then went to a place called Ait Benhaddou which is the movie capital of Morocco. We stayed in a really nice guesthouse, the guy who owns it was really funny, he had the nickname 'Action' as he has been an extra in around 10 movies. He struts arounds like a movie star, its really quite amusing. We also got a cooking demonstration while there which gave me a greater appreciation for couscous and the amount of work that goes into preparing it.

After Ait Benhaddou we travelled through the high atlas mountains and the Tizi n'Tichka Pass (at 2260m) which was extremely scenic and impressive. Our destination was a small town called Imlil which is where we would be leaving our main packs as we were hiking up to a small village called Armend where we would stay for the night. Mountain goats truly amaze me, how they get to some of the places they go is beyond my comprehension.

Ahmed was a nice little village with children running around everywhere and animals all over the place. Neroli had a field day playing with all the chickens, goats and cows just to name a few. In the morning we went for a hike up to another small village where there was a shrine where people go to pray for health. The shrine was a simple white pained rock...a little on the disappointing side, but it was still a nice hike. Neroli, Sam, Erin and I chose to get a mule ride back to Imlil from Armed which was great fun, my mule was very well behaved and really responsive which made it an easy ride. I still think that Donkeys are better, there is a certain stubborness about them that i love.

Next stop was Essaouira, which we dubbed the place where all the crazy Moroccan people congreagate. There seemed to be plenty of nutbags there. Essaouira is a trendy little beachside town that draws plenty of toursits and has really good inexpensive seafood. They also have lots of really cool artwork, I bought two paintings which I now have to send home.

Our final stop was Marrakech which I would rate as one of my favourite places in the whole world. The weather in Marrakech was extremely hot (I would be guessing around 35 - 37 degrees) because of this we struggled to stay outside during the heat of the day although this wasnt a big issue as it comes to life at night. On the first day Neroli, Erin and I did some more shopping buying all those things that we had seen elsewhere and had been waiting for. The souks cover a massive area, you could easliy spend a whole day in there shopping (or simply being lost). The main square Djemaa el Fna was the icing on the cake for me. It is really hard to accurately describe, you really need to see it with your own eyes, but it basically a cluster of makeshift food stalls selling everything from fresh orange juice, dates, snails, soup, mint tea and full blown resturants. Surrounding the staills are street performers significantly varying depending on the time of day that you visit. Snake charmers, monkeys and other animal acts during the day and drummers and fire shows during the night. The square is so captivating the atmosphere is addictive, I could have easily stayed for a week and just visited the square every night. If ever your in the area I very strongly recommend that you visit Marrakech.

I apologise if this is an a less than impressive blog, I am really tired and have been up since around 5am as the idiot (putting it nicely) sleeping under me came in really drunk and was spewing everywehre and snoring. I thought it woudl be better to get up.

Hope all is well at home, will post some photos shortly

Miss you all

Mandy xxx