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Day 80, 22 September 2012, Fez to Tangier - Not Being Grownups is riding the rails again. It may seem we discuss the cost of things quite frequently but that is because it´s fascinating. There is simply no relativity. It costs 1 Dh to go to a public toilet. It cost 8.5 Dh for a 10 minute taxi ride from the medina to the new town where the snazzy Fez railway station is located. It was lucky our bags were heavy, because weight alone was the only thing anchoring them to the rack on the roof of the ancient red Renault that did get us there safely, though somewhat surprisingly. Nothing like peering over your shoulder during the entire ride to make sure worldly goods weren´t disappearing into the never never. The 10.20 am train left promptly at 10.20 am - yes. Wow. Highlight of the trip was the heated discussion with an older, arabic, Moroccan gentlemen who was determined to spend the entire four hours yammering at top volume on his mobile in direct contravention of the no mobiles in the compartment sign. One guard, one helpful bi-lingual traveller and one member of the tourist police finally convinced him to shift compartments and annoy local people instead.... and so we had our space in peace. And arrived only 15 minutes late. Still a bit too late for our driver and his signboard who had chuffed back to his taxi in a huff since he couldn´t find us at the scheduled time. Got together eventually and zoomed off to our lodgings for the next 3 nights - Dar Jameel. http://www.magicmaroc.com/djsite/description.html - pretty darn nice - with a roof terrace and then what we called the crows nest - a little tower on top of the roof with views across to Spain and sea breezes pouring through the windows night and day. Another thing that Dar Jameel had was excellent, in the room, wi-fi access - which proved to be our undoing. We left the iPad to upload the ioS 6 software update and it killed it. Not quite stone dead, but he no work-ee anymore and the next Apple store is Madrid. Looks like we will have to beg, borrow, steal, use my awesome Kindle and internet cafes for the next couple of weeks. Bear with us! The evening saw us buying ferry tickets for the trip to Spain on the 25th and then we walked along the Town Beach - nice for a cooling paddle but incredibly grubby by Australian beach standards. Fun to watch the camels though! We even saw one bloke have literally the shortest camel ride in history - just long enough for the handler to take a photo of him on it. Perhaps it was a dare. Superb pizza dinner was had at The Windmill - a beachfront cafe that pretty much does breakfast and pizza and that´s it. Pizza for two for $10.... seriously going to miss Moroccan prices in Spain we thinks. We walked home via a nut-man and purchased some freshly dry roasted almonds to snuffle while we enjoyed TanJazz - a four night international jazz festival we´ve managed to trip over. So good, even had roaming musicians in the streets. Can´t believe we´ve only been here 5 hours. Already had people calling our name in the streets.... met them at the riad in the afternoon and there they were off to the railway station for the overnight Marrakech express.
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Joan Great Viv