Friday, October 8, 2010
French Riviera
After a few trains and a long day of travel with upset bellies we finally arrived in the playground for the rich and famous...Cote d’Azur or as we know it the French Riviera. We based ourselves in Nice and blended in with copious amounts of sun-seeking tourists hoping to get a glimpse of the life some only dream about.
Our first night in Nice was fairly uneventful, after an awful Chinese meal we ventured through the main square and made it to the famous beach front promenade des Anglais. We sat uncomfortably on the pebbled beach sucking down a slurpy and entertained ourselves with our favourite activity..people watching. After a long day of travel we called it a night and headed back to our hostel which was full of our most disliked people in the world, busabout, loud, obnoxious Australian’s. We had the best kind in our room two Aussie girls that didn’t mind sharing their dorm bed with a few different fellas and making sure the whole room knew about it.
After interrupted sleep we decided to head to the beach. We asked the hostel guy if there were any beaches with sand nearby or did they all have pebbles the size of soccer balls? His reply was “yes, very beautiful beach with lovely sand” and pointed to it on the map. We arrived at the beach after a short train ride and was excited to see at a distance that the beach was covered in sand. As we got closer we realised that the sand was actually tiny pebbles that didn’t resemble sand in the least.
The following day we decided it was our time to rub shoulders with the rich famous and headed to Monaco. When we arrived we were greeted by a marina full of boats that one would only dream of owning. Nick decided that just this once it would be okay if I seduce an owner of one of boats just for a look on one of them. He was actually encouraging it. After being mesmerised by these boats each one just as grand as the next, we headed up the hill to see the longest running Monarchy. Beautiful grounds and beautiful scenery. We met Tom and Tim for a quick bite to eat as they were passing through with their Contiki group. Afterwards Nick and I decided to check out the Monte Carlo Casino. It was like we just stepped into Hollywood, we people watched for a good hour or two. The people that arrived were so stereotypical it was laughable. 70 year old men turned up in their Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s, Bentley’s and Rolls Royce (just to name a few) with their plastic 23 year old girlfriends next to them. The older women that did turn up usually were alone and were covered in diamonds and plastic surgery. We felt a little out of place with our beach clothes and thongs on.
After another painful sleep we awoke the next morning to a great surprise. As we sat down to breakfast deprived of sleep and ready to commit murder, we saw a familiar face walk by and it was our American mate Tim (Omit). After three months apart we had loads to catch up on. Another day was spent on the pebbly beach but a few beers helped ease the pain. That night we once again went out to hit up Monte Carlo and show Tim the sights. It’s been Tim’s dream to head into the Monte Carlo Casino and play roulette so we dressed up in our finest and accompanied him. The building itself was grand, the casino itself was fairly unexciting. Nick decided to play the pokies and after his first hit and 20 euro down the drain he decided that was enough. We watched Tim lose 100 euro and decided to get the hell out of there and go somewhere where we felt comfortable...the pub.
The next morning we said good bye to Tim over lunch, made plans to meet up again soon and headed to the train station. Next stop Rome.
Back in Spain...
We caught a series of buses to arrive in Granada, which made it a total of 23 hours in transit. Granada was beautiful, and probably my favourite Spanish city. A small city centre, surrounded by snow capped mountains and the Alhambra sitting above the city skyline. We’d heard good things about it from a number of travellers, and I was more than sold when I was told they gave away free tapas. Yes, free. Every time you buy a drink, you are given a free plate of tapas. Still no idea how they make any money out of it. Whilst in Granada we did the free walking tour, visited and toured the Alhambra, and did a tapas tour. After the tour, Al decided she’d had enough and retired to bed, but I was keen to kick on. So a bunch from the tour went to a shot bar – 150 different shots, all 1€. After a messy number of shots, we continued to a club just below the Alhambra next to the university. It was 2am when we arrived and it was dead. At about 3:30am there was an influx of about 400 people, I have no idea why because it was a Wednesday night, don’t people have jobs in Spain? I got home, around 6:30 and woke Alison and started telling her stories, which at 6:30am apparently she wasn’t interested in. Check out was 10am. There was no way that was happening, so Al made me get up and go downstairs to sort it out with the hostel people. So we had one extra day in Granada, which was great. We had a chilled day, did some shopping and watched the world cup games.
Next stop Madrid. I’m not going to waste much time writing about it though. It wasn’t terribly exciting. We walked around for a few days, mailed some things home, was far too hot, and counted down the days till we arrived in Pamplona.
We left the hostel in Madrid and headed to the bus station. Because I like to arrive early for things, we got there 45mins prior – and just as well, apparently there’s more than one bus depot in Madrid, and we were at the wrong one. So we rushed to the bus, hopped aboard and made our way to Pamplona. We arrived in the afternoon of July 6th (opening ceremony), and tried to arrange to meet John, Tom, Tim, Phoebe and co. We called when we were at the bus station, and they said they were at the fountain. So we walked from one fountain to the next, looking for familiar faces. There must have been 20,000 drunk people and 19,900 of them were Australian. All covered in sangria. We tried to negotiate our way through the streets with our backpacks on, trying desperately to not get covered in Sangria. We couldn’t find anyone, so we called and called and called, finally Tom answered the phone and said that they had moved on, and everyone had passed out on the grass. He came and collected us, and walked us to meet everyone – passed out on the grass. When they all awoke we made our way to the campsite a few km’s outside of Pamplona and we set up camp in the dog kennel. That evening most people decided to take it easy, rest up, and make sure they were fine and dandy for the following days run. Not us though. John made the executive decision at about 11pm that we should catch a cab into town and stay out all night, drinking. So we did. We drank till about 4am, which is when we found a park to sleep in for an hour or so. We awoke with the sun, and made our way to a good starting point for the run, barely any sleep, still drunk – dangerous combination.
We crammed in like sardines at the starting line, and waited patiently for the gun to go off. It went off at 8am sharp which signalled the release of 6 smaller bulls (by smaller I mean only 600kgs), half the crowd stared to run, the other half stayed put. I stayed and waited for a while. As the bulls started to get close, that’s when we started to run, we stuck to the sides and watched as the bulls trotted past minding their own business. We chased them up the street and soon realised that another batch was yet to come past. Another 3 or 4 ox’s came charging along and cleared the path behind. Again we moved to the sides and let them pass, before again chasing up the street. We ran at full pace and missed out on getting into the stadium by 5 seconds or so, very disappointing. I lost everyone somewhere along the way, and didn’t think I’d find them again, so I headed back to the tent. Alison, Phoebe and Tom went into the stadium to watch it all unfold, and said it was horrific – and I would have loved to have been there. Words can’t explain it, only videos. By the time I returned to the tent it was too hot to sleep, so we spent the day trying to find the coolest spots to rest.
In the afternoon after a few hours of rest, we decided to head back into town to watch Spain take on Germany in the world cup semi-final . Beers in hand we made the journey in. We wandered about, and the soccer took somewhat of a back seat to the amount of drinking and partying taking place on the streets. We each bought bottles of Sangria and partied outside of bars and clubs (much cheaper this way – and the music was still plenty loud enough). It was a messy evening, and all ended up with Sangria soaked clothes by the nights end.
The following day we all packed up and made our way out of the campsite. Al and I made our way to the bus depot and tried to arrange transport to Valencia. The only bus was an overnight bus that left at 11pm that evening. It had been a heavy few days, so we rolled out our mats, inflated our pillows and crashed out on the floor of the train station all day. We arrived in Valencia at 5:30am feeling pretty shitty, but we were able to get into our room and we slept till some ridiculous hour in the afternoon.
Our time in Valencia was marred for 2 reasons. The sickness I was feeling, and resulting lack of energy I had; and the theft of our camera and the 2 weeks of photos that disappeared with it. This more or less summed up the time we had in Valencia. We had no real interest in the sites at that point. We could see it had a lot to offer, but one full day was spent trying to get a new camera and fix the computer (oh, that was broken also), and at the same time I was feeling pretty awful. We were glad to leave Valencia – not because we didn’t enjoy the city, it was just good to turnover a new leaf.
What better place to put all your worries behind you, than Ibiza. We met up with the Pamplona crew and relaxed in our rooftop pool. We spent the days on the beach and soaking up the rays, and the nights were spent drinking and partying down. Watching the World Cup final in Ibiza – was great, but I think there’s only a dozen or so Spaniards that live there, but still an experience. We spent our second night drinking in the room till all hours then heading to Privilege night club to see Tiesto play. The club was like nothing else I’ve seen. It was the size of the superdome; 15,000 people inside, pond in the middle, acrobats flying high above, the light show was incredible. Almost equally incredible was the cost of everything – you’d have to be seriously rich if this place was your local watering hole.
It took a while to recover from that night, and the following night we took it pretty easy and wandered around the area John was staying, which was close to Cafe Del Mar and similar. Great spot down near the water.
We left Ibiza and flew to Barcelona. We had a great time in Barcelona, detoxing for a few days. We were based just off Las Ramblas, nice and close to the action. We mailed home our tent (what a relief) among other things, which was actually very exciting. We spent our days, walking about, sightseeing; the Gothic Quarter, some of Gaudi’s architecture, we went and saw a water fountain show one night which was great, I went to the Picasso museum, we laid on the beach, ate amazing food and absorbed everything Barcelona had to offer. We decided to splurge a little and bought a grilled seafood platter for 40€ and were overwhelmed by the mountain of prawns, oysters, mussels, scampi, calamari and various fish that were given to us, it was more like a seafood platter for 4.
On our final night in Barcelona, we tried to meet up with Dom and Belinda (brother and sister duo from Sydney) that we met the night of the water show, but the phones weren’t connecting for some reason. So we decided to go for a drink somewhere anyway. Walking through Las Ramblas and passed the crowds of thousands, we bumped into Dom and Belinda and their cousin Byron. Bizarre. They were on their way to another shot bar. So we tagged along for ‘a drink’. We decided to do a round each – 5 drinks per person. Not enough. 2 rounds – 10 drinks per person. 45 mins down and we were pretty wasted. Before we knew it, it was time to go as we had to wake early for our 7am train out of Spain.
It was hard work, but we got up. Bid farewell to Barcelona. Bid farewell to Spain. But it was cya l8a Spain, not goodbye forever.
Morocco
The ferry to Morocco was short, but it felt like we had travelled to another world. Such a culture shock. We had been travelling in Western Europe for a while, and Canada and the US prior to that, all of which are fairly closely aligned with Australia in terms of politics, religion as well as living standards. We felt somewhat out of our comfort zone – which was great.
It took an overnight train ride to arrive at Marrakech, and we arrived early in the morning. We caught a cab to the central square in the medina Djemma el-Fna, to try and find our nearby hostel. It was 7:30am and the place was a mad house. We made our way through tiny side streets, pathways and archways to a door at the end of a dark hidden pathway. The secret knock, and we were inside. The hostel was beautiful. Huge open outdoor central area covered with cushions. A great way to escape the rat race outside the door. We spent the day walking around the medina, being harassed and taking it all in. In the afternoon we decided to try out a Moroccan hammam, which was quite bizarre. We opted for the slightly more westernised variety. We were given paper underpants to put on, lead into a steam room and steamed to within an inch of our lives. When we were cooked, the Moroccan lady came into the room with soap and scrubbing glove in hand. One at a time we got scrubbed violently and watched our hard earned Portugese tans disappear down the drain. We were scrubbed and cleaned, before having an hour of massage – it was heaven.
The next day we were up early and disappeared through the Atlas Mountains on a mini bus enroute to the Sahara desert. We drove in and out of beautiful scenery, stopping at various places to shop and see the sights. We finally arrived in Zagora after a long day of driving. We popped on our fancy headscarfs, climbed atop camels and rode into the desert. We were incredibly uncomfortable for about 2 hours before finally arriving at our campsite as the sun began to set. It was incredible. An evening of traditional Moroccan food, and music. One thing we’ll never forget, was sitting on the warm sand watching the moon rise, before retiring to sleep under the stars.
In the morning it was up early back onto the camels and back onto the bus. It was a long day of driving, and loads of stops to buy useless touristy stuff before we arrived back in Marrakech. We had the best showers of our lives, before heading out to the central medina to see it transformed into a bustling night food market. We enjoyed incredible food, cooked in front of us and walked around to see some of the several street performances taking place. I finally convinced Alison to get a henna tattoo, so she did – pricey, but very cool looking, plus the lady gave me a little drawing on my arm as well, cute.
We planned to catch the overnight train the following day, so we had the day to wander the sites, visit the Jewish quarter and some of the parks. I decided it was time to visit the snake charmers to prove I’m really not scared of snakes at all. As we approached the 5 or so men sitting on a carpet surrounded by a dozen malnourished cobra’s, I was a little bit sceptical. A young man beckoned me to come and sit down and have a photo, so I did. 2 men placed snakes around my neck and instructed me to hold their heads – because they’ll bite otherwise; awesome. The snake charmer sitting adjacent to me, reached over to move a cobra closer (to optimize the photo op), as he did – it lunged at him, nearly missing his arm. He then reached for his stick and used his stick to push it next to me; double awesome. I sat there, unable to move my arms or legs, for fear of death. However, I’m sitting here writing now – so I obviously survived somehow.
In the evening we made our way to the station, hopped on the train and arrived 12 hours later in Tangier. We boarded the ferry and couldn’t wait to get back to mainland Europe. Morocco was incredible, and we can’t wait to get back to tour more of it, but it was certainly draining being there, and next time we’ll be more prepared. Back to Spain we went!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Portugal
We arrived in Porto at about 11pm after a long days travel, we hadn’t booked accommodation but had general directions to a hostel that was close to the train station. We wandered aimlessly trying to decipher the directions, when a knight in shining armour came to our rescue. A young Portugese bloke asked if we needed any help – which we clearly did; and rather than pointing us in the right direction he walked us up and down streets trying to find it. 20min later and having asked a dozen different people, he lead us to the front door, and with a wave he disappeared into the darkness. Such a lovely change from the northern Spaniards.
The following day I decided it was time to get a haircut. Of course, you can only find hair dressers when you don’t need them, so now that I did, it was quite the task to find one. A solid few hours sightseeing and shopping all the while keeping our eyes open for a hairdresser and we landed in a cool market. The amount of birds in cages (for eating) was a little off putting for Alison, and as I was in the middle of my birds are harmless speech I got shat on by a pigeon.
In the evening we wandered down to the main square and watched Portugal play their first world cup game which was exciting and great to be a part of, yet at the same time one of the most boring games I’ve seen in my life. Later in the day Brazil played, and the entire Portugese-Brazilian community flocked to the main square. The Brazilian fans were going crazy, banging drums, playing trumpets, dancing and screaming through megaphones. The world cup in 2014 is going to be epic.
The next day we did some more sightseeing in the morning, and more shopping, and then POW! we found a hairdresser and I was able to shed much of my mop. I was happy as Larry. Alison had been eyeing off “clown pants” for the preceding few days and finally mustered up the courage to buy her first pair. We named them ‘travellers pants’ but that was just a euphemism for clown pants.
We both really loved Porto, but we decided to head South to Lisbon to see what all the fuss was about. So we hopped on a train and headed down. We were on one of the super fast ones, that have a TV screen telling you the speed – so I kept myself amused by saying to Alison every few minutes “what speed do you think we’re doing?”. After 20minutes of this, I was given the evil eye. So I kept myself amused by asking myself (in my head) “what speed do you think we’re doing?”. Time flew, sometimes at 220km/h.
We arrived and made our way to the greatest hostel. Upon arrival we were given shots of some variety and then fed dinner. The place was spotless, had free breakfast (and dinner) with pancakes, free internet and a huge projection screen set-up for watching world cup games. I was overly impressed with the place which was one of the top listed in the country - although Alison said (and justifiably) that the place was too perfect, and the staff tried so so hard, it was almost fake, and you couldn’t feel completely relaxed there. Having said that – it was super nice and only 12€ a night.
It had been a long wait, but finally we had; A) sunshine, and; B) a beach nearby. So after getting vague instruction we disappeared on the search for the beach. We ended up finding some people with towels in hand, and followed them. Some would say ‘genius’, others ‘stupid’. I’d say genius because we arrived in one piece. We lazed in the sun, and splashed in the icy water (it was unbearably cold) before making our way to the bus stop. Unfortunately the people we had followed on the way to the beach were nowhere to be seen, so we had to work this one out on our own. We eventually did, but the bus stop was a 5min walk in another direction, so it wasn’t a smooth process. We still have no idea which beach we were at.
It had been a few days since our last drinking session, so we thought we’d test out the pub crawl. Can I just say firstly, that all pub crawls should start at 9pm. We got home from the beach at 5:30pm. We bought food, made dinner (then got given dinner) and by 7:30 we were sitting there waiting. The pub crawl started at 11:30. So we thought we’d make an early start with a few others. By the time 11:30 rolled around, (and I emphasize rolled) Alison and I had polished off 2 bottles of red – I say Alison, but really it was 80% me. I was hammered. We were taken to a number of spots, given drinks and shots left right and centre. After a few bars and only 6€ spent, it was home time for me. We opted against the 8min walk and caught a cab.
It was a slow start to the day. An equally slow finish. We slept in, then woke up and made an impressively good batch of spag bowl. Then went sightseeing through Lisbon in the afternoon. We walked around, went up to the castle where I got yelled at by security for walking on top of the castle walls, the other 47people doing it were ok though. We got ourselves a handful of some of the Portugese egg tarts – awesome, then headed home for an early night.
We awoke and caught the bus further south to Lagos in the Algarve district. We arrived and checked into our hostel quickly because Australia was about to take on Ghana in the world cup. We were starving so we thought we’d go down for a quick bite somewhere along the promenade. Quick bite. We arrived and sat down at a restaurant in front of a TV, still 15min before the game started. We ordered quickly (set menu) and had our first course come out almost immediately. Next course 5min into the game. Next course and last course, I requested as the half time whistle blew. We waited. As the second half started we received our coffee. At which point I requested the bill. 15min into the second half, I re-requested the bill. 30min into the half I re-re-requested the bill. (I wasn’t going to watch the game anywhere else now, it was simply out of principle). 40min into the second half, I watched as 2 tables adjacent whom had arrived at half time – received their bill. I was fuming, Alison was laughing – this didn’t help. As the final whistle blew, (including 5min of overtime) one of the nearby tables had alerted the waitress that perhaps our table would like the bill. At about 11 separate occasions murder was almost committed. But we received the bill for our ‘Quick Bite’, and I was on edge. It took Alison a few minutes and a few drinks to calm me down. In hindsight, it was hilarious. The comedy of errors could not have been scripted better. One day I’ll make a movie about it.
In the evening we went to Monkey bar and bumped into a few of our Aussie friends from San Seb and drank on with them. We also met some other cool travellers Katie and Henry. We had another Portugese style drinking session, cheap and hard. We ticked bar after bar off the list. Joe’s Garage, DC’s, Monkey Bar, Moon Rising. I have photographic evidence showing Alison dancing on the top of the bar shamelessly. Having said that, I was earlier sprung pole dancing on top of the bar – but that was cool. At about 2:30am, Alison agreed that the booze cruise the following day was a top idea.
I woke Al at 11am and informed her that we were to meet Henry and Katie in 30min, as she had agreed to a booze cruise. She had no knowledge of this. With her head hanging low, she begrudgingly accepted and we got ready. When we met the others, it was a unanimous decision that perhaps today wasn’t the best day to do a booze cruise. So we made our way to the beach. A beautiful secluded beach surrounded by rock formations and caves. It was our ‘spot’ for the next 5 or so days (looking back, I wish I was there now). In the evening we met Henry and Katie and went out for a traditional Portugese meal – I had steak and chips. After dinner we went back to Moon Rising because Henry had a mate working there, so although they were practically giving away booze, we thought we could get it cheaper. And we could. We hinted that the bar tender should play drinking games with us, and in exchange, no money was to change hands for our drinks. I discovered yet another thing that I was really bad at (or good at depending on how you looked at it). So I lost 3 games consecutively, and had to drink 3 beers – free. This game continued and Henry and I got a little wasted. I went to bed. In my bed.
Somehow (and I still have no explanation for this) the following morning I awoke in another poor travellers bed. It took me a few minutes to work out where I was, and how I got there. A few months on – I still haven’t worked it out.
After a few messy days and nights, we had a detox day at ‘our’ spot. The following day was also spent at our spot. I decided I’d had enough of watching all the other lucky punters with their mini racquets and balls, so I forked out 4€ and bought my own. Alison and I played enthusiastically for about 6min before my paddle snapped in half. Heartbroken we continued (somehow) with one paddle. 2 more minutes past before Alison’s paddle broke. Gutted we sat down. However, on the bright side, we still had the ball, and still do have the ball which has provided many hours of joy.
In the evening we made an Australian friend in the hostel. Frank. Frank was super cool and from Melbourne. We decided we would go out for a drink with Frank. However at about 10, Frank decided that he needed a nap for a minute. Frank was not seen again that night. However, Frank had some sidekicks that we met and hung out with. We went out and Alison went a bit crazy. We went to a bar and Alison ordered a cocktail (caipirinha). It was 2 for 1 cocktails, so rather than asking what I wanted, she ordered 2 for herself (a long island ice tea). You also got a free shot with your first drink. We’d been out for 20min and Al had smashed all three. The following two bars had a similar outcome. Al was drinking like it was going out of fashion. Eventually we headed home and Al was a little worse for wear.
The next morning Al was feeling a bit rough, and unfortunately we had to change hostels. So we moved on out and checked in. I went to a take away store up the street to buy Alison some food, I ordered fish and chips. I got chips, and a cold piece of fish – what the hell was I supposed to do with that? After eating Al’s chips, we went to the beach. We decided again to have a bit of a detox. So we chilled at home in the evening and recovered.
Next day was spent at our spot. We tried to do a kayak tour of the grotto’s but it was too windy. I didn’t notice any wind, but it was apparently there. We had another detox afternoon, although I went out to the bar to watch a bunch of the world cup games.
We opted to do the kayak tour the following day. It was a little overcast which was disappointing. The first overcast day since leaving Spain. The tour was amazing though, and kayaking was the best way to do it. We could have been taken in a speed boat, but that’s nowhere near as fun, plus we were able to go in and out of tiny little caves inaccessible to bigger boats. The formations were spectacular, and the photos don’t really do it justice. In the evening over a few glasses of wine, we decided maybe it was a good idea to keep on travelling. So we went to sleep early so we could catch the early bus in the morning. Unfortunately some unruly Australian neighbours made sure we didn’t get much sleep at all.