A guide in Fes

After a bit Michael also woke up and we talked about what we would do. The problem was, we had only one key, so were dependent on each other. He was on a mission to buy and sell. He also had been to Morocco before, so I thought I could benefit from his experience. He didn't want to go with the girls as he thought they would slow him down, so he suggested we should go separate ways from them after breakfast. I was complacent to this. On the one hand I thought it would be great to go with the girls, since they planned to stay in Morocco for almost two weeks (I think the "Spanish girls" planned to stay for 9 days, whereas the polish girls planned for 12 days) and maybe I could travel together with them for a while, on the other hand, there was Michael's experience. I was also unsure of how communication would be with the girls since I didn't know about everyones language expertise yet.

In the end the whole group walked together and we ended up following a false guide, because some of the girls apparently thought it would be a good idea. So not aware of the fact, that we already were in the medina, a boy was leading us to the medina.

He lead us through small backstreets and to a few shops one of them was a shop of leather wares and we could see the tannery of Fes from its roof - and smell it too.

Someone explained the process of tanning and a few pictures were taken. After that we we continued our tour, although at some point parts of our group wanted to get away from the false guide, somehow we still kept following even into the carpet shop of our guide's father. I did not want to enter the shop and stayed at the entrance with An(n)a at first, but after everyone else settled down and have been invited repeatedly, we gave up the resistance and sat down with the others.
The father of the guide then explained the carpet weaving process and Moroccan tea was served. Then he displayed many carpets for us to buy.

Even though nobody in the group needed (or wanted) to buy a carpet some of the girls were talking about buying one of the small carpets to get it over with and asked for prices.
After sitting around for at least an hour in this shop, I decided that this was enough and said I don't want to buy a carpet and left for the entrance, waiting there for the others. After a while the others followed without buying anything too.
The guide then talked with someone who presumably was his brother and it seems they were not too happy. Yet still they said everything was fine and he insisted on guiding us further. However after a few metres I and Michael decided to get away and move around without the guide. Then the girls wanted to be rid of the guide too and they decided to pay him 20 MAD.

To be continued..

Student protests in Agadir, Morocco

Far too long since I have last written a blog entry here, and I'll only continue my travel report next time. I have been staying in Agadir with students for about a week now.

While staying here I have visited the university(Université Ibn Zohr) a few times and while visiting for the first time(on the 10th), I saw students standing in a circle and chanting something. I didn't think much of it, but took a picture. Asking what this was about I was told they were protesting for students rights. It seemed like the usual protests we had in Germany; a peaceful demonstration which will be ignored in the end, so I forgot about it.

Then on the 17th one of the students here told me he had just come back from a demonstration at the university and police was there. Not just the normal police, but police that looks like army to me. He had escaped an arrest attempt but they had caught his friend. He told me one of the students had been imprisoned(in the past) for a year, just for protesting. It seems protests are happening all the time and I hear police sirens and whistleing students almost every day now (I heard them again while I was writing this, yesterday and just now again).
I took some pictures of the police too, but you can't see much, since I took the pictures from far away (I figured since they don't like reporters here in Morocco, it would not be smart being seen taking pictures of the police..). If you look carefully, you can see the guys in green though (in the middle of the first picture, the cars are all police cars):

This shows that there is still a lot to do in Morocco in terms of human rights. Jailing students just for protesting seems ridiculous to me.

Arrival in Fes

Finally we had made our way through the hall and could get our luggage. There also was a money exchange office, so we took the opportunity and changed some money. Next to the exchange office, there was a phone. It was phone where you had to insert a card. Naturally I thought: "Awesome, a phone where I can just insert my debit card and call!" I tried that, but to no avail, the phone didn't accept the card. Then I tried the credit card .. didn't work either. I thought: "Hmm maybe that's the bug which forced banks to reissue a lot of cards in Germany." Meaning I couldn't call that guy. Thus we decided to just go to Fes and try our luck and left the building to look for the bus to Fes.
The first encounter with the Morocco of tourists awaited us just beyond the door. A bunch of taxi drivers was offering to take us to Fes. I don't remember the first price they asked for I think it was something like 100 MAD per person. That's about 10 €uro. Now before I came here I read the maximum you should pay was 20 MAD per person for a grand taxi. We wanted to wait for the bus, but they(the taxi drivers) told us, the last bus was already gone.
We weren't the only ones waiting, there was a group of girls from Spain and we, or rather Michael(he speaks Spanish), got into a discussion with them. (Actually only one of them was from Spain as it turned out later) Then one of the girls( Anna or Ana ) also spoke English and she translated a bit for us. In the end we took two taxis to the Medina of Fes. (We payed 25 MAD per person, the Spanish girls got a better price ifirc) Friends of the Spanish girls had booked a hotel online and we first tried there, but at first they said they were booked out or something. Then we tried the next closest hotel and upon entering a boy asked me: "Quanto Sombrero ?" which is broken Spanish for: "How much for the hat ?" I was confused and didn't understand the :"Quanto" at first so wondered what he wanted and went on. The hotel offered little more than small dirty rooms with beds and also asked too much for them. ( I think they asked something like 75MAD per night per person. )
Then suddenly that other hotel wasn't booked out anymore, but was pretty much the same as the other one. So on we went and tried a far better looking one - they even had a reception. After some bargaining (when we were about to leave) we got an offer of 120 MAD for a double room, so 60 MAD per person. The "Spanish" girls didn't want to take the offer at first but we where tired of searching and so in the end all of us stayed in the hotel. I shared a room with Michael, the Polish girls shared a room and the Spanish girls shared another (bigger) room. We even had a TV in the room and the others apparently had hot water. Unfortunately Internet wasn't working for the time being, they told us.
We went all went to eat something and later walked a bit through the streets but not for to long, being tired from the day. So we returned to our rooms and just for fun I turned my Laptop on - suprise the Internet was working fine. Being tired I didn't really do anything and just went to sleep. The night was a bit cold, (but still ok) since the windows were really thin (as everywhere in Morocco) and there was no isolation to speak of. The next morning I tried the Internet again - didn't work.

To be continued.

Long time no post.

Yes I am still alive and sort of well ( I have caught a cold).

A lot has happened since I arrived in Fes, Morocco. The most obvious thing is that I failed to post my plans before executing them. This was in a large part due to the fact, that I didn't plan anything, but also due to other circumstances. Well, I'll just start at the beginning I suppose. I just can't spice up things with fotos this time, because I haven't made any since arriving in Fes since there were so many with good Cameras around and I still have to ask for permission on whether I can post them.

So I took that flight on the 1st as mentioned in the last article and arrived on schedule in Madrid. Walking through endless corridors in the Madrid airport, denying offers for taxi transportation and waiting for the check-in for my next flight I arrived in the waiting hall for my flight to Fes. Unusually for Ryan Air the boarding started late. What's more, this time they actually carefully checked luggage to fit size requirements etc.. I think the flight was almost booked out. This all took quite some time and so we started late. I heard one of the guys responsible for the checking etc.. saying that this was the second longest boarding he had ever experienced. Lucky I wasn't around for the other one.. ;)

It was impossible to catch this up and so we arrived late. I don't remember, maybe it really was an hour too late ? On the flight I noticed a blonde girl with a green backpack and I wondered whether she was another couchsurfer, she definitely looked like a traveling student. But more on that in a few sentences.

Leaving the plane I felt a bit lost. Having booked no hotel or prepared anything I was wondering were I would end up. Well I had a contact from couchsurfing who would show me around in the city. So the first thing to do after getting my luggage would have been to call him. He also knew a few hotels he could show me.
Then there was an endless line in the reception hall of the airport and everyone had to fill out a form with information on job, place of departure and destination. The only problem was I had no pen and I wasn't the only person with that problem. The blonde girl and her friend (girl) also were looking for a pen. They asked a blonde guy who was filling out his form and I noticed on his form, that he came from Germany. I then asked him for a pen too, and learned that his name was Michael. We talked a bit and the girls(Hanusia and Paulina) joined in. It turned out nobody had booked a hotel yet, so we decided to look for one together and I told them I had a guy from Couchsurfing to call. As it turned out Hanusia and Paulina are both on Couchsurfing too and I thought: "Wow this seems far more common than I ever imagined!"

To be continued ... I am going to eat something now !

To africa I fly

Tomorrow(Monday) I'll fly to Morocco! It will definitely be interesting. I haven't booked a hotel or planned anything. So far I have always booked things beforehand... I'll be meeting a Moroccan student there, who'll show me around a bit.
I don't even have exchanged money beforehand...

As price politics go these days I am not flying the shortest route, because that wouldn't be the cheapest!
I'll be flying to Madrid first and 2 hours later fly to Fes from there. And then I'll be lost for the first time and see where my path leads me. :)

No time left. I'll write again, as soon as I find an internet connection over there. ;)

Traveling and equipment

If you go travel for longer periods, you have to carefully consider what to take along and what not. I thought I'd post every now and then what proved useful and what didn't, as it might be useful to others. ;)

I bought most of the things at http://www.globetrotter.de/ (you can also find the link in my link section) they basically offer everything a traveler needs and also deliver to other countries than Germany. ( I had them deliver things to Spain, that weren't on store when I was still in Germany)
However it didn't make sense to buy everything beforehand because I'd have to carry things around half a year before I put them to use eventually. ;)

Well let's start with something I didn't buy and why. Functional Clothing. The main reason was just price. The more affordable products all had mixed reviews. Then the wool products would have been a risk as I've never worn wool and don't know how my skin would have reacted (some people really can't wear wool clothing). Lastly also some South America travelers advised against it and said cotton products would make more sense. So I just stayed with cheap cotton products, which can be cheaply replaced on the road. ;) Downside more clothing is required and thus more weight, but so far I am still light enough on the weight side of things.. ;)

Dangerous Wildlife

For the most part Mallorca is not dangerous. Sure there are gangs robbing public busses and sometimes there is police armed with MGs patrolling the streets, but that's just humans.. !
So at first I thought that's it. But then I learned there is actual dangerous wildlife here.

The first, which I have not actually encountered yet, is the common snapping turtle. I never saw turtles as a source of danger until now. These ones are supposedly capable of biting off your hand and they are also fast moving!
Not the slow helpless thing I had in mind when I thought of tortoises. They even have claws, surely the only thing missing would be spikes on their shells.(Image is courtesy of Wikipedia)

Then there are Thaumetopoeidae caterpillars.. When I was a kid it was: "Look a caterpillar" not "Stay away from caterpillars! They are dangerous." How so ? Well it doesn't bite off anything it just has nasty bristles which easily break off to become airborne death threats. That is, if you breathe those bristles in. Just coming into contact with them isn't enjoyable either, resulting in rashes and pruritus.
You can see a nest, of which I have seen many today, on the image (which is also courtesy of Wikipedia).

So even turtles and caterpillars are dangerous!