Marrakech

As I approach the end of my time in Morocco, a feeling of sadness sweeps over me and a single tear rolls down my cheek. Oh wait, no. That was sweat. It is ridiculously hot here. I am a little sad to leave, though. I have just 2 days left here in Marrakech before heading back to Madrid and then on to London and Dublin.

Marrakech is a Fun Times city. All kinds of craziness goes on in Djemaa El Fna (the main square) at night. Craziness such as snake charmers...with their snakes...um...charming them; performing monkeys; storytellers; musicians; other random crazy people; there are also guys who walk around wearing hats with tassels on them and carrying a set of cymbals. One of these guys will walk up to a tourist and start rolling his head around to get the tassel spinning while simultaneously singing and crashing his cymbals together. After a few moments of this he will pull off his hat and hold it before the tourist, asking for money. Right. Last night I also observed one guy walking around with a chicken on his head. He didn't appear to be doing anything other than just walking around with this chicken contentedly stationed on top of his head. Weird.

Besides the great entertainment, there are many tantalizing food options which are cooked in open-air food stalls. Each food stall is encircled by picnic-style tables and benches for the convenience of the happy diners. These are lit by bare light bulbs strung over the tables. For any of my readers who are planning to check them out, I have one piece of advice: Don't sit near the lightbulbs unless you wish to share your meal with the local insect population. Regarding the typical fare at these food stalls, a couple of good options are sheep's head and snails. Although I have not tried those specific dishes myself, I have had some lovely couscous, tajine, and brochettes. Maybe I'll try the sheep's head tonight. And maybe not. Ok...not.

Not everything about Marrakech is Fun Times, though. As we were eating our dinner last night, countless children approached us begging for money or attempting to sell small packs of tissue and souvenirs. At one point I reflected that when I was that age, by that time of night I would have already eaten my dinner and gone to bed- but these children were running around in the streets and who knows when the last time was that they had eaten?

Another sad thing here is the general treatment of animals. As I was sitting outside a café drinking mint tea yesterday, a couple of horses pulling a cart went down the street in front of me. They were so painfully skinny that their ribs were sticking out. For the most part, it seems that horses and donkey are overworked and beaten all day long, and they aren't even fed properly. I have also seen quite a few cats, but they are all very skinny and most of the cats I've seen have been kittens, so I assume that not many make it into adulthood. I suppose that animals being malnourished should not be surprising in a country where many people struggle just to feed themselves and their families. Still, it's sad to see and the abuse is even harder to observe.

The souks in Marrakech are pretty impressive. Most large cities in Morocco have souks, they are a labyrinth of shops which sell everything from chess sets, to rugs, to caftans, to tea sets, etc. I bought a pretty cool chess set this morning. I haggled with the guy and got it for half his original asking price. Very fun. Then Matt and I played chess this afternoon and I lost. Not as much fun. Oh well. Next time I'll beat him up first so he lets me win.

We're planning on going back to the souks and doing some more shopping. So if you want a souvenir, post a comment on here with your requests/suggestions. I guess it pays to check my blog...heh heh heh(devilish laugh) But I think I hear the call to prayer (which we loosely translate as the call to mint tea), so I'm off to do my duty and drink some mint tea. Mmmmm....mint tea.

Morocco

I'm in Morocco. I can hardly believe it. I've been so excited about coming for so long. Now I'm finally here, but it seems totally surreal. We took an overnight bus from Madrid to Algeciras last night, then we took a ferry from Algeciras to Tangiers, then a train from Tangiers to Fès. So by the time we got to Fès, it was 6 pm(4 pm after the time change). We left Madrid at 10:30 pm last night. Yeah, that's a lot of travelling. Lucky for me, I can sleep just about anywhere, and after eleven days hiking, it was even easier than usual.

There are so many things I could talk about right now. I'm so excited to be here and I don't really know where to start. After we got settled in at a hotel, we went for a bite to eat. The food was amazing and really cheap. I had my first mint tea and it was really good. Then we walked down some streets crowded with all kinds of different shops selling everything from pottery, to musical instruments, to rugs, to spices. The shops seemed to go on forever. We didn't really stop to look at anything, partly because we didn't want to initiate the whole haggling process and partly because there was just so much, it was a bit overwhelming.

Tomorrow we're going to explore the city some more and find out where the nearest bathhouse (called a hammam) is. They usually have part of the day for men only and part of the day for women only. With all of the knots my back and shoulders have acquired from doing the Camino de Santiago, I am really looking forward to a massage.

If I haven't made it clear already, just being here is amazing. I'm really at a loss for words. There is so much that I haven't even mentioned. As I was telling Matt earlier today, I feel like I'm in the movie, "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (an Alfred Hitchcock film set in Marrakech). I can't describe it. And so, I think I will stop for now and maybe in a few days I'll do a better job.

I´m tired

Well, we did it. We arrived in Santiago de Compostela just before noon today, and I am completely exhausted. We´re taking an overnight train tonight at about 10:30 pm. That will be a bit strange for two reasons: 1) The only mode of transportation we´ve used for almost two weeks is our own feet. 2) We´re always in bed before 10:00. It should be good fun, though.

After eating lunch and showering, we took our packs to the train station to store them in luggage lockers. I briefly contemplated staying at the train station for 5 hours to avoid the 10 minute walk back into town. That´s how tired I am. A bit ironic when you consider the hours upon hours I´ve spent walking during the last two weeks, huh? But in the end I managed to drag myself into town. Hopefully I´ll be able to get some good rest on the train tonight and maybe take a nap tomorrow, because tomorrow night I´ll be on an overnight bus. Not relaxing. But despite my exhausted state, I can´t wait for Morocco.

I am a member of the Hardcore Crew

Yes, it´s true. I am hardcore. I´m not bragging- just stating facts. For the last week or so, the other five members of my hiking group and myself have been affirming to each other several times a day that we are, in fact, hardcore. Our hardcoreness, if you will, is demonstrated constantly in a variety of ways. Examples? 1) The blisters, burns, and other injuries that we bear on our bodies- which do not stop us from hiking. Every morning before we venture out, blisters are drained, feet are bandaged, ibuprofen is administered, etc. But we keep on. 2) The route we have chosen is the primitive route. This means that the route is...well... primitive. It is much less popular and the trail is harder to navigate than some of the others. We all came to the conclusion today that the Camino de Santiago would make a good video game. There are many near-deadly perils along the way, such as stinging nettles which jump out suddenly from the bushes, thorns that spring out from inconspicuous shrubbery, dirt that instantly turns into mud and sucks you in when you step on it, R.O.U.S.´s (rodents of unusual size), etc. I may be exaggerating slightly there, but a few of us were chased by a horse a couple days ago, we were nearly stampeded by a herd of cows once, and there have been more than a few dogs that have done their best to get at us. Not to mention a bull that we cautiously passed on the path the other day. Our taking the primitive route also means that we have fewer options regarding places to stop. The French route has an albergue (pilgrim´s lodging place) every 5 k or so. If a pilgrim on that route gets tired, he has many different options for places to stay. Not us. We have a set hike each day and there generally aren´t other options for us. We hike until we get there. 3) We often complete our hikes significantly under the time alotment. This is because we hike quickly, we don´t take breaks often, and the breaks are short. 4) We just are. Take my word for it. We´re hardcore. That´s my story and I´m sticking to it.

We only have 53 k left of our hike. It´s amazing to me to think that I have hiked over 200 k in the last 9 days. Today´s hike was about 32 k. We´re pretty tired, but it wasn´t hot for most of the hike and that helped a great deal. We actually had a bit of a thunderstorm, which was pretty cool. We were sort of hoping to get poured on, but that didn´t happen. Also, we´re hiking in Galicia now, which is not nearly as mountainous as Asturias was. But probably the main reason the hike wasn´t as difficult as we expected it to be is that we grow more hardcore by the day. Tomorrow we have another 33 k, then 20 k on Sunday and we´re in Santiago!

Although this hike has left me completely thrashed, I have enjoyed it. Thinking that it will be over in just a couple of days is almost sad. Almost. I´m definitely looking forward to sleeping in (we´ve been getting up around 5 most days) and letting my body heal. I´m also really looking forward to going to Morocco and the other travel that I have planned for the next month. But for now I think I´ll just go put some aloe vera on my sunburns.

Pain

I´m writing this on day 5 of 11 on the Camino de Santiago. It has been a lot more than I bargained for, to say the least. When it´s all said and done, we will have hiked 270 km. Not bad. When I decided to come along for the hike, I thought, "A little over 167 miles, that would be an average of about 15 miles per day. No big deal, I can walk 4 miles/hour easily..." However, hiking over hills with a backpack on is completely different from walking on a treadmill at the gym.

At this point you may be thinking, "Duh." Understand, though, I didn´t really know what to expect. In my mind, I sort of pictured a trail that meandered through quaint little towns in northern Spain- not a sometimes muddy, sometimes rocky, sometimes barely visible trail that darts back and forth over rugged hills. Almost every time we stop for a water break, my water bottle hisses when I open it because of the change in elevation. Today we hiked 27.6 km in just over 7 hours (the book said it would take 8, but we were seriously hauling). According to my earlier calculations, that should have taken just over 4 hours. Ha.

I think I´m enjoying it, though. I´m too tired and in too much pain to really be sure, but the scenery has been amazing and it has been great to get away from the smog and cigarette smoke of Madrid. It has also been a great opportunity to hang out with friends and get to know them better. We talk a lot while we hike in order to focus on something other than the pain and how far we have left to go. Also, there is nothing like wearing yourself out to make you appreciate relaxing.

At the end of the day, it´s an extremely satisfying feeling to know you´ve pushed yourself to the limit and accomplished your goal. We all have battle scars to prove it, too. My personal claim to fame is the wounds I got on the second day of our hike. Apparently, I did not sufficiently break in my hiking boots before the trip. I noticed that morning before commencing the hike that I was starting to get blisters on the back of my heels. So, I thought I would prevent them by putting on some Compede bandages. I also tied my shoes a little tighter than I had the day before because I thought that was why I was getting the blisters. BAD IDEA. I was actually getting the blisters because the shoes were too small, so I really only compounded the problem. The longer we hiked, the more my feet hurt. But I consoled myself with the knowledge that I had properly bandaged my feet and that the bandages just needed time to work in before the pain would subside. Finally, we stopped for a break and the extreme pain that I was experiencing with every step motivated me to take off my shoes and look at my feet. The bandages were still in place, but as I took off my sock I noticed that there was blood in it. Apparently, my toes were crowded together too much and one of my toenails was cutting into one of my toes. That should have been my clue that the shoes were too tight, huh? But no. After hiking 28 km, we finally arrived at our destination for the day. After enjoying a wonderful meal in a very nice hotel, we were told that we could shower there before going to the albergue. Peregrinos get special treatment!

As I took of my boots, I saw that the bandage had come mostly off of my right foot. Not only that, it had taken the skin with it- a patch approximately 2" square. Not fun. Later that night, the bandage came off of my other foot with a slightly smaller patch of skin. So, that has added all kinds of excitement to hiking. I´m hiking in my running shoes now, which are much more comfortable. However, they´ve been my running shoes for a while and they are getting pretty worn out. So, I think I have about 4-5 blisters on my feet now. I noticed 3 last night, but I was too tired to even bandage them or anything. I think my toenails have been cutting in to my toes, as well. I´ll check all that out tonight. Oh well.

It has most certainly been an adventure thus far. Pictures will be forthcoming, but I currently do not have any way to post them and I´m not sure how long it will be before I do. With all of this said, I´m going to close now. I´ve got a couple more kilometers to hike out to the albergue where we´re staying tonight before I can shower and doctor up my blisters and sunburn. So long!