Morocco: Toilets

In my family toilets are an important matter.
In Morocco toilets were slightly different from the ones at home:
The toilets didn't have paper, instead there was a very well-used bucket. One had to squat instead of sit. It was impossible to flush the toilet for the was no flushing mechanism, instead there was a little tap to fill the bucket.
In Arabic countries as I soon found out toilets are used like so:
Step 1- You fill the bucket up with water.
Step 2- You squat and hope for the best.
Step 3- You wet your left hand in the bucket and clean your bottom with that same hand.
Step 4-You rinse your hand with the water from the bucket.
Step 5-Throw the water into the pit, and watch how the pit tries to cope with all the stuff you've put in it.

Eureka ! ! !

And in Arabic countries don't forget: never use your left to shake hands.

Morocco: Fossils

I love fossils! On our way to the dessert we stopped in Erfoud, a town well known for its marble industry which produces a black marble containing fossils. The morning we were leaving we decided to visit one of the fossil workshops.
The shop was impressive. The walls and the shelves were littered with carved stones containing fossils. The man in the shop explained to us that they find the chunks of marble rock and then they polish the rock until it has a smooth surface so they can make it into sinks or plates or whatever they want. Apart from that they also carved them individually.

At first some of the fossils seemed to impressive to be real. But then the man explained that the fossils were originally all jumbled up one on top of the other, and that they separated them to leave the best ones on the rock. The photograph at the top has my shoe next to the fossil so you can compare the size. And the photo at the bottom is one of the working tables in which they chiseled the fossils.

Morocco: The Journey

Part of our trip to Morocco mainly consisted in driving. Our journey started in Ceuta. From Ceuta we went to Chefchaouen. The countryside there was more like Spain, and wasn't so hot. From Chefchaouen we went to Fes. That was a long hot ride with very arid scenery.We spent a flew nights at a campsite just outside Fes, and after that we headed to the Middle Atlas. We got lost a few times but at the end we fount a little hotel in a berber village next to the cedar forest. The next day we drove though the cedar forest all day and we camped in the middle of the forest.
Our next stop was Middelt. We stayed two nights in Middelt and then we continued south to the High Atlas. After that we passed the High Atlas we stopped in Ergh Chebbi, the desert. And that was as far south as we went. From Erg Chebbi we went to Meknes and visited the ruins of the ancient Roman town of Volubilis. Then we went to the coastal village of Asilah which was full of Spanish tourists and after that we went back to Ceuta. This is a photograph of a herd of camels surrounding my car.

Morocco: Desert

The Erg Chebbi dunes are a patch of sand twenty two km long and five km wide that stretch along the Southeast of Morocco, fifteen kilometers from Argelia.
This was probably one of the highlights of our trip to Morocco.
We got there, it was late afternoon, but it was still hot. We got out of the car and started heading for the dunes.
We walked along the dunes, and took photographs. The dunes really are just as you see them in films but its actually very special being there. There were kilometers and kilometers of sand just waiting to be trodden on but unfortunately we didn't explore much. As you can see in the photo I took it was cloudy so we couldn't see the sunset. But the feeling of being there in that evaporated sea was something I'll hopefully never forget.

The whale tour

After Morocco we took a whale tour in the Strait of Gibraltar.This was one of the photographs I took of the killer whales. The Strait is a very special place for marine life because the currents between the Mediterranean sea and the Atlantic sea mix and the are lots of nutrients in the water. This attracts lots fish. And fish attract bigger fish. And bigger fish attract dolphins and whales. And whales attract tourists. So that's why we went there, to see whales. The first whales we saw were Pilot whales. They were quite easy going.
After that we saw some Bottle nosed dolphins just behind them, they were amazing. They jumped and splashed and they did what a dolphin is supposed to do. We stayed with the dolphins quite a lot of time, and after that the serious whale hunt began:
We headed to the Moroccan coast were the Moroccan fishermen were fishing for tuna. Tuna is the killer whale's specialty. So what they do is they wait for the fishermen to catch the tuna and eat it up before they pull up the line. This was probably one of the highlights of our journey.
There they were, a pack of twelve killer whales just in front of our boat. We saw them for at least fifteen minutes .Until it was time to go. I had a very nice time on the whale tour, and I hope I can do it again some time.

Morocco: Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen was our first stop in Morocco. Chefcaouen is a village in the Rif mountains (Morocco). It's home to about 36000 people and attractive to tourists. It has an old casbah which was used to fight the Portuguese.This is one of the photographs I took when I went there . In 1920 it was invaded by the Spanish and given back to Morocco in Morocco's independence day 1956. I liked the town very much. The Medina was the prettiest part of all. And what impressed me most was to see children working to earn money for their family.
I didn't enjoy the tea or the couscous. But the rest of the food was all fine.
I also noticed the people used donkeys to carry things around and that is something that doesn't happen any more in Spain because they have been substituted by modern technology.