Holy sh!t: eight hours in Fes

I’ve just spent the past hour or so looking at photos from Australia. I am homesick. I want to go home. England isn’t home enough for the way I feel right now. I want to go home.

This is what Fes has done to us. We’re broken women. We don’t want to be leered at, sworn at, spat at, told we’re pretty or called “fish and chips” anymore. We don’t want to be fleeced by one more Moroccan; lost in one more medina; eat any more tagine or cous cous. The love affair with Morocco is over. We’re going home. Or at least to Spain, which is a step in the right direction.

Shall I start from the beginning?

We arrived in Fes just after midday on the train from Marrakech. Bindi and I say our goodbyes to a nice couple we met on the train and leave the station walking confidently toward the road saying, “No, no” to every person asking us if we want a taxi.

Before too long we realise there aren’t that many taxis on the main road because they are all driving into the station car park; so remembering our Marrakech experience (OK, the driver may have had to pray for his taxi to start but at least he didn’t rip us off, and we met him in the station car park!) we say: “Oh, well, we may as well get in one of these.” And as luck would have it, right at that moment an English-speaking gentleman kindly asks us if we need a taxi. We say: “Yes please.”

We start walking toward the road, and I ask: “Where is your taxi?”
“I’ll flag you one,” he nonchalantly replies.

Alarm bells start ringing.
“Oh no, we’re going to have to pay him for this! We were already heading in this direction. Damn! I read not to fall for this trick.”

He must have heard the alarm bells going off in my head because he suddenly said: “I am from the Office of Tourism. It is my job to show people around the city. I can give you a tour of the medina for 70 dirham.”

“Shivers,” I think. “We’ve been had.”

Bindi gives me a knowing stare and asks: “Are we going to have to pay him for this?”
I’m not sure because he’s just mentioned the 70 dirham for the tour, which may mean that’s all he wants. Considering we paid 130 dirham each for some banal hop-on, hop-off tourist embarrassment in Marrakech, we agree this is a pretty good deal and ask for his card.

“Oh, I am coming in the taxi with you. You can’t find your hotel in the medina. It’s the largest living Islamic medieval city in the world. I’ll show you.”

Shivers.

Oh well, he seems nice enough, and we get out of the taxi, paying the 12 dirham he said it would cost and we follow him through a maze of narrow alleys, dark lanes, through market stalls and past artisans galore. We’re so lost. He’s right – there is no way we could have found this.

Wait a second! Bindi and I have the same thought: “Did he get the taxi to drop us off at a place so far away we would think we needed him?”

We’ll never know, because when we get to our hotel we do need him. We need him to get us right on out of there. Fast.

By this time though, our guide has changed. Our guide from the Office of Tourism introduces us to his friend (who knows where he came from?) and tells us his friend will show us to a better place. And in truth, it is nicer, but more expensive than where we stayed in Marrakech and not a patch on it. Still, 500 dirham a night seems OK for a room in a nice riad with a private bathroom, and private bathrooms are essential in Morocco. (The stench didn’t get to us until we were too tired to move later that night.)

By this time it’s a given we’re having the 70 dirham tour but Bindi and I are starving, so we agree to start after lunch. Our new guide offers to take us to a “nice place with very good food, and very cheap”.

Yipee! We need to save money now that we’re splashing out on accommodation.

Or not.

After about 20 minutes of following Guide No. 2 through the most bizarre lanes and alleys where the sun just can’t get in, we get to a fancy looking restaurant that’s called, originally, “Authentic Moroccan cuisine”.

Tourist trap! Tourist trap! Tourist trap!

We are so hungry however, we sit down quietly to eat. Guide No. 2 then says he’ll see us in an hour and disappears.

The menu arrives. We’re only given one menu and it’s enough food to feed an army for the set price of 160 dirham. Cheap? Cheap, my bottom, this is Morocco. We dined out for two days on that budget in Marrakech. When I ask for the standard menu the waiter suddenly doesn’t understand. And then I start to feel beads of sweat on my forehead.

Bindi asks: “Where are we?”

I reply: “What’s our hotel called?”

One of us kindly reminds the other: “They’ve got our passports and all our bags.”

Holy sh!t. I am absolutely freaking out by this stage. I remember reading something about the Tourist Police in Morocco and I think the Lonely Planet might have a number for them. I open it up to Fes and spot a heading: Dangers and annoyances. I read on: “Fes has long been notorious for its faux guides. This situation has improved with the introduction of a Brigade Touristique (Tourist Police). Still, high unemployment forces many to persist. A few hustlers hang about the train station and hotels…”

And yet despite this rather alarming warning, the sage publishers of Lonely Planet have not seen fit to include a phone number for the flipping Brigade Touristique. Alarm bells are not what is going off in my head right now. It’s more like an evacuation siren. Bindi seems rather calm though and I’m getting courage from her.

“It’s only about £10,” she says, thinking I am freaking out about the price of lunch.

She has a point. It could all just be about money. So what? It’s only money. We’ll pay Guide No. 2 to show us around, take us to our hotel, we’ll get our bearings, pay him whatever he wants and all will be fine. We’re temporarily calm.

“So, should we leave on the 8.30am bus tomorrow?”
“Yep.” There’s no hesitation.

Right, let’s get some perspective. The guides seem nice enough. Unemployment is high, they just want our money. Not our belongings. Besides, we’ve got all our valuables with us. And it’s not like they’re going to drag us down one of the 9,200 dark alleys of the medina and rob us, is it? Is it? This is too scary to say out loud. No, they’re nice. We’ll give them a tip!

Our hour is up. And the food was good, to be fair. More than we could ever, ever eat, but having paid the extortionate price of 160 dirham each for it, we wrap up four biscuits and shove a couple of bananas and oranges in our bags for dinner. The hour is well and truly past though and still no guide. Bindi isn’t so calm anymore. Her words, which went something along the lines of, “The minute our guide walks through that door will be the happiest moment of my life” did not feel comforting to me at that time.

The tourist trap doesn’t seem to be so much of a tourist trap anymore. No tourists in here really, just us, and quite a lot of wait staff.

Guide No. 2 shows up! Yipeeeeee! It is indeed a happy moment. We’re so relieved we see fit to complain about the bill. It doesn’t get us a reduction but we don’t want them to think we’re loaded, do we? We pay the flipping £10 and sit waiting for our change when we’re introduced to Guide No. 3. Another friend. He speaks better English. He will show us everything we want to see.

“What’s the name of our hotel?” we simultaneously shriek, and for once we’re not embarrassed about talking in synch.

“Don’t worry, we will show you, we will show you.”

Firmly: “No, we need to know. I need to write it down.”

Good sign: Guide No. 3 writes it down for us and explains where it is. Apparently it’s near some landmark. Which one, who knows? We just can’t get the Arabic language, (what happened to everyone speaking French, like in Marrakech?) but at least he is telling us what it’s called and that it is near something. If we ever find that bloody Brigade we’ll be able to tell them where our bags are.

Guide No. 3 actually turns out to be alright. He’s nice, a good guide and we’re so very encouraged that when the mysterious Brigade actually shows up on the street they know him, shake his hand and have a little chat. Phew, he’s legit! But then we notice the Brigade boys checking us out rather obviously. We’re covered in clothing from head to toe; in clothes that are on the not-so side of clean. Are they in the pay? No, 70 dirham isn’t enough to pay off anyone. No, no, we are OK. Now we’re confident. Woo hoo. We’re back on the chain gang.

We’re feeling pretty good about now. We trust Guide No. 3, the Tourist Police actually exist, and we’re seeing some amazing sites. The fact we haven’t seen another tourist for a couple of hours proves we’re getting our money’s worth.

Fes is famous for its crafts. Much of the traditional Berber and Moroccan goods you buy in Morocco and the West come from Fes. We’re invited inside factories to see goods being made. We see tea pots, plastering and woodwork. We even see Fez hats being made. It’s pretty cool. Then we go inside the carpet factory. A kind man explains a carpet from a kilim and shows us some of the traditional machinery men use to make the carpets. He invites us to sit down and drink some tea.

“No, no, thanks, we’re in a hurry. We’ve got to get to the bus station,” I politely reply.

Helpfully, Guide No. 3 tells us to sit down so the man can explain work from the different tribes. The bus station will be open all night – 24 hours.

Oh dear, have I faux pas’ed? I think perhaps it’s rude not to accept an offer of tea. So we sit down. And somehow, some way, I can’t tell you exactly how or why, because despite having discussed the course of events in detail with Bindi, neither of us can remember exactly how it happened: we bought kilims. And scarves!

We had no intention whatsoever. I do remember at one stage mentioning how I had regretted not buying a kilim in Turkey. That seemed to convince Bindi. I don’t know what convinced me. In truth, I never remember agreeing to buy it. I just remember being handed something all wrapped up and told to follow this man (a fourth guide?) to the cash machine.

Hey, wait a minute…. About 30 seconds ago, when Bindi asked if she could pay for her scarf on credit card, the kind man had replied: “Of course. We’re a government-run organisation, a legitimate business. Of course we take credit cards.”

I repeat these words to him.

“Yes, but that is when you were paying the right price. The price I sell these to you will ruin my reputation. I can’t have it known. No, I need cash for this price.”

So there we go, suckered into the lanes and alleys of the largest maze in the Islamic world. Leered at, stared at, yelled at and sworn at. All the way to the ATM that didn’t work and then again to one that did. To pay for carpets we didn’t want to buy with credit cards.

We’re out of money by this stage. We talk about what we’ve got left to spend because Bindi would like to buy some embroidered table linen. We don’t have much but we think it may be enough to buy some serviettes. We’re taken to an embroidery shop. Another kind man shows us how the linen is embroidered, and we watch the expert women working away at it. It’s very detailed work; we realise we really don’t have enough money for this.

By this time though, Kind Man No. 2 has got linen galore out on show for us. He’s flapping this one here, and ordering others to get some more. When I break the news about how much we’ve got to spend, he goes ballistic. I point out that I have been trying to tell him since we walked in we can’t buy anything today. He’s angry. I look around. Bindi is red in the face. Where is Guide No. 3? Nowhere to be seen! Not-so Kind Man No. 2 is obviously swearing in Arabic, but in English he says, “OK, not everybody buys every time.” And then he bangs something on the table, yells at his assistant, storms out of the shop and slams the door.

Oh my Lord. Where is Guide No. 3?

Nowhere to be seen. We just stand outside the shop waiting. We don’t know where to go. All our guides have told us many times throughout the day how many people get lost in the medina. Guide No. 3 knows an American who has lived there for 10 years and still gets lost. He has told us how it’s not safe for us to be out alone after dark. It’s getting dark.

Where is Guide No. 3?

Finally he shows up. We’re so tired, jaded and exhausted that we just want to go to the bus station and buy our tickets out of there. We no longer want to see the tannery. Being herded through labyrinthine lanes for five hours in a foreign, dark city thousands of years old is tiring. He agrees to end the tour and takes us to our hotel, and then shows us where to get the taxis to the Ville Nouvelle for the bus station. We take meticulous notes as to where we turn. “Come out of the hotel, turn left. Go to end, turn right. Turn left at lady selling soap. Left, right, left,” Bindi notes. There are no street signs in the medina.

So we give Guide No. 3 his 70 dirham, plus big tip, and get in a taxi for the bus station. It’s closed. I thought it was open 24 hours? Go figure.

We manage to work out, however, that a bus does indeed leave at 8.30am and the ticket office opens at 8am. Despite being intermittently optimistic and overall pleased with our tour, there’s nothing that will stop us getting the first bus out of there.

And so we have an early night.

Watch some Marrakech madness

Brekkie in Marrakech

Blinded by the lights

Well, not the lights so much as the souks. Oops. Bindi and I each spent more money today than we’ve spent in the entire time in Granada. And Morocco is supposed to be one of the cheapest places on earth! We fell in love with Marrakech and it broke our hearts.

And we broke some pretty sacred backpacking rules along the way. I am ashamed to relate them here.

Backpacking rule no. 1: Thou shall not buy from first store you see
But the leather was so nice! And Marrakech was so exciting! And I needed a sachtel to carry my laptop in. And we bargained him down by 200Dh - from 1200 to 1000!

Rule no. 2: Thou shall not accept anything more than half of the original price asked for in a Marrakech souk
Yeah, we learnt that lesson pretty fast.

Rule no. 3: Thou shall never, under any circumstances, catch a hop-on, hop-off City Sightseeing tour bus
If anyone with any standing in the backpacking community reads this, we will surely be excommunicated. We're embarrassed, we were embarrassed at the time, but we spent all morning looking for a map of Marrakech with no luck and we didn't know where to start or how to get to the places we wanted to see. OK, we went into two shops, but neither of them had one, and we were so overwhelmed! If you could see Jemaa el Fna - the main market, which is right where we were staying - you would understand. It's filled with cars, bikes (even though it doesn't appear to actually be a road), snake charmers, story tellers, people selling anything or just trying to get in your photos so that you will have to pay them, and hundreds of men in carts selling freshly squeezed orange juice all yelling at you, yelling something in Arabic or French, who can tell? It's so loud, so obnoxious, so exciting! But a little OTT after a whole night on a train. We needed to just get our bearings, and the bus seemed to be a good way.

Rule no. 4: Thou shall never stay on a bus when every other person gets off
When I asked Bindi why she thought everyone else was getting off the bus, she said it was because they were all sheep. Not wanting to be a sheep, I shut up and stayed put.... for the next two hours while we repeated the tour we'd just been on, which, incidentally, did not pass our stop. (However, should anyone wish to go on a tour of Marrakech I give a pretty good one. Or, should you wish to know about the palm tree forest and how Marrakech gets its water, just ask. Or for that matter, should you wish to know the significance of the palm tree to all the monotheistic religions, I'd be happy to oblige. Did you know that the medina wall in Marrakech is 10m high and 9km wide? It's made of the red clay common in the region and limestone. Should you go, you will notice the holes in the wall that are common in that kind of architecture.

How embarrassing.

Rule no. 5: Thou shall not go to the ATM more than three times in one day
I don't think this is necessarily a sacred rule of backpacking. I think it's more a sacred rule of living. Going to the ATM to get more cash four times in one day should be a pretty good indication that you're spending too much money.

Rule no. 6: Though shall not go to a private hammam
Anyone who has heard my story of the hammam in Turkey will understand that this needs to be told in private. Needless to say, we got ripped off.

Rule no. 7: Thou shall not wear a sign on one's forehead reading: "Shysters apply here"
At least that's how we felt by the end of day, so we went to bed at 8pm and slept. We were pretty sure we couldn't spend any money doing that.

A prayerful start

So we arrived in Marrakech safe and sound. We found a taxi driver who spoke English and seemed to be offering us a reasonable fare to our hotel. We'd read that you must confirm the price before getting into the taxi, and we were pretty pleased with ourselves for having achieved this.

But where was his taxi?

"Over here, over here," he says. We can see a long line of parked cars but no official taxi.

"Where," we insist. "Is it an official taxi?"

"Yes, yes. Here it is."

And sure enough there was an official taxi parked on the side of the road. Phew. We get in and the man bows his head toward the steering wheel.

"Oh," I think, "he must be praying before our journey. That's nice. I feel safe being with such a religious man."

The prayer though seems to be coinciding with some screechy noises coming from the engine. And it's going on for a bit longer than the "bless us on this journey" type prayer I'd imagined. So I lean over and follow his line of sight. It's squarely placed on the ignition, with which he seems to be having an almighty fight. And losing.

Oh my goodness, he was praying for his car to start?

If I wasn't so loaded down with my bags I would have been out of there so fast he wouldn't have seen me. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Bindi was oblivious to the praying and the fighting with the ignition since she was sitting behind him. I am trying to tell her when he gets out of the car, lifts his bonnet, shuffles around in there and woosh, the car starts!

We crack up laughing. I mean, it's better than freaking out, right? He looks at us and asks what we're laughing at. Is he serious? Anyway, we're on our way, there's no stopping that car now, that's for sure! And we arrive safely, so someone's prayers worked.

Thanks, St. Chris

As I mentioned a few weeks' back, I've been very thankful for my 13 years of Catholic schooling during this holiday. St. Christopher is most surely looking after us. We even considered going to Church to thank him, but then thought we wouldn't understand the Mass in Spanish. While 13 years' of Catholic schooling should pretty much guarantee you know what's going on no matter the language, it's been about 13 years since I've been, so we're still thinking about it.

Anyway, we know St. Christopher is looking out for us because there he was on the Spanish shore of Tarifa waving us goodbye as we headed for Tangier. A few things had happened between Sevilla and the ferry to confirm he was on our side.

As I've said, we spent so long trying to plan our trip to Morocco that seeing Sevilla was highly compromised. We had originally planned to get the bus to Algerciras, ferry to Tangier and then train or bus to Fes, then Marrakech and perhaps Casablanca if we had time. Many people warned us against just doing Fes and Marrakech. In one friendly (friendlier to Bindi if you know what I mean ;-) ) Englishman's words, we would get the "biggest head f**k of our lives" if we went straight to Fes or Marrakech. Plus, he said, there is more to Morocco than the cities, much more. They're the worst part.

What did he know anyway? He picked Bindi up by saying "room" a lot. (That's all it takes Englishman: she loves that accent, especially when you say "room", so get ready!) Hardly the font of all knowledge, right? So we decided to stick to our plan and go to straight to the cities.

Until....another helpful man - German this time - told us we could get a Eurolines bus all the way from Sevilla to Fes and not have to deal with the nightmare of Tangier. Excellent! The website seemed to confirm this. We'd met a 19-year-old French Canadian boy who was also planning to travel to Morocco so we decided to take him under our wings and share our excellent local knowledge. He was so pleased and came with us to the bus station, where that rumour was well and truly nipped in the bud. So we went on to the next bus station. No joy. And then I thought I'd found a brochure which meant we could get the bus in the night instead of the morning. And then we found out that was wrong too. By this time Felix was shaking his head, leaving us for dead and sticking to his own original plans. There goes our French interpreter!

So, we made the brave decision to take one step at a time. There was too much detail in what we were trying to plan, so we made an agreement to plan one leg of the journey at a time. All we needed to do therefore was to get to Algerciras. Easy. Six buses a day from Sevilla. Since that was so easy, I even looked up the train times from Tangier to Marrakech and as luck would have it, we could get a night train that night! Right, we packed up and took off to the bus station, got on the bus, and were very happy with ourselves.

As we were pulling into Algerciras a friendly Spanish man started chatting to us in English and asked us where we were going. We told him, and he was also going to Tangier so we said we would follow him. He and his colleague then so pleasantly organised our ferry tickets in order to get the fast ferry to make it for the train, bought us a coffee, took us to the bus, got us on the ferry and told us all about how one of their sons had studied in Sydney. Ah, it's great to live in a world where everyone loves Australians.

Then, en route to the ferry, we found two Canadian girls also planning to travel to Marrakech on the night train. And they spoke French! Perfect. It was a wonderful journey on the ferry as Team Commonwealth planned our assualt on Tangier so that we could make it to the station in time for the overnight train. And anyway, if we didn't make it, by this time we had discovered that our Spanish mates, Juan and Tony, owned a hotel in Tangier and they had told us we could stay there if we got stuck. We didn't find out about the other hotel in Ibiza or the yacht club and seafood restaurant in Tangier until we got there. What we would have done for a big meal in a nice restaurant...We'd just spent our last euros filling up on pizza and pringles in order not to starve, or worse still, have to buy food on the train in Morocco! Why didn't we ask them what they did before now?!

So Juan and Tony got us out of the port in Tangier headed in the direction of the legitimate taxis, waved us goodbye and Team Commonwealth set off on a mission to get the overnight train. And we did it! Oh, how we love Canadians. We all felt so much better having found other people on the same mission, and Bindi and I felt so safe to have some French speakers with us. We ended up getting a couchette in first class for about £20 - not bad considering that was also a night's accommodation. And to be honest I would not have wanted to share such a small cabin with people I didn't know. Especially since - and unfortunately for the team - I remembered a story Dave had told me just as we were dosing off to sleep. Apparently, while travelling on a train in Italy some kind of gas had been sprayed into his cabin in order to make the inhabitants fall asleep so as all their wordly belongings could be stolen!

Is that story true Dave?

In any case, I was pretty unpopular for having told it, and we all slept with our passports and money down our pants. But we made it - with all our belongings and not starving to death!

A few tips from Sevilla

Once in our dresses we grew to love this city. It’s aesthetically beautiful – the people and the architecture - and has perhaps the most magnificent cathedral I’ve ever seen. The Alcazar Real also looked pretty amazing. Unfortunately we didn’t get to go in because our Sevilla stay was severely hijacked by trying, and trying again, to organise our trio to Morocco. Our back and forth holiday was spent going back and forth to the bus station in Sevilla.

Anyway, back to the tips: Bar Europa has the best tapas I’ve ever eaten. It’s fine dining tapas and way beyond our budget, but we savoured every taste. It’s in the old city in Plaza Jesus de la Pasion. Bigger tip: if you sit at a table outside in the sun you get charged an extra 20% PER PLATE. Unfortunately we didn’t realise this until we got our bill. Having sat in the shade, we could have done with the extra €10 in our pockets, especially since the bar was ultra cool and that’s where all the cute men seemed to be hanging out!

For the best bocadillos you’ve ever tasted – and I promise you this, I can still taste the chorizo on my tongue (give me a moment, mmmmmm) – go to Plaza Alfalfa. I don’t remember the name of the bar but you’ll see a crowd standing outside in the sun enjoying bocadillos and other tapas plates of prawns and other delicious looking salads. It’s across from a place called Bar Alfalfa, which also looks pretty cool but we didn’t venture in.

Third tip: don't try to catch Eurolines from Sevilla to Morocco. Despite information to the contrary on its website, the buses don't leave from Sevilla, almost every other city in Spain (including Granada) but not Sevilla. It took us a few days to figure this out. Just go to Algerciras and get the ferry and then the train. And then pray you meet friendly Spanish hotel owners who help you on your way. But that's another entry...

Downhill from Granada

While bohemian Granada had embraced us, loved us, asked us to be one with it, Sevilla turned up its nose at us and scoffed.

Our backpacking outfits that had served us so well in Granada did not blend in with this well-heeled city. Adorable kids dressed impeccably alike. Men in stripy shirts and shiny leather shoes, women with perfect hair, Manolo Blahnik-esque shoes. Everyone's dressed to impress.

This provided the perfect excuse to get our dresses out - and it was hot! Suddenly it was 'muy bonita' instead of scoffs.

Even our hostel was posh. A swimming pool on the roof terrace and all the mod cons in the kitchen. Apart from the eight-bed dorms this place was better than any three-star hotel I've stayed at in France or Italy. Oh, but the eight-bed dorms. Unfortunately they didn't have all-girl dorms in Sevilla. Gone was our little four-bed enclave with a window. Boys smell. And the snore. We decided we'd splash out in Morocco. For what we were paying in Spain we could get a private room with bathroom in a riad - or guesthouse - rather than a hostel. We were pretty excited.

We went on the tapas tour in Sevilla as well, but it was just not good. The first place was very Spanish (read: jamon hanging from the ceiling and not a chair in sight) but the second place was just a tourist haven. They even sold hamburgers! Where had they brought us? Apart from the vast numbers of very loud Americans the tapas tour guide disappeared once we got there. And then that was it. The next stop was a flamenco dance and it was all over. We had to get out of there!

Staying with royalty

Um, did I mention Prince Harry was staying at the Oasis?

New best friends come in handy

Our other, other new best friend is an Aussie girl, Alice. We love her! She had an Australia to Europe power adapter! And you know what that means? I got to use my hairdryer! When I came downstairs for the tapas tour last night people didn't recognise me! We love her for many more reasons than this, of course. She has her Mac with her too. I like that I'm not the only person staying in a hostel with fancy gadgets. She has also been to Morocco and has given us loads of tips and numbers and websites of places to stay. She's a wealth of information. Did you know, for example, that the Mac store on Regent Street runs free workshops? I'm so signing up.

I tell you what, St Christopher is definitely watching over us. Sometimes, being Catholic comes in handy. I knew my 13 years of Catholic schooling would show their worth one day.

Last night blues

It's our last night in Granada. Some of the other backpackers who came for a holiday and just never left here have been trying to convince us to stay. Bindi is seriously considering ditching Barcelona to come back to Granada to hang out for a few months. I don't blame her.

I'm sitting in the kitchen. Bindi is chopping vegetables uniformly with Davis (head chef) and Ivan (sous chef). (I think that makes her the dish pig?) I've got my iPod plugged in to the stereo. We're talking about Rushmore because the song that's on right now is from the movie. We've all been telling our favourite Seinfeld episodes. Life is good.

This morning, as we were sitting in the sun waiting for our time to enter the Alahmbra, Bindi shed a tear over how happy she is. It may have had something to do with the fact that she got about three hours' sleep last night, and could have possibly still been drunk at the time. Oh no. Or the fact that we had waited til our last day, when extremelty hungover, to see the one sight there is to see in Granada. No, I don't so. It's just that it's been a fun week. We can't tell you why, exactly. We met an older Canadian couple in the queue at the Alahmbra who recognised our accents and were telling us how their daughter lived in Melbourne. They were surprised we'd been here almost a week and asked what we'd done. When we enthusiastically answered we'd been on a great graffiti tour, they politely smiled and ended the conversation. Is that really the only thing we've done here?

You and I know otherwise.

Karaoke and kebabs

Yes, we did it! And it was bad. One down side of this hostel is that there are many very talented musicians staying here. Many of them sing. Well. So although it was definitely Bindi and I pushing the tapas tour towards the karaoke bar, it wasn't us getting the cheers from the crowd. Oh no, it was all the bloody good singers! At least I had the sense to surrender the microphone for the Dusty Springfield number I requested to Carolyn - a VERY good Canadian singer staying here. Everyone was coming up to her telling her how great she was afterwards. I tried to hide the dagger stares.

My only consolation is that I have found someone who is worse at karaoke than I am. Bindi! Man, she is bad. Very bad. Think Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend's Wedding. Yep, Bindi is worse. I promise you. Not only that, she is the loudest singer/talker ever! In her duet with Davis, a very talented muso, you could only hear her. At least in my duet with Ivan (we did Summer lovin') I didn't sing his parts. And I think I actually sing Olivia quite well. Honest. It's her high pitch that agrees with me.

Unfortunately for us, the Irish bar doesn't serve free tapas with your drinks. Bloody Irish! Anyway, it was a good excuse to stop off for a kebab on the way home! The Moorish influence on Granada is still incredibly strong, and there are more kebab houses than I've ever seen. I'm in heaven! I've gots so much material for my book, it's ridiculous. I've also got quite a few people here interested in it. I took quite a few photos of my new mates eating their kebabs. I bet you just can't wait to read it! II better go and make notes for it...Ciao.

Backpacking rules, OK!

I'll tell you what. I wished I'd cottoned on to this backpacking thing in my 20s. (Well, let me clarify - I did go backpacking with Bridget, Helen and Jess in my 20s, but we stayed in hotels. What fools!) This has got to be the most fun I've in years. Seriously. This hostel and its free tours are the best. Yesterday, the tour advertised on the 'Today's activities' board actually took place. (It was being taken by a Canadian.) It was the graffiti tour that we thought we were waiting for on Tuesday. It was free, and it was amazing. We walked all over the city and saw the most amazing 'street art'. There's this one guy called Sex, whose stuff is so cool. Check out his website: http://www.elninodelaspinturas.com/

The tour guide, Ivan, is one of our new best friends. After the graffiti tour he took us up the mountain to the caves. Hmm, I wasn't that impressed. I mean, it's pretty cool that these caves have been turned into houses, but we didn't see the gypsy caves where families have apparently lived for generations. We only saw some smelly people who looked like they'd fallen off the backpackers' trail. Let me tell you, never have I seen so many dredlocks in one city! Anyway, it was a great tour that lasted all day. Well worth the zero euros it cost us. You just wouldn't get a free graffiti tour in a hotel, would you?

A reason to drink

Guess what? We weren't the only ones on the tapas tour last night. Loads of people went. It was a veritable.....tour! Woo hoo!

And do you know the best thing about the tapas tour? The tapas is free! Yes, that's right. Free. It costs nothing. Nada. It's a Granadan tradition to serve free tapas every time you buy a drink (except for tap water, coffee and shots). Yes, it's true - apparently someone has tried the tap water trick to get free tapas. I didn't have the heart to ask whether it was an Australian.

So the moral of the story is that drinking funds our dinner! What more could you ask for? And at dos euros a pop for a vino, even the drinking isn't breaking the bank. Bindi and I spent catorce (14) euros last night, got suitably happy and didn't even need to stop off for a kebab on the way home!

We're thinking of extending our stay.

You don't need an idea!

All you need to do is to find a local who speaks the lingo, knows their way around and has some spare time!

We found ours last night on the tapas tour - Davis, our guide! He's our new best friend. Today he took us to the fruit market, where we bought some much needed nutrition and practiced the names of the fruit and saying 'Cuanto es?'. (We bought some fresas, mandarinas, uvas and we already had dos manzanas.) Then we went to the bread shop, then to the meat and cheese market where we bought some jamon serrano and manchego. He also very patiently negotiated a new deal on a Spanish sim card for me! So now I'm on the Spanish network. Life is good.

OK, so he's not a local in the true sense of the word. He's an American on a journey of self discovery. But he has been living here on and off for two years. So it kind of counts. Anyway, he's an excellent translator and a great cook. We're getting lots of recipes and Bindi is helping him chop the vegetables uniformly for the hostal dinner party tonight.

Unfortunately he seems to be refusing to be our Moroccan tour guide so next week may be a completely different story. We may be back to needing a few ideas in order to survive. Until then though....tonight is Thai dinner party night! Bring it on. For 3.50 euros.

OK, we have no idea

I'm starting to get the feeling Bindi and I aren't the world's best backpackers. We just don't think of the little things. Like checking we have the right adapters before we leave England. Or if our professional-backpacker-ultra-cool-micorfibre towels need to be washed before use. Or bringing a brush, or a bag for our wet bathers, to the hammam. (Not to mention warm clothes for 16 degree temperatures.)

Consequently, I have a great haridryer taking up a large portion of my 55-litre backpack that I can't use, quite a lot of microfibre fluff on my body which is accentuated when moisturising, a wet bag and crazy hair. Expect a lot of scenery shots of this holiday.

Bindi has already named this holiday the 'back and forth holiday', for the number of times we have to go back to our room each day to recover things we didn't think about taking the first time we left.

On the other hand, really sensible and organised people do start to irritate me after a while. I think Bindi and I should get along just fine.

I mean, who wants to think about that boring stuff when there are so many wonderful daydreams to be had?

Speaking the lingo

We had our first Spanish lesson last night. Our first lesson in many things Spanish. But let's talk about the language first. It was great. A great refresher for me. A tough start after a sangria for Bindi. She's decided no more alcohol before lessons after the tongue-twisting confusion of the language got the better of her. To solve the problem she decided today to just lisp everything.
"Grathiath"
"Doth more, por favor"
"Doth thervetha"!

It's great entertainment for both of us. What's not so entertaining is when we cleverly keep asking, "Cuantro es?" and then having no clue when the answer comes how much it is after all. We've overcome this problem by handing over way more than we know it could possibly cost. This seemed to be working well until I handed over €3 (a €1 and a €2 coin) for something that cost €2! Damn, plan came unstuck. Must learn to understand Spanish people saying numbers very fast. Fast!

The second Spanish lesson we learnt last night was that just because something is advertised and you've paid for it doesn't mean anyone has a clue as to what is happening. Having paid for our Spanish lessons and accommodation as a package, we rocked up to meet our teacher who had no idea who we were, what we'd paid for - or that we'd even paid at all - or when our lessons would be held.

Third lesson: just because something is advertised on the 'Today's acitvities' board doesn't mean it is actually an acitivity that anyone expects to happen. Except us. Being the joiners that we are, Bindi got down to the foyer to meet the tour group five minutes early to ask them to wait for me, who might be five minutes late. No tour group turned up. We joked that we must be the only ones going on the tour. It was funny until there was no tour guide either. After waiting a sufficiently European amount of time for others to show (40 minnutes) we enquired with the receptionist, who promptly went upstairs to wake up the tour guide. Unfortunately, we'd already done the sights the tour was to take us on. Fortuntely for the guide, he got to go back to bed. It was only midday, after all.

So tonight, we're at it again. We're intending to go on the tapas tour! Luckily we met the guide for this tour last night. We're pretty sure we'll be the only ones on the tour but he did say he'd be here. And I have a feeling he fancies Bindi so he should show. We're hoping the only stop isn't our favourite bar (El circulo), which we did indeed go back to last night, because I am getting a bit embarrassed about turning up every night in the same outfit - my one warm top. Juan well and truly knows us by now. We might have to start swapping tops soon...

Dos more, por favor

I believe Bindi has coined the most useful phrase in pigin Spanish ever: dos more, por favor. It came in great use last night in our favourite bar (read: only bar we've been to) when ordering more wine. The barman, Juan, liked it so much he gave us free shots of rum! Yum. I had to run out of the bar to avoid the embarrassment of vomitting on his feet. I like to think I recovered with grace.

Dos more por favor!

We're going back tonight ;-)

Rucksack rules

First, has anyone ever heard of a rucksacker's hostel? I didn't think so. From now on we'll refer to it as a backpack.

Who knew there were so many rules? So many sizes? So many things you're just supposed to know about backpacking? I didn't! Neither did Bindi. I suspect the guy in Black's was having a great laugh at our expense when he sold us 30-litre packs. I took mine back the next day after being laughed out of the house by Sarah and Darren. Bindi spent all week telling us all how she could fit all she needed into her 30-litre pack. She spent all day Sunday complaining she couldn't fit all she needed into it. After upgrading to the 55-litre number I was quite pleased with myself, and then packed my laptop, four books, handbag, wallet, sunglasses, glasses, iPod, notepad, hand cream, lanoline, sun screen and myriad other non-essentails into my hand luggage. Which then became impossible to carry. Big mistake. I'm already plotting what to lose.

That said however, I was quite proud of myself when my backpack weighed in at 12.6 kilos. I am going away for three months and I weighed 12.6 kilos (almost the exact weight of my hand luggage!). Coming home from Australia after one month I had to argue with the check in man that being 14 kilos overweight at 34 kilos was reasonable. That bloody bag is impossible. I am no longer the girl who takes too much stuff on holidays and never gets further than the top layer. I am a backpacker!

Unfortunately I am an overly optimistic backpacker who thought the weather report for Granada this week must be wrong. How could it possibly be 15 degrees in the south of Spain when I cannot fit one more thing into my backpack? Hmmm, for once the weather report was right. I think my one jumper is going to be getting a good work out. The three dresses, two pairs of shorts and two skirts on the other hand, will be well preserved for when it heats up!

I am a backpacker.

The good news is, it's 21 degrees in the sun today. The bad news is it's 16 in the shade. An ancient city of many small lanes and tall buildings, there's lots of shade. Then again, I found a lovely sunny spot in the window of my room at Oasis which I sat in to read my book and came in with a pink chest. Then again, I came in because a whole bunch of builders mixing concrete below kept yelling things in Spanish to me that I didn't understand. See, this is why I have to learn Spanish.

I am a backpacker. For two weeks. Here's to backpakcing!

Sweet and sour home

Nobody who hasn’t lived abroad can understand the sweetness of going home. It’s a confronting experience to be reminded all at once how many people love and miss you; to ask yourself why you’re about to leave them again. I never cry so much as when I’m at home, and I never feel quite so happy either.

Going home was wonderful. Bridget and Dave’s wedding, Naomi and Phil’s wedding party, my 30th birthday, Huntah’s christening, Jonah’s birth, Jaclyn’s twins, Angus, Harry, time with the family, mad dinner parties at Jeremy’s. It all happened in February.

Unfortunately it took up so much of my time that I forgot to blog. What a slack start to keeping all my friends up to date with my travels! I was going to put some photos here of the gorgeous nephews that preoccupied me in Australia as some kind of explanation. Once you see them you will understand how I was so easily distracted. I am on a Spanish wireless network however and they don't seem to be uploading very well. At all, actually, and I don't understand the Spanish explanation very well. At all actually. See, there is a reason I have to learn Spanish. You will all just have to wait for that.

So...the sour part? That Man. John Howard. I can barely type his name without spitting venom at the keypad. Just before I left for Sydney I read a pretty amazing article by John Pilger in the Guardian. Love him or hate him, this article is an eloquent and apt summary of the current state of Australia. Let me quote two sentences to entice you:
"Australia is not often news, cricket and bushfires aside. That is a pity, because the regression of this social democracy into a state of fabricated fear and xenophobia is an object lesson for all societies claiming to be free."

That Man (I can't say or type his name without getting angry so I will avoid it as often as I can) is singularly responsible for Australia's descent. I grew up proud of living in a multicultural society. At school and home I was taught that Australia was the great nation it was thanks to the hard work of immigrants. We were taught about the White Australia policy as a lesson in how far we'd come as a nation. And why we\d never go back. The Australians I knew were generally fair and open-minded. They still are. I will never understand how That Man managed to change all that in so short a time: how he could vilify Pauline Hanson and appropriate her policies without most people seeming to notice, or care. Then again, maybe they all knew, and the PC-obsessed Hawke-Keating governments had really repressed our inherent racism and small-mindedness. My mum is adamant it's not the case. She thinks Australians haven't changed, that the average person is still the same. I hope she's right.

I won't carry on about this, because it's too upsetting, and besides, the sweetness of my time at home far outweighed the sourness of That Man and all he does. This election year promises to be entertaining if not particularly edifying. Anyway, read the article if you can.