Muscat and Nizwa

Tuesday we had a late start to the day as Cam, Matt and I all slept in. Whilst Cam and Matt got organised, Rachel and I walked down the shop for some lunch items. We had a stop at the bakery (I did say no, but Rach insisted we get some apple cake for afternoon tea). We also had to go into the non-muslim shop for the ham and salami.

After lunch, Rachel took us on a "windscreen tour" around the city. Beautiful beaches, buildings and the ocean. So pretty.

After our tour (during which we ate the apple cake - beautiful), we went to the embassy and met a whole heap of people, saw Mark and then picked up our new hire car (a Suzuki SX4 sedan) and followed Rachel and Mark home. At home we saw the boys, Christopher and Michael, who'd been at school all day and Matt finally had some children to play with, and Cam and I got some quiet time to chat with Rachel and Mark.

Wednesday, we had an early start, up at 6 to drive to Nizwa (2 hours inland) to see the original fort and the souk. We went into a fruit  and vegie souk, where we spent ages identifying the different food inside and how different some of it is to home. We also had a taste of some halwa (date syrup, sugar and sesame seeds) which Matt was very unimpressed by.

Rachel is a great barterer, so after looking through the pottery, daggers and spice stores, we had some cashews and peanuts for snack (3 and 2 rials) and we bought some frankincense (1 rial) so I could decide on whether I wanted a big bag to take home (no).

After making our way through the row of shops, (Matt finally spent some of his holiday money and bought a zebra and Michael got a free turtle), we reached Nizwa Fort.

Nizwa Fort is a 17th century fort that was constructed over 30 years and has recently been restored to it's former glory. It has some interesting displays of Omani history and culture.

We walked through the fort, up the stairs 

past the defenses - a hole that goes straight to the bottom, just behind the doors to get rid of unwelcome visitors, canons and murder holes (where they could pour boiling date syrup onto the enemies)

to the beautiful views at the top.

We found a great place for a picnic lunch nearby.

On the way home we searched for a fort that had been bombed. We found one that the children thought had a bomb crater in the middle.

We didn't think that was the right fort and had just about given up when we spotted another fort on the way home. (lots of rock climbing and sliding down hills,  so the kids had a ball).

                                      

Home for a rest and a big day again tomorrow.

Leaving Europe

Cameron wasn't feeling the best on Saturday so we used the day just for rest, recuperation and organisation.  (I also did four loads of washing and we packed the suitcases).

Sunday we packed the car and drove to Madrid, ready for our flight to Muscat on Monday. We found our hotel, down near the airport and had a fantastic buffet dinner (11.50 each) at the hotel. I also had a glass of sangrila (which tasted like alcoholic red cordial). 

Monday we programmed our satnav (Sally - our in car navigator) with the details for our car return but after a drive around the Iveco car park, we got Tom (tomtom) out of the backpack and programmed him. Tom's route took us back the way we'd come and we learnt that we took the wrong turn, so Sally was probably right in the first place. Eventually we found our way, emptied the car and dumped our doona (that we'd been carrying since hiring the motor home in France) next to the bin, hoping someone would find it and use it (my hopes). The guy from the car return gave us a lift to the airport and we joined the queue to get our boarding passes and book the luggage straight thru from Madrid to Muscat. Our luggage limit was 30kgs each and the 2 suitcases weighed in at 29.6 (Cam and Matt's case) and 23 (mine) with the spare bag that we borrowed from Rick in Bristol weighed in at 20kgs. Seeing as we were still 17kgs under our limit I still had time and space for duty free shopping. (didn't buy anything tho). 

After a 2 hour wait in the airport, we boarded the Emirates plane to Dubai (7 hrs) and had a yummy lunch of grilled chicken with pepper sauce, mashed potato and vegies with berry crumble for dessert. (Cam had the same but Matt had lamb vindaloo). Best thing about Emirates, fantastic food. Flight was a bit bumpy but not too bad. We watched a couple of movies and then I beat Matt at the old Atari tennis game (4 nil). Another 2 hour wait in the airport and then we caught the flight to Muscat, Oman (1 hour flight).

We were able to get visas in the Muscat airport (5 Omani rial), went through customs and were met in the airport by Rachel (at 4am in the morning). Straight home to bed.

Ceuta

Our drive to Ceuta was quite eventful. We left the Riad around 10am and programmed our tom-tom for Ceuta. All went well, beautiful scenery, signs that there'd been lots of rain, little rain for us though, until we got near Tangier (up the top of Africa). The tomtom was set for fastest route, so said to turn off the motorway and go across to Ceuta instead of going to Tangier Med and across. The road had been washed out from heavy rain, (they were repairing it when we went through) and then the weather started closing in. We ended up driving along a narrow road, full of big holes on the side of a mountain, not being able to see more than 20 feet in front of us. To make it worse, the fuel light flashed up and said we only had 35kms worth of diesel. After a scarey half hour (thinking we may have to sleep in the car overnight and find diesel in the morning), we finally reached signs for Ceuta and crossed the border, straight to the service station.

Friday, we had a look around Ceuta, driving right the way around the coastline with beautiful views of the Straights of Gibraltar.

On the other side of Ceuta, we saw the Fortalezo de Hacho (a fort built by the Byzantines in the 1st century, still maintained and used for defense by the Spanish military), and views of the lighthouse.

We then ventured down into the middle of Ceuta for a walk, finding a small plaza and the Casa de los Dragones (house of 4 dragons), grabbed some lunch and joined the ferry queue for Algeciras.

After an hour ferry ride and a ninety minute drive we arrived at our apartment in Seville.

Marrakesh

After a great breakfast Monday morning (crumpets, omelettes, bread, jam (strawberry and apricot) and pastries) we were raring to go. We wandered down to Djemaa el-Fna, the square, where there was all sorts of activities happening; men dressed in red with castanets, snake charmers, horse and carts and lots of people selling things everywhere.

Of course next we had to go into the souks, where merchants try to sell you everything from shoes and scarves to leather goods, wood and metal crafts. An amazing site and although we spent an hour or two looking, we didn't buy anything.

I thought we should do the obligitory sight seeing  next, so armed with our map, we headed off past the Koutoubian Mosque.

We crossed the road, dodging the scooters, motorbikes, cars and carts (an adventure in itself). We were going to see the Saadian Tombs, but took a wrong turn ending up at a metalworking souk and the spice souk.

Thinking we'd save the Tombs for another day, we went into the Bahia Palace, where my travel companions sat in the garden whilst I wandered through, (then went back through again once Cam decided he would actually look) and then headed back to the Riad for a while (which turned into all day, as we didn't go out again but booked another day here so we had more time). Dinner was a beautiful chicken targine with salad.

Tuesday morning, we walked down to the square with two English couples who were staying at the riad, and then went to the artesian souk, where Matt had a practical lesson in rug making and we looked at the prices of items so we knew how much to offer in the souk (bartering is not my strong point).

Then it was off to the souk again for lunch and some bartering. Although I did well on a couple of items, I'm sure they all saw me coming, but we had a good time and ended up with a small bag, chess set and marble game.

Tuesday night we went out for tea at a Riad just around the corner. Cam and I had fantastic fillet steaks with pepper sauce and Matt had his regular spaghetti bolognaise.

Wednesday saw us back down at the souk, searching for leather bags. Matt got into the swing of things and bartered for some wooden items. The guy there made us both a figure for a necklace. It was fascinating to watch him use a small hand-operated lathe and a chisel to create the pieces. (I didn't the camera to take photos of it)

After a full day of bartering, we headed back to the Riad with lots of parcels and lighter pockets. We did venture down again to see the square come to life at night with heaps of food stalls, mobile restaurants, monkeys on leads, snake charmers, henna tattoos and lanterns. Very pretty but so busy. We stayed for about half an hour and then went back to the quiet of the Riad and had our final dinner in Marrakesh. (Lemon chicken targine with salad and fruit salad for dessert).

Friday morning we said goodbye to the staff of the Riad and left for an all day drive to Ceuta.

Ouarzazate to Marrakesh

Matthew was feeling much better on Sunday morning, so we started our journey towards Marrakesh with plans to stop at interesting sights along the way.

Our first sight however didn't require a stop, it was the vehicle that we followed out of Ouarzazate. Loaded at the top were bicycles, haybales, goats and sheep.

We saw a few of these  and one guy who decided his animals needed a feed, so he picked them up and lowered them down to his mate on the verge, who let them go.
Very amusing.

We soon reached the signpost, where we turned to visit the famous kasbar where some of the scenes from Gladiator (including the arena scenes), Jewel of the Nile and Lawrence of Arabia were filmed: Ait Benhaddou.

We had to stop along the way though, as there were camels (Matt wouldn't have a ride, but he did sit on one for me) and it was also a great place to view the kasbar.

We found a spot to park the car and a guy offered to be our guide (Cameron bartered him down to 100 dirhams, just as well because he had very little English but a bit of French), so we followed him through the buildings and into Ait Benhaddou.

We entered a cavern in the kasbar where a man showed us photos and props from Gladiator (he worked on the set) and then led us through the rooms (there was even a place up the top for his sheep).

We wandered all the way to the top admiring the view. (and allowing Matt frequent stops as his energy levels were still not high)

Then it was back to   through some small towns and onto the Tizi n'Tichka pass to Marrakesh, which is a 3 hour drive along a narrow, windy road, very close to the edge of the mountains with few guard rails. I was in the front so could see them all
(think I prefer the back).

But it was awesome scenery tho.

Eventually though we made it to Marrakesh and then it was up to me to navigate our way into the medina and then to our riad. We got through the gate and very slowly went through the street as there were people and stalls.  Suddenly a boy on a bike swerved around a person and fell onto the road, his bike skidded to a stop just in front of our car. Cameron hit the brakes and we watched as the boy got off up off the road (with a large graze on his head) and the man on the scooter next to us rattled something off to the boy and some other people in Arabic. He motioned us to go once the bike had been taken away so we moved forward and next thing, there was all this shouting and people chasing the car. We stopped the car again and once more the man on the scooter explained what happened and got us out of there. He led us out of the street, found us a carpark and directed us to the hotel. (200 dirhams). Never was so glad to see a hotel.