KASBAHS CASTLES AND CAMELS

Right now I am in the bar at the Xaluca Dades in the High Atlas Mountains. I can hear the winds screaming across the empty high desert and can feel the building sway under the force of the wind. Beautiful, magical Maroc. So different than the hustle of Central London.

We had planned on attending the famous Festival of Roses tonight but the winds will be keeping us in. I'm sure none of us really mind. We are all a bit weary after the hectic schedule of the last couple of days in this wonderful country.  And several of us have been traveling now for a week or more, taking the opportunity to visit somewhere else on the way to Africa.

Athena and I could see the sparse desert landscape from the window of our jet as we came closer and closer to experiencing the smells, sounds and sites of Magical Maroc. I have been here before. Two years ago I came to see this place and to visit my friend who now lives in Maroc with her partner, a native and proud Amazigh. Massine was overjoyed to be my guide, preparing a travel itenerary that frankly made me fall in love with his beautiful country.

Now I bring seven friends with me, meeting me here in Marrakech from Tucson and several places in Europe. These are travelers, like me, and no matter what happens, I am confident that they will find mystery and magic here instead of the inconvenience of a fierce desert wind or a canceled backpack. In Maroc, the next thing - no matter what it is - has the real possibility being exactly what should be happening next. That is its Magic.

The first night, we stayed out of bustling Marrakech in a kasbah far away from the city lights. The approach to Kasbah Le Mirage has the potential to be offputting to the traveler not yet used to Maroc's extremes. The setting of the kasbah is above what we Westerners calls a 'wash', in wide open land on the edge of a small settlement with a mix of newer houses and older kasbahs gently eroding onto the desert floor. It is not uncommon here to witness an obviously brand-new building with a very old pise wall leaning against it. The old is being replaced with the new as those loyal to the past make arrangements to turn the beautiful, spacious old kasbahs into hotels with the conveniences expected by Westerners.

It is not at all uncommon for your Fiat tourist bus to drive right by a man leading a donkey piled high with this year's alfalfa crop. But Maroc, like many emerging economies, has an entire generation of young citizens growing up with the internet, solar power, leggings and free education. I fear that the Maroc I know will not be here for the next generation and that, in my opinion, would be tragic.

Maroc has already given us so much hospitality and adventure, even in the few short days we have been here. Our first night, so romantic out in the desert, long after dark and in a beautiful, renovated kasbah we ate our first meal as a group. For all of us, delicious cooked prunes providing the sauce for the tangine meat of the night was a first. Such a wonderful surprise.

The next morning, after a Moroccan breakfast, we headed up into the High Atlas, driving over Tichka Pass, a winding and sometimes rather terrifying but now nearly paved road up and then down into the Dades Valley, one of the largest of Maroc's many desert valleys. On the way up to the pass, the desert gives way to trees further up the mountains as mountains have given way over the centuries to villages of reddish clay stuctures blending into the hillsides that are the same color. This reddish clay, immediately reminiscent of our own desert adobe, is mixed with straw and is called pise'. Many of the oldest structures are beginning to crumble as families no longer live in large family collectives called kasbahs. Nevertheless, those that remain draw the visitor into thinking about what has been lost as we witness what has been gained.

Our second night in Maroc was spent in Kasbah Asafar, a true family kasbah not far out of K'Laat M'goun and perched right above the enormous Valley of Roses. Six of us were supposed to leave the next morning on a three-day trek starting right at the kasbah but circumstances caused a change of plans and we packed up our equipment and other clothes, moving to Kasbah Awayou, further up the Valley of Roses the next night.

Kasbah Awayou, more popular with the trekking set, had a familiar feel for me as I watched the other trekkers prepare for their own adventures. Our 2-night trek was reduced to a 12-kilometer day hike at this point, but a day hike covering seven miles of river, irrigated fields, ancient villages and one absolutely beautiful gorge that necessitated a half-hour walk in water.

We began our hike trekking up to a plateau, led by our very experienced and knowledgeble guide Hussein, then over the rock to another valley where we continued to encounter locals of all types - people as well as livestock like donkeys and mules. We walked along the tops of embankments which held irrigation channels for the verdant and productive fields of barley and turnips and onion and other agricultural products, through villages much , much older than any of us. We finally came to the Gorge, a narrow red-walled place that reminded all of us of our own Arizona and Utah red canyons, the rock strata folding each successful strata.

We walked with a young Frenchman named Francoise, agreeable enough to trek with five women over 50 and one in her late 30s, one with a heart condition and one just having completed chemotherapy for cancer. Tough women. No whiners here.  Nearly at the end of our trek, we said our goodbyes to our agreeable Frenchman and walked the last few kilometers back to our tour bus which whisked us to our present hotel, the Moroccan equivalent of 4-star lodging, the Xaluca Dades in Boumalne Dades, hanging off the cliff above the city. From my balcony, the lights of the city twinkle below while the stars twinkle in the dark sky above.

Tomorrow we begin our journey into the Sahara Desert.

TUBES, TOWERS AND TOURS

If I were to give you any advice today, it would be to NOT lose your debit card while traveling. That is, if you are like me and use your debit card for cash while you travel so you don't have to carry cash, definitely don't lose your debit card. If you do, make sure you are traveling with someone who hasn't lost her debit card and has made sure she has not only enough money to her trip stuff but also money for emergencies. That way, you can BE her emergency.

Thank god for my friend Athena. She is paying for everything with the absolute faith I will pay her back.  Honestly, is this what it feels like a kept woman?

Being a kept woman for ME means I really pay attention, even more than usual, to every penny Robin is paying on my behalf.  Like the fare on the Tube from the nearest tube station to the Tower of London. Like lunch, dinner and even the water we bought to help us with all the walking we were doing. You really need a lot of water to flush those tired muscles when you walk all over London.

London is such a walkable city. Robin added up the kilometers on the map and figured we probably walked about 6 miles yesterday.  My legs and feet attest to the fact that we walked on hard concrete (not that scrumptious, forgiving dirt we usually are walking on) for at least that many kilometers. I am actually relieved because I have had no had time to train for the backpack in Morocco's High Atlas Mountains that comes next. Now I feel just a little bit ready.

Today, we learned a bit about the London tube. It operates much like other underground subway routes whether in Paris, DC or possibly New York. London's tube stations were quite tidy and well organized and the blend of diversity on individual cars was absolutely astounding. All of Europe and much of the Commonwealth lives in or around London. The wonderful cacophony of accents and languages from all over the Globe is a symphony. Mostly, everyone looks like they are happy to be there and if they are helping you or serving you,they seem genuinely happy that you are too.

Yesterday, we spent a good portion of the day at Kensington Park, not unusual since we are both tomboys even at our ages. Today I spent the early morning retrieving my passports (one of which was already replaced), my canceled credit cards (not replaced but alternative arrangements made) and most importantly, my business card holder that I use to carry my driver's license (still there!), my health card, my insurance cards and that I would truly miss because I bought it at Coach and I love its expensive, leathery smell.

Anyway, the rest of the afternoon we spent touring the Tower of London. I think both of us thought the Tower might be toured in an hour or so but the 'Tower' is not really one tower where Bolyen was incarcerated and in the shadow of which she lost her head, but an enormous castle complex basically built between 1078 (no, that is not a typo) and 1399.  The Tower has served England's succeeding kings and queens well (sometimes because they used the Tower with the phrase &Off with Her/His head&). The monarchy has lost some of its bloodthirstiness these days. I hear Charlie is even an organic vegetable farmer these days.

A couple interesting side notes. If you look at Henry VIII's armor displayed with other monarchs' armor, the codpiece juts out like there would have been something rather spectacular to protect there. Personally, I always wondered how five successive young women could be infertile while Henry obviously was not (because he was King you see). I will attempt to post my picture of said armor if it fits into the frame of this blog entry.

If you have a chance to visit the Tower, it is worth sufering the crowds for the Beefeater Tour. The Beefeaters, properly named the Yeomen Warders, are the oldest bodyguards of the British Monarchy, established in 1485 by Henry VII. They have to have retired from the British Army, Royal Marine or Air Force to serve at the Tower. I'm not sure whether they are picked for their senses of humor (oh yes, they are funny) or whether the chance to ham it up with impugnity is such a draw that they become humorous. Nevertheless, it is well worth joining the throng.

We had intended on visiting the Tate Modern this afternoon but realized we would have so little time, it might be better to wait for this treat until we swing back through London on our way home from Morocco. As we were walking back to the tube, I saw what looked like an extremely old church, pictures of which my son Dan might like being as he is studying to be a Minister. Robin is interested in old buildings, too, having renovated several herself (not old like, you know, London old but more old like the Colonies old.)

All Hallows by the Tower was originally founded by a bunch of nuns in 675 CE. Yes, that makes it nearly 1350 years old. That is REALLY REALLY REALLY old. It was first built by Catholic Saxons only to be turned into an Anglican church about 200 years later (possibly because of the Catholic Church's inflexibility on divorcing - or beheading - a supposed infertile quieen? ).

After using my mother of a minister-to-be superpower, a wonderfully informative docent showed Robin all the goodies the church had yet to deliver to us, including an exceedingly interesting history of the church's constant rebuilding after a succession of things like an ancient ammo magazine exploding and causing a massive fire and severe damage from things like World Wars. Parts of the walls date all the way back to its Saxon foundation while the 'newer' parts of the building were built with as much as the original structure left intact as possible. One thing the docent failed to tell us and that I found out in researching this blog entry was that John Quincy Adams, yes the US President Adams, was the only US President to marry on foreign soil and it was right there at All Hallows Church in 1797. It's all in the Marriage Register right on display in the Museum attached to the church.

By the time we got out of the church, Robin and I both had just enough energy to figure out how to get back in our neighborhood on the tube, get some delicious dinner at one of the numerous Lebanese restaurants on Edgware Road near the Marble Arch and walk back to our hotel.

It is clear to me that we do not have enough time to sample even 10% of what London has to offer. I really do need to remember to take more time in these short-stay cities, cities I pick because of cheap airplane tickets at the time I want to go somewhere like Morocco that you can't get to direct from the US. I'm such a sucker for lure of staying several nights in some city I've never been on my way to somewhere else and then wishing I had maybe stayed a little bit longer.

Well, London, tomorrow we leave you for even more exotic adventures but I think I'll break a tradition and come back to see you again. Like on my way back home actually. Robin promised we could go to the Tate Modern then.

A FOGGY DAY IN LONDON TOWN

Yesterday afternoon, the first day of our four-day stay in London, while Robin and I shared a local Stout and Lager in the Mayfair Chippy Shop, I decided necessity may be the Mother of all invention but calamity just might be the father of experience. In other words,  losing one's brand new Passport between the airport and your first night's hotel forces one to become an expert on US Embassy Citizen Services in Central London. Stout and Lager can offer one great insights I discovered.

I've wracked my brain and I really don't know how it happened. Was I just careless or did someone really lift it from the top pocket of my backpack? I'll never know. But I DO know how to access emergency Citizen Services in a foreign country. That's probably worth knowing but whether it's worth $135 and an entire afternoon of valuable tourist time, probably not.

Our trip started out in a rush but otherwise pretty much like we planned. We got to Tucson International in plenty of time, got our boarding passes and had time to unwind just a little before boarding our connecting flight to Atlanta where we would be changing planes for the big jump across the pond.

We flew Delta, a pretty good airline for international travel. It might have just been me, but the Delta crew seemed a little more cheerful than when I've flown with them before. And, more importly on an international flight, the food was actually decent and fresh.

Whenever I travel more than three time zones and the lights are turned off in anticipation you will sleep, I get  little confused whether the first meal is technically lunch or dinner, with the one an hour or so before touchdown breakfast or light lunch. Regardless, 'dinner' was hot ravioli with meat sauce chased down with a small but fresh roll and very generous quantities of free wine. Breakfast (brunch?) on the other end was cold and dominated by various forms of dairy - yoghurt, cheese and cream cheese on several choices of small breads.  Both meals were pretty tasty and definitely fresh.

Probably most importantly, these meals were complimentary as were the pretty nice selection of fresh snacks and booze. I think I mentioned the booze was FREE. The flight magazine listed the wine as a whopping $8 but it was served free. Never mind that I would pretty much only use the chardonay for cooking, it was FREE.  But I will admit while drinking this generous glass of wine,I rather ungenerously was thinking Delta might be serving free booze to impress the new customers it might have after those fliers decided not to fly with that bully airlne United. Nevermind, I have a suspicious nature.

Now on overnightnflights my biggest complaint with frankly all airlines is the practice of 'stacking' the seats so close together that it really IS tempting to pay the extra $40 for the Comfort Seats. The cheap seats on Delta were unbelievably cramped but Robin and I had chosen seats in the middle section with three seats, reservng the two aisle seats in the hopes we would have the middle to share. Booya! Accomplished. We took turns trying to sleep in the two joined seats in a fetal position without freezing our bodies into pretzel shapes but fankly, we were a bit exhausted and ready for some serious nap time when we got to our hotel.

Imagine my consternation when I reached down into my bag to pull out my passport and my credit cards at the Hotel to find they were missing. Yes, missing. Gone. To be fair, I was seriously weary when I left the plane which is why I may have inferred the Express train was our only option to get to Paddington Station which was closest to our hotel. It could also have factored into the loss of my passports and credit cards.

Frotunately, this trip is the first trip I have had  to use the international calling options on my enabled phone. I immediately notified my bank to cancel the cards then tried to use my phone and the hotel's wifi to figure out how to notify the US government that someone else was potentially walking around as me. The website, in my weary, stressed and frazzled condition, defeated me. The Embassy was not far away so we decided to visit the Embassy to see what to do. Obviously, I desperately needed a travel document to leave this country, fly to Morocco and then get back home.

I have always found the stressed little old lady with the gray hair superpower works best in person. I was not so stressed, however, that I failed to observe that our current London Embassy looks very much like it's architect offered the cheapist bid and was constructed in the most utilitarian Modernist style. Although quite large it truly lacks pizazz.

To access this ugly Embassy, you have to approach a security bunker which serves much like the triage station in an emergency room. Got an appointment? Wait outside sir while we check for you. Missing your Passport Ma'am? Can we please see your driver's license or other photo ID?

Well, uh, no. Not even a copy of them. Not even a Costco card. Nonetheless, the guard took pity on me, called Citizen Emergency Services and got me an immediate appointment. My superpowers stayed strong enough to convince him I needed my friend with me to help so after some to-ing and fro-ing, she got to join me within the Embassy. Of course the real reason was that she had to pay for it.

To obtain an emergency Passport, you have to fill out all the paperwork you would have filled out for your original Passport. Your exhusband's name, father's name, mother'maiden name, dates of birth, places of birth etc.  Honestly, some of the information I don't keep in my head. Then you fill out more paperwork listing the circumstances of the loss of your Passport (a little embarrassing when you don't know). Miraculously, after a few more interviews and some photo taking, I actually walked out with an official Passport - a baby one, with just a few pages but with the same cover and a better picture than my last one.

You'll be happy to know the Embassy people actually acted mostly like they work for me instead of vice versa, performing their tasks fairly quickly yet compassionately and efficiently. I felt so good walking out of the Embassy with at least a Passport, I chatted up some policemen to find out where Robin and I ccould find a good chippy shop as we were truly parched and hungry by then. And that's where this story ends, at Mayfair Chippy Shop, a lucky recommendation since the restaurant was once on the top cable show You Gotta Eat Here. Feeling relieved at our success, Robin and I shared a large local stout and lager and some of the best beer-batter fish fliets we both have ever eaten. Robin paid of course.