Marvellous Morocco

To make the most of the Easter weekend here in the UK where you could get 11 days holiday while only taking two days leave (thanks Will and Kate!), we headed further afield than normal, all the way down to Africa...

Our Morocco holiday was all completely planned by Pip which made life unbelievably easy, and meant we could basically just turn up and enjoy ourselves.  We flew into Marrakesh (Adrian and my flight was delayed which meant the others (Pip, Bas, Erin and Kerryn) had to wait at the airport for a couple of hours which was a bit stink), and then went straight to our first riad.  A riad is a traditional Moroccan house with an interior courtyard, and every single one we stayed in was just lovely.  This one was run by an Italian guy who didn't speak a word of English, only French, so it was good practice for me!  We spent the rest of the day just exploring the souks and having some incredible freshly squeezed orange juice (only NZ 80 cents a glass!) and mint tea.  I also loved the storks which were perched everywhere on the roofs:

The next morning we started our 4WD tour which would take us all the way through the mountains up to Fes.  It started off inauspiciously with our guide not being able to start with us, and having to meet us the next day, but it didn't really matter as we were absolutely transfixed by the fact that it was snowing as we traversed the pass into the mountains!  Even our driver was surprised and was videoing it on his phone as he was driving along the hairpin bends...  That day was also the start of my unfortunate problem which sadly reoccurred pretty frequently throughout the rest of the trip, but considering I was a pretty adventurous eater wasn't too much of a surprise!

Our first stop was a small town called Skoura where we stayed in a mudbrick house with an incredibly friendly family and which had some austere, but beautiful scenery.  They also had some honey which was probably the closest that I will ever come to eating true ambrosia - even the memory of it is making my mouth water!  They also had a pretty delicious couscous - that and the tangines were incredibly basically everywhere we went.  It was also really interesting to see how the houses were made:

The next two days were spent travelling through the Middle Atlas mountains, seeing some amazing scenery, including the Dades Gorge which was absolutely stunning.  It was where one of their major rivers starts and quite cool to see the water just bubbling out of the ground!  We spent the night in Tamtattouchte which was a tiny Berber village and where we spent the night dancing and singing with a group of locals and a group of German tourists...quite a random mix of people!

The next day we headed up to Mergouza for the start of our camel trek!  Well...they're actually dromedaries, but it's much easier to say camel...  Anyway, it was amazing - the sand in the desert (I think it was the Sahara) was the most incredible rose colour, the camels were very cool, the sunset was stunning...I think I'm running out of superlatives!  We spent the night sleeping in tents and rode out early the next day.  I think I'll just leave it to the photos...

We then drove up to Fes and spent a couple of days exploring there.  I have to say I enjoyed it more than Marrakesh - the lanes are narrower and twistier, everything is right up in your face, and heading up the hill to look down on the city is fantastic.  The smell of the tanneries still hasn't quite left my memory, but maybe it's because I'm currently wearing my goat slippers and camel belt! 

Adrian and I also went to a traditional hammam and I got scrubbed down in places I didn't even know I had!  That was definitely a most intimate experience and for once I was pretty pleased that they're so keen on female/male segregation in that part of the world...  I didn't need to exfoliate for days...

After Fes we got a ridiculously hot train up to Tangier where we stayed in the most elaborate riad yet - the tiling was just amazing.  Unfortunately, Tangier itself wasn't so crash hot, and the food poisoning I got from dinner there was not the type of thing I was keen to hit me at 1am the night before we were due to leave.  Unfortunately it continued (along with the previous TD), for the entire duration of a) the 45 minute bus ride to the ferry terminal, b) the three hour ferry ride to Spain, and c) the drive from the port up to Ronda...  Let's just say it wasn't the best experience of my life!!

But overall, there's no way it tainted our experience of Morocco - it was just a wonderful place and I would heartily recommend it to anyone!  The photos really tell the whole story better than I can do in words, so have a look!

Fancy pants dinner

Having had some lamb shanks in the freezer for ages (bought on special, obviously), we finally decided to bring them out for a special Sunday dinner.

I made this recipe for the lamb shanks themselves, and then a modification on this one for a kale and potato mash for underneath.  And it was delicious!

Check out the scrumptiousness: 

Surprise birthday dinner!

Alexandra was the lucky recipient of a surprise birthday dinner on Saturday night - and seeing as it was at a Japanese restaurant, even the better!  It was a teppanyaki place and the chef was fantastic, cooking everything deliciously (and amazingly, there was heaps of food), but also making sure we were all having a rip-roaring time.

As you can see, Alexandra was much better at the egg-toss than me!

Fancy a port? Don't mind if I do...

To take advantage of a work meeting of Amelia's which was (every so conveniently) arranged for a Monday morning (now how on earth did that happen to get organised like that I wonder...), we spent the weekend soaking up the sun (and a lot of port) in Porto.

Now, it may have been the sheer delight in seeing sun again, or all the wonderful food and drink, but Porto would definitely have to be up there in my favourite weekend holiday destination list.  It was cheap, interesting, and not so taxing on the 'must-see' list that you didn't feel bad spending most of your time debating the relative merits of white or tawny port...  We did see some interesting things however, like climbing up the Torre de Clerigos to get a great view over the city, heading out to the beach to the Atlantic Ocean (I think I've got my geography right there), and stumbling across a bird market with every kind of parrot or canary you could think of.

The port houses in and of themselves are really interesting too - I learnt heaps of stuff about how port is made (essentially wine + brandy = port) and we tried to think that we could tell the difference between the aged and straight in the bottle stuff, but in hindsight who knows what we were talking about!  It was great that they're all so close together along the river and you really get a sense of how different some of them are in their approach to things (depsite most of the industry being owned by a few companies with several different labels).

The city itself is really interesting in terms of its buildings and layout.  There's the labyrinthine old town on the banks of the river, replete with red tiled roofs and blue tiled walls and which is basically crumbling away, then across the river is the Villa Nova de Gaia - essentially the 'new town'.  It was only joined to the old town by the Luiz I bridge, designed by a student of Gustave Eiffel.  Then back on the same side as the old town you've got Foz which is a beach area out the west of the city, then the newer areas further north.  We had an unlimited travel card which we definitely made use of during our three days there!

We managed to bring three bottles of port home with us - one white, one normal tawny, and one 10 year old tawny.  I'm now on the hunt for port glasses from the op shops so we can drink it in style!

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Fun times with a razor

To celebrate the end of winter, it was time for the annual de-hairing.  And, being a (very) good sport, Adrian let me have a bit of fun with the razor... (apologies for the sideways photos - I can't work out how to turn them round!).

But rest assured...it hasn't stayed like that!  Although the moustache is here for a few more days yet :)