In honor of summer, Mako and I finally made it out to our first hike of the summer, Bridal Veil Falls, in the Snoqualmie Nat'l Forest, maybe 90 min from Seattle. Very nice.
07/10/2011
Xiamen
Was lucky to spend a weekend in Xiamen last month...a beautiful city, kind of like a warm Seattle. Looks like this-
05/30/2011
What passes for a Spring day
We were promised mostly sunny (if only 55 degrees) for Memorial Day weekend. The view from Discovery park was something less than mostly sunny.
05/23/2011
Back to Marrakech
Finally, we wrapped up with a couple of last days in Marrakech...just enough time to do a little last-minute souvenier shopping, finish off some tourist attractions, and have a couple of last tajines before heading home.
A visit to the Marrakech museum...
Winding down at Gasto MK...
...drinks at the Skybar...
...and of course, some last minute souvenier shopping-
Essaouira
After Fes and the desert, we took a couple of days in the beach town of Essaouira.
Essaouira is vastly more relaxed than Fes or Marrakech-
Still more Fes
One of the cool things to do in Fes is to climb up to the old forts on the hills around the old city and actually get a look at the place -- once you're in the Medina, it's impossible to actually see anything.
More Fes
Fes is famous for its tanneries, where skin tanning is done, well, the old fashioned way (the tannery is relatively easy to find, because it stinks -- the old fashioned way involves pigeon droppings).
The streets are so narrow, new skins are delivered by donkey-
The illusion of antiquity is somewhat ruined if you get onto a roof and see all the satellite dishes-
Moroccan riads (small hotels) are amazing! This is Mako sitting in the lobby of ours-
Fes
After a few days in the desert, it was nice to arrive in beautiful and ancient Fes. The entire Fes Medina is a giant world heritage site, despite housing 100s of thousands of people. It's amazing to walk around in, and like Marrakech, very easy to get lost.
Finally, into the dunes
Our trip into the desert finished with the obligatory camel ride and camping trip into the Erg Chebi dunes at Merzouga. I think Merzouga may be one of the most satisfying to say town names ever, BTW.
The so-called "Black Desert" is pretty seriously hostile and remote. You can see the beginning of the dunes in the background.
Mako couldn't wait for the camels to arrive to hit the sand-
Finally, our ride arrives. Mako quickly bonded with the camels.
This picture in now way does justice to how hard it is to stay on a camel-
I can't even begin to descibe how good it felt to get off the camel!
Mako relaxes at the campsite-
Sunset over our camp site-
We wouldn't be so smiley if we knew how much we would hurt the next day-
Tenghir
Tenghir is famous for it's massive palmery (oasis) and it's abundance of used and abandoned kasbah lining the oasis.
How often was I looking for an opportunity to say I was rocking the kasbah? Often.
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