The Trans - Fez 2...a tour of the Medina!

So - its day 2 in Fez...I just typed out what I wrote before Fez...and now I'll go from there.  Basically - after Volubilis.  I know I wrote a bit yesterday - but I'll repeat some of that :P

The Trans - Chefchaouen and the Rif Mountains

Ok and I'm going to apologize for this now...but I am on a crappy computer and the space key doesn't work very well....

I'm going back to Saturday (Nov 26) we made the long drive from Rabat to Chefchaouen which is a smallish town in the Rif Mountains.  I am retyping this from my BB as I can't find any wifi connection to upload from my mobile...anyways - according to the Lonely Planet, Chefchaouen is one of the prettiest cities in Morocco and is very popular with backpackers because they sell lots of pot.  It was a cute enough town.  They had a small medina with a central square with lots of cafes around it.  You could tell it was more tourist focused than Rabat because there were a lot of kids begging and the shop keepers weren't as hassle free as Rabat.  But it was nice and full of twists and turns and winding alley-ways.  I love the blue and white buildings!!

The Trans - Fez

Hello - from Fez!!  I have another post in my mobile that I need a wifi connection to upload - so this will be short.  I am in an internet cafe somewhere.  I have no idea where...we did a quick city tour this morning and the tour guide dropped a few of us off at a hammam...but it was a hammam in the middle of no where...it was a very interesting experience.  But I am super clean now!!  So that's good.  Then I'm with Spanish Toni and she and I just had a quick lunch and the poor waitress took pity on us and walked us over to the internet cafe so we would stop bothering her I think :P  So here I am checking my bank balance (I've spent a lot of money) and checking my email!!

The Trans - Rabat...still...

So - going on from my last post (sorry these are bits and pieces...I'm writing when I can and uploading when I find wifi...I can't figure out how to set up my Moroccan SIM to get internet on my phone - I think its because I have too old of a BB...) Anyways - I'm sitting in the internet cafe waiting for my turn on a computer...so I can properly set up my email and sort out my storage unit drama!!! And see how things are going online in general...so I'll write a bit more about our time in Rabat. I'll do a quick recap (mainly for myself because I feel like I've been gone for weeks...but its been less than a week-which is why I suppose no one has really emailed me to say they miss me or tell me any stories...) Its Friday today...so this is the 6th day - and our 3rd day in Rabat. Apparently we'll spend tonight at the shitty campsite outside of town and leave tomorrow morning and actually see some more of the country this weekend before coming back to Rabat on Monday to finish sorting out the visas. It kind of sucks that this whole first week is filled with visas and stuff. I wish they would have had us just get them all before we left!

The Trans - rabat 2

Onwards from the campground - we drove into Rabat city around 8am...rush hour so it took ages and I'm sure the locals were thrilled to see the giant yellow truck :P. We drove to the embassy area where I
had to rush off to make copies of my second passport so that I could lodge it with Mauritania while my first passport was at the Mali embassy. Hopefully by Friday we'll know more about my ability to get
a Mauritanian visa...anyways...we rushed around getting cash and copies and visas...and then finally we left Embassy Land and went a bit more into Rabat. By this time I had decided for sure I was staying
in Rabat that night whether anyone else stayed with me or not! Luckily some others stayed or I would have had quite the adventure alone!!!!

The Trans - Rabat

We are in the capital of Morocco! After a long 300km drive from the port yesterday...we arrived to our "bush camp" in the rain and in the dark! Fun times to set up the tent! Luckily I didn't have to cook dinner!! The campsite is well used by Overland Truck tours so its got a lot of rubbish everywhere - ICK!

The Trans - Into Africa!!

We crossed into Africa this afternoon (Tuesday 22 November). We left Algeciras (the Port in mainland Spain) on the ferry and arrived in Ceuta (the Port in Africa but still part of Spain) after about 1.5 hours of uneventful ferry riding...the highlight was the sandwich!! While it was a terrible bocadillo compared to the ones I ate during the camino - it was perfect because to be honest...the one cheese sandwich we were allowed to make for lunch just wasn't going to get me from 8am breakfast until 10pm when I think we'll have dinner tonight!! I have a feeling I'll spend quite a bit of my budget on food...

The Trans - First days...

So we've just spent 2 nights freezing in Spain in a campsite just outside of Gibralter! I knew it would be cold at night but I wasn't expecting this cold! But yesterday we went to the Carrefore (giant French store that sells everything) so I bought a bathrobe and some crocs with fleece lining!!! For those of you that followed my camino blog - here's my first shoe purchase for this trip :P

Ok....so Gibralter. We flew into the tiny airport and immediately crossed the border into Spain to a little campground. The truck is massive! Way bigger than I thought! I thought it would be like a big yellow school bus-bit its like a giant army truck...but yellow! There are 18 of us on the trip now. The bus has 24 seats - so we are pretty comfortable and have a bit of extra space. The luggage lockers are a bit smaller than expected, otherwise I just have a bit too much stuff :P

Gibralter is nothing to exciting. We went into town Monday morning...had a bit of lunch and then popped up the rock in a taxi tour. We went through the natural caves, saw the monkeys and then went through the military caves. Pretty cool. The monkeys are a bit crazy and since they are used to being fed they jump all over the taxi vans and even inside. I got lots of pictures of them though...there were some cute little baby ones.

Then we rushed back to the truck so we could go to Carrefour. Then Monday night I was on the first "cook group" so I helped make dinner with Geoff and Eti. It was a good time to do it because we had running water at the campground and our guide (who also happens to be American) did all the shopping. Otherwise the cook group is responsible for deciding the menu and doing the cooking. There is a €1 per person per day budget for food!!! OMG!!! I think that's a bit extreme, but we'll see!! They've loaded up on "Tesco Value" brand pasta and rice and beans and other canned goods so I guess we've got those to fall back on! Anyways - we made a mushroom risotto...not too bad! There was leftovers for breakfast too - which was good because the breakfast provided is pretty shit (tesco value museli is like eating raw oats! Blech)!! We learned how to take our tents down this morning too...its not too difficult of a process. I seem to have gotten a nice normal tent mate. She's Finnish (Jo). Some of the others seem a but crazy and we seemed to have the same thoughts about people the first bus ride - so I was happy when she asked to be my tent buddy! She's also done an Overland trip in Africa before - so at least I know she can handle it - even if I go crazy and decide I can't :P

I think that's all about it. And that takes us to the end of Monday (Day 2) and we are still in Europe (Spain)...I'll add the pictures and eventually I'll get some wifi access and upload this. We were told that there is a surprising amount of places with wifi in Morocco - so maybe I'll be able to update this blog more than I planned!

The Trans - Last night in London (and the rush to finish packing)!!!

Well, my last night in London (well, for 2 months at least) was great!! I had an awesome hotel room and thank you to all my friends that came to have another leaving party with me!!! LOL-my second leaving party this year!!

This post has some pics from my hotel room with an amazing view over the Thames to Westminster and the Houses of Parliament (and Big Ben)!! There's also a picture in the room (I should have taken some before the party when the place was clean) and of the leftovers in the morning! Also a picture of my "business card" from the hotel. You can't read it very clearly but its says my London residence! LOL! I was so posh!!
But now I'm on the bus to Luton Airport! Its been a manic couple of days!! I didn't think I would make it here! Of course I left everything until the last minute. The original plan was to have all my stuff packed and be moved out of my flat on Friday so I could spend the weekend in London and then head to the airport from. Well, I got most of my Africa stuff packed but my bag was too small and stuff was here and there and bits and pieces...and (quick side note - the bus driver is a crazy...he's shouting at people and bitching about having to do a breathalizer test in order to start the bus....goodness - its 9am! Way too early for this much rough English attitude-good thing I watched him take the breathalizer because he acts like a drunk LOL)
Anyways...so I just wasn't getting organized in time so I had to ask my flatmate if I could stay the weekend so I could come back to Oxford Saturday night and finish packing and moving out of my room. So after watching the Twilight movie (Breaking Dawn) in London on Saturday with the lovely Kelly - I had to rush back to Oxford. Luckily on Friday I was able to convince a man and van service to help me move late Saturday night (no one seemed to like the 6am Sunday option). So I had just enough time in the evening to clean up my room and shove everything in my drawers and get ready for the moving man to arrive at 9pm!! He was absolutely lovely!! I told him I would drive myself to the storage unit because I would have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to get everything to fit in the unit once he helped me get it there. But he actually helped me make it all fit (he either really likes a challenge or felt really bad for me when he saw what little space I had to work with)!! It took over an hour to unpack what was already in there and repack it so everything kind of fit! Poor man - I only brought the minimum amount of ££ that I haggled him down to - so he didn't even get a tip for all his help.

By the time I got back home it was 10:30 and I had to figure out how to get everything for Africa into my backpack!! LOL - it was almost more of a challenge than packing the storage unit! And I had to sort out my finances...oh because in the midst of all this drama fucking PwC (excuse my language) decided they would finally finish my 2010 US Tax return. Its only 7 months late!!! I have been telling them for 2 months that I needed them to finish because I was going to Africa and wouldn't sign off on it without at least a month to review it. And then because I have to fill out a 5471 for my UK company (which PwC wouldn't do) I had to tell PwC that they would be responsible for the $10,000 penalty for not filing that. So of course they finished my tax return on Thursday afternoon. I looked at it and immediately knew it was wrong - and so they luckily called me and tried to tell me why they were right and I was wrong and then told me I had to sign off on it and submit it before I went to Africa because the final deadline was now and they were worried about all the fees!!!! I had been worried about all the fees for the last 2 months-grrr!!! Bastards! Anyways - I decided to hire someone else that could do it properly - so thursday night I emailed one of the guys I got tax quotes from earlier this year and asked him if he could help! He responded before 6am on Friday morning and for a rather reasonable (but kinda large) fee he had all my tax returns sorted by Friday afternoon!! Amazing!!! PwC told me I owed the US government $4,500 while this guy did it properly (the way I tried to tell PwC to do it) and he got the result that the US gov't owes me $175!! Result...so the £700 in fees I paid him saved me like £2500+ and a lot of time and effort!! Yay!!!

So that fiasco happened while I was trying to get my life packed away...and I also learned on Saturday night when I got in my car to drive to the storage unit - that someone broke into my car (AGAIN)!! I don't know why people feel the need to keep breaking into my shitty car! Although this time I suppose they didn't break in since I have given up locking the door they just went in and had a look around. Of course there is nothing in there - but they threw stuff all over and made a mess. Oh well...hopefully now they know there is nothing in there they will leave it alone while I'm away!! But seriously? I have the crappiest car ever...why do people think its worth the effort of breaking into? If I were going to risk getting caught breaking into a car I would at least choose a nice one :P

I forgot where I was in my story after my rant about taxes and cars...but let's see packing - I think...so I jammed everything in my bag Saturday night and went to sleep for a few hours! At 5:30 this morning I was awake so that I could pack the rest of my stuff and take my last "few" things to storage. Those last few things turned out to be quite a few more bags (all my bedding and towels and kitchen and bathroom stuff). So when I looked at it all I realized there was no way it would all fit in my storage unit. Something had to go. So I decided the biggest thing worth the least amount of money was the divan bed base. Its huge and I think you can buy new ones for like £50...so at 6:00am I was back at the storage unit repacking it! Luckily it didn't take too long to get the bed base out and shift everything around to get the last stuff in. Then home for a shower and my last bit of computer time (basically more sorting out my money and paying my bills)!! Then I realized shit - I don't have time to clean much like I told my flatmate I would try to do!! Sorry Barney...I hoovered a bit and wiped down the bathroom - but then I had to make one last trip to the storage unit with my laptop and the small odds & ends I found in my last look around. So I threw those in storage rushed back parked and locked my car - called the taxi and was off to the bus!

So right now - I'm on the 2 hour bus journey to Luton airport with a crazy bus driver. My luggage is overweight, my hand baggage is over the size limit and I am tired and frazzled...but I have my passport and flight confirmation number - so no matter what I've got the minimum I need and I'm all set and on my way to AFRICA!!!

Now its time for a nap!!

The Trans - Rambling...

I wrote this out by hand ages ago...and am just now getting around to typing and posting it...I’ll try to edit out some of the boring and super non-relevant bits!

Well, it looks like my work trip to Brazil is cancelled (really – the trips just been postponed until November – but since I’ll be in Africa, for all intents and purposes it is cancelled for me!).  As much as I was really looking forward to going to Brazil and meeting up with awesome Maria who was going to fly down and join me from Mexico, I am relieved because the training sessions are a lot of work and it’s a really long flights for just a short (10 day) trip!