The Kingdom of Morocco, located at the far north-west of Africa, with a predominantly Arab population (Sunni Muslims of Arab, Berber or mixed background) promised to be an interesting place to visit. And that it was, although I didn't find myself all that interested by the culture, as we were mostly exposed to the front line of Moroccan tourism, which consists mostly of touts, beggars, taxi drivers, scam artists and bartering shop keepers. Rather, it was interesting to be exposed to a different form of travel, where I felt the defences needed to be up at all times and it was interesting to note my discomfort at receiving a much great amount of attention that I would prefer. Not being an attention seeker, and preferring people generally leave me alone, standing out in the crowd so much that the low lives were drawn to us, got kind of irritating. Walking along a stretch of less than 100m, after just knocking back all of his mates, I was usually ready to tell the fifth pest where he could stick his "hashish". The predominant languages in Morocco are Moroccan Arabic and French, but most locals have picked up enough English to be able to try and sell you junk. Overall Morocco wasn't my cup of mint tea. I still haven't fully worked out why, but the place just didn't do it for me. Although the culture and almost all the sights were new, I didn't find myself intrigued. Rather, I felt more repelled. It was as if in a former life I was a poorly treated performing monkey, and returning to the scene awoke ill feelings. However, I find when I ignore my overall feelings towards the place and the people, and focus on individual features, there was quite a lot I liked about Morocco.
While travelling reference is often made to "the book", which encompasses all travel books. Lonely planet, rough guide, etc. For those wishing to travel with the guidance of a "book", please do so with extreme caution. Keep in mind that "the book" is trying to accommodate a large demographic of travellers. Remember what type of traveller you are and use "the book" appropriately. For some "the book" seems to almost guide their holiday as they stay at the recommended accommodation, eat at the recommended restaurants, visit the recommended sights, and essentially think the way "the book" tells them to. For others, the book is most useful as kindling. After our experiences, I have come to the conclusion that "the book" is a device of the devil. Like the devil, occasionally it will give you exactly what you want. However, this is only to lull you into a false sense of trust so it can more often than not contaminate your mind and lead you into making decisions against your nature and better judgment.
Riding the ferry across the Straight Of Gibraltar was a thrill. The cloudy skies opened up for our crossing and we lounged in the sun on the back deck with a small group of Canadian travellers, preparing for our arrival in Tangier. There was an air of uncertainty as we approached Tangier. "The book" had heavily warned against entering Morocco from Tangier, describing a scene of constant hassle and encouraging people to seek alternative ways into the country. These warnings had actually put off quite a few people (stupid people I should note) we met in southern Spain from visiting Morocco. Ignoring the warnings we wanted to see this for ourselves. Disembarking from the ferry we entered the Tangier port to find a handful of taxi drivers waiting for potential rides and a few stooges trying to sell sunglasses. What a let down. "The book" is rubbish. We shared a taxi, who charged us a bit much but we didn't know how it all worked yet, and went straight to the train station and booked tickets on the night train bound for Marrakech. With an afternoon to kill before the train ride we hoofed it, with our packs on, back into Tangier to see what the town had on offer. Tangier is a developing coastal city, with plenty of high rise construction going on, overlooking the bay beach. The town has a lively atmosphere with lots of people out and about, walking along the Avenue Mohammed VI (Esplanade), buzzing about the Medina (old town) market stores and sitting out in cafes drinking tea. We enjoyed a cold fruit drink in a snazzy bar overlooking the water before finding a great little local place for our first round of tarjines. Tarjines are a popular slow cooked stew dish in North Africa, cooked in a tarjine clay pot. As was our way throughout the trip we ordered one lamb and one chicken so we could share. The tarjines were delicious and a perfect addition to our culinary tour. We had a quick look in the busy Medina markets and bought some supplies for the train journey. We then walked back up the beach as the sun was setting and stumbled across a free hip-hop performance by the beach, with a lively crowd. The energy of Tangier was exciting and we looked forward to our next city. We boarded the train, got comfortable in our sleeping cabins and woke up from our best sleep for the trip, thus far, as the train made its was along the final stretch of desert plain before reaching Marrakech, inland in the south west of Morocco.
Stepping out into the pink of Marrakech in the morning, feeling refreshed after a good sleep, but having no idea where we were, we set off for town looking for a hostel, we got a recommendation for from a lively young bloke we met as we left the train. The hostel was tucked away along several laneways and proved to be a winner, in a traditional riad style with several levels of rooms all facing into a central courtyard. We dumped our stuff and went and enjoyed the morning sun on the roof with some crepes and a glass of mint tea, looking out across a new pattern of pink square-cut rooftops.
We took the day to prepare for a trek in the High Atlas Mountains, locating the bus stand and collecting provisions from various stores in the famous Marrakech souqs. The souqs are an always bustling busy market place, with a jumble of sheltered streets wall to wall with stores selling all types of local produce, spices, handicrafts and heaps of other junk. It is almost all barter trade which makes for a lively atmosphere, with tourists battling to try and get what they consider a good deal and store owners enjoying ripping off tourists. We didn't buy anything apart from food in the souqs, but enjoyed getting in amongst the crowd. The souqs sit alongside Djemaa el-Fna, the main square of Marrakech. The square is a huge public space which evolves over the course of a day from a scattered crowd of tourists making their way through the square dodging motorcycles, mules, orange juice stalls and snake charmers to being jam packed with people in the evening when row upon row of food stalls are put up and crowd attracting entertainment such as youth boxing, story telling and dancing exhibitions are put on. All this happens in view of the Koutoubia mosque (with a 69 metre high minaret) which is visible from all around Marrakech and is where the call to prayer is sounded across Marrakech five times day. The first few times hearing the call, especially the 3am call when all was still and quiet, it was an amazingly powerful experience. However, after a while you hardly even notice it, a bit like most of the locals. Marrakech had a wonderfully lively and exotic atmosphere and we found ourselves drawn to the Djemma el-Fna throughout the day. It took a while to get settled and be able to make out individual features from the mass of new sights and sounds.
The next day we shared a taxi to the mountains (Asni and then Imlil) with a French-Canadian couple we met on the way to the bus stand. Their French speaking skills helped with organising a driver, as we found the bus didn't run very often, or at all. We found that a lot of the sight seeing stuff and travel in Morocco was made difficult, to force tourists into hiring a guide. Often signs aren't even displayed, so you don't have much of a chance. Despite our consistent confusion we refused to get a guide and managed to get by. Determination can get you a long way. On the drive across the desert flat, the sky was clear and we could finally see the High Atlas Mountains, that overlook Marrakech, and couldn't help but get excited. Turning down several offers for guidance (at a fee) we set off from Imlil with a map (which we didn't even look at once) and made our way up the mule track to the Toubkal refuge at the base of Jebel Toubkal (the tallest mountain in North Africa at 4167m). The walk was a gradual climb over a flood plain and up through a valley, going by several Berber villages, surrounded by mountains. We reached the refuge without any trouble and setup camp as the cloud came in restricting visibility to ten metres.
Toubkal is a very popular walk in Morocco, being an achievable summit, so the refuge was crowded with people, including a large school group. We tented outside away from the others, but joined them for dinner in the mess, where plenty of travel stories were shared. In the morning we set off up the 900m climb to the summit of Jebel Toubkal in a steady single file line up a relatively well made track up a scree slope and some large pockets of compacted snow. It was a pleasant slog of a climb, as the view of the surrounding mountains became more and more impressive and dramatic. The last stretch was along a ridge line to the survey marker at the peak where the crowd were taking photographs of the stunning view and munching on energy food. We joined them for a short while, and congratulated some friends we had made the night before on making it to the top. The atmosphere of trekkers is quite friendly. After reaching the top, the only thing to do was make our way down, which was much easier than the climb up. On reaching our camp at the refuge I had a splitting headache and didn't feel like eating. Anyone who knows me, knows that when I can't eat, something is wrong. The rapid change in altitude probably got me. I had a quick rest, but with little improvement we decided to abort any plans of venturing further into the mountains and made our way back down to Imlil. There was a lot of time left in the trip. No point in overly pushing ourselves and risk missing out on more fun stuff later. Also, I wasn't all that in love with the High Atlas and didn't mind turning my back on them.
In Imlil as we were awaiting some others to arrive to share a taxi, we sat down for mint tea with some locals. They were friendly guys and we got talking about locals ripping off tourists. We took away from that conversation a great piece of advice one of the young men told us in a very slow and clear voice. He said and this exactly what he said "Don't trust anyone". Of course, about five minutes later he tried to rip us off, but that line "don't trust anyone" became our slogan for Morocco and the rest of the trip. "Don't trust anyone".
We crammed into the taxi and headed back down the mountains to Marrakech, the eerie sight of the sun setting into the desert was fantastic. Back in Marrakech we got some rest and nutted out where to go next. We didn't extend our exploration of the town, but did find a great little place for a tarjine lunch after asking a local. Always ask a local. The highlight for the day was going to the Marrakech cinema and watching Manchester United play Chelsea in the UEFA Champions final, all commentary in Arabic. The crowd weren't as lively as I would have expected but they got fired up at the end.
In the morning we jumped on the bus to Essouaira, a popular beach side town. We went beach wards in the hope of chilling out for a few days and to see the Atlantic. Unfortunately, my stress levels only went up as I was frustrated by the abundance of tourism somehow spread about that less than impressive beach. The beach is popular for wind and kite surfing. Thus, the wind doesn't make it a very pleasant beach to lay down and read your book. It was good to get our first dip in the Atlantic Ocean, although we didn't stay in long as the water was bloody cold. We enjoyed a nice tarjine dinner in a restaurant one night and on our second evening watched the sunset into the Atlantic from the old battlements., before shouting two local girls to dinner. Don't trust anyone.
I didn't enjoy Essauoira. A big part of my distaste for the place can probably be attributed to me catching the travellers arse which made going to the bathroom a more frequent and exciting experience than usual. It was inevitable that I would get an upset stomach. We were adventurous with our meal selections, often blindly choosing dishes on a menu, as we were keen to try new things and also we couldn't read what was written anyway. Also, I was sharing everything from clothes to food to water bottles with my brother who had just come from India where he had battled dysentery for two months. Regardless, Essaouira gave me the shits in more ways than one, so we decided to head back to Marrakech. On the bus to Marrakech I gazed out the window at the passing desert scape and was struggling to find anything of beauty in what I saw. Obviously, I was tired of Morocco so I told my brother I was more interested in Spain than Morocco and would prefer to have more time in Europe than try to flog a dead horse in Morocco. Why would you flog a dead horse? So when we arrived in Marrakech we jumped straight on the day train to Tangier and travelled all day back up to the North coast. We gazed out the window throughout the train journey as the carriages filled more and more and the train made its way through Casablanca and Rabat (capital of Morocco) and finally up to Tangier. Back in Tangier in the evening we checked into hostel El Muniria, well known as a popular haunt for beat generation writers. This was a fitting addition to the literary aspect of the tour, especially as I was reading Kerouac's "Dharma Bums" at the time. We bummed about town that evening, having tapas and our first and only Moroccan beer in an extraordinarily dodgy bar. We enjoyed a few drinks in the Tangier Inn below our hostel and got chatting with some overly friendly and later revealed queer french folk. In the morning, still battling sore guts, it was onto the ferry and we were heading back to Spain.Morocco was an interesting experience. At that stage in my holiday, when I mainly just wanted to relax and get into the swing of not having to do anything in particular, Morocco was a bit too much like hard work. The tarjines were good though.
That was about the extent of touristy stuff we did in Lisboa, the rest of the time was spent fulfilling obligations at the conference, wandering around the maze of laneways along stone tiled paths between tile patterned buildings looking for cyber cafes and somewhere nice to eat. By chance we stumbled across a pastelarias in Belem (pastry cafe) famous for its Portuguese egg custard tarts. With a fresh batch served warm and blistered on top (as though burnt) with a little cinnamon on top these were the best thing ever. The atmosphere at the counter of locals climbing over each other for them and a stringy beggar putting his hand out, only added to the experience. In fact, post-Lisboa I continuously promoted Lisboa and Portugal with the expression "it is worth it for the tarts". I think they have a similar expression for going to Amsterdam.
Our last evening in Lisboa was spent with a wonderful group of Italians from the conference. We joined them for tapas and carafe after carafe of slightly sparkling white wine, then continued on for a delicious seafood dinner of mussels, codfish and creme brulee. The wine continued to be poured throughout the evening as we became more and more friendly and the laughter got more and more wild. A short glass of grappa (strong stuff of Italian origin) for everyone capped off the evening and sent us on our separate ways. Thank you Lisboa, but that's all we have time for. We're going to Spain. 
In the morning we jumped on the train heading south from Lisboa to Faro, on the south coast of Portugal. We quickly found the bus station, grabbed a bite to eat and then were on the bus heading to Sevilla, Spain. We crossed the border to Spain without even knowing it, as we were both mid-siesta, already embracing the culture. Our arrival in Sevilla was perfect. Streets were closed down and fireworks were being let off in honour of the two Australians coming to visit, or some religious festival. Either way it was a cracker of a start. Not being ones for planning too far ahead and refusing to pre-book at a hostel (I don’t want to stay at a backpackers if you have to book a week in advance, which to me goes against the nature of backpacking), we set off in search of accommodation. We stumbled across a Canadian couple with confused expressions, gaping into their travel book, and offered to help them find their hostel. If they had space, we could stay there too. We bustled through the crowded streets, covered in rose petals and tried to avoid getting in the line of the firecrackers being launched at our feet. We located the very cool looking hostel, tucked down a little alleyway off a main shopping street in the heart of Sevilla, with a rooftop sitting area overlooking the neighbouring buildings. All checked in, time to eat, so we took a recommendation and went and enjoyed an evening meal of tapas with our new Canadian friends, in a local restaurant overflowing with voices and the colour of the festival.
We had a good cheap meal of montaditos (tapas style baguette rolls) in a cool little bar and went off in search of a flamenco show. Unfortunately, the performance was to be in a bar jammed full of North American accents guzzling down pitchers of beer, which raised doubt as to the quality of the "authentic" flamenco show. We decided to leave before the show got going.
Check out the rock wallaby
To get to Pohnpei I first had to fly up the coast of Australia to Cairns. From Cairns it was then international travel over the equator to Guam, a territory of the USA. Transiting through Guam I had to pass in and out of the US customs and border protection. I found my first encounter with the department of homeland security fairly tedious, though the man with the rubber glove was surprisingly gentle. From Guam it was onto Pohnpei. Working for the federal government, all international travel is business class, putting me in the unfamiliar position at the pointy end of the plane. On the Pohnpei flight, I settled into my seat to start reading my book "The seven pillars of wisdom". I didn't get through many pages before the guy next to me started a conversation. We got chatting and within very little time realised we were both from Canberra. With a book in my lap written by T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) about the arab revolt against the turks, I soon found out I was sitting next to the Turkish Ambassador in Australia! I carefully closed my book and put it away before he noticed the title. After that potential awkwardness I got along really well with the Turkish ambassador, as usually happens when you stumble across someone with a similar slanted view of the world. We were both excited about our respective tropical island visits (he was going to the Marshall Islands) and bustled for photographs out the window of the reefs, atolls, beautiful clear water and tropical islands. Throughout the flight we had a good laugh and he took my card with a view to invite me to a function at the Turkish Embassy in Canberra sometime later in the year. Score! 
I had been sent to Pohnpei to work on the south pacific sea level and climate monitoring project. This is an AusAID funded project and our involvement encompasses the running of fancy-pants continuous GPS sites at over ten pacific island countries and making height connections to tide gauges in the vicinity. Most of the work is relatively simple, but takes a while due to the distance between GPS sites and the coastal tide gauges. We had ten days in Pohnpei to finish the work. It all got done with some time on the end for sight seeing.
After the recent expensive work done on my teeth I wasn't keen to give betelnut a go, but if an opportunity had of presented I would have sat in on a sakau (Kava) session. This is a popular drink in the tropics where they extract the juices from the kava plant roots and with water drink from a coconut shell. My fijian-indian colleague informed me that Pohnpei sakau is particularly potent and recommended I hold off until I am in Fiji where he will sort me out. Apparently the effect of kava is a bit like a tranquiliser and you remain clear in the head but your mouth goes numb just from a sip and you pretty much loose the feeling in your arms and legs. It is best had in a ceremonial fashion where people sit around in a circle passing the coconut shell amongst themselves following very strict ceremonial procedures.
Overseas influences are ever present, although with an islands slant. There is a definite US accent with the young, most likely brought on from all the US cable tv, as they speak black rapper style street slang. The supermarkets are full of US cereals and junk food dropped along the route from Gaum to Hawaii and a bag of doughnuts is a popular purchase from the corner stores. There are lots of cars on the main roads with every second vehicle being a pick-up (ute). It is common for a pick-up to drive along with every family member, friend and friend of friend sitting in the back tray, hanging over the sides. My favourite image was seeing two pickups cruise past on a rainy day. One had a load of unhappy, soggy passengers in the back, the other was full of umbrellas and smiling faces. Softball is a popular game amongst the locals. Every day there is a business league twilight game at the softball field which makes use of the historic Spanish wall (built during the Spanish occupation in the late 1890s) as one of the outfield walls. Each of the major businesses in town enter a team. A relatively large crowd attend the games, sprawling across the stands. The fans are generally quiet and seem impartial. It took a while for me to realise that most spectators are there just to see people make fools of themselves. They don't applaud good play, but wait for someone to make a mistake or do something silly and then erupt into laughter and cheers. 
I wasn't done meeting foreign dignitaries as we had to liaise with the AusAID representative and Australian ambassador at the embassy. The Australian ambassador is a pleasant, interesting woman, whose post covers Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau. My work colleague and I turned on the charm in our meeting with her majesty and managed to scam an invitation to the Australian residence on island. This was a wonderful treat as the Australian compound sits on top of a mountain in the jungle and overlooks the most beautiful scenery of Sokehs Island, Kolonia and the water. The compound consists of three beautiful houses, swimming, pool tennis court, etc. The ambassador is spoiled rotten with cleaners, cooks, etc. On our visit she let us put our feet up and waited on us with drinks. The place is a stark contrast to the reality of the local people living much tougher, cooking out of a bucket and sleeping under tree leaves in the villages in town.
Pohnpei was a fun trip and a great introduction to a pacific island culture. There are not a lot of tourists in Pohnpei and I think that is a good thing. It is a hard place to get to and you have to be really keen on surfing, diving, ancient ruins and tropical jungle to go there. At the airport, before I left, I noticed T-shirts in the tourist shop which pretty much summed up my feelings on my Pohnpei visit. The tops were bright colours with the text "Pohnpei. Been there, done that".