Marrakesh, Morocco

Traveling by train in Morocco is great. The stations are all large and open, the bathrooms clean and toilet paper filled; train seats are plush and prone to causing sleep.

Like in Rabat, Don and I decided to walk from the station to our chosen accommodation and hoped rooms were available. Unlike Rabat, we got a little lost this time around. I’m blaming it on the small-scale map with some absent street names. But we did get here eventually. And immediately had a siesta because it’s very hot. There are no clouds. At all. And it’s 30+ from noon to sunset.

Our hotel is just off the main square, where all the activity is: acrobats, orange juice sellers, henna artists, snake handlers, trinket kiosks, and a lot of drum playing. From this square, three or four streets meander selling all kinds of souvenirs. And every seller invites us to see their stuff. Mostly Don has been managing those conversations, although he stops long enough for photos :). When we’re far enough away from this chaos, we walk slowly, see life in Marrakesh and drink mint tea on rooftops. That is heaps of mint in the fourth photo. Smelled terrific.  

  Just off the main square is this landmark mosque and minaret, the largest in Marrakesh, built in the 1100s. It influenced a lot of architecture that came after including buildings in Spain. I knew those Spaniards were copycats ;). In which case, why is the Sagrada Familia so hard to finish? We’re just back from a lovely cafe where I ate quiche (in my defense, the menu wasn’t Moroccan) and listened to a group of women drummers along with what felt like half of Marrakesh. This was a happening place with a club atmosphere. When the call to prayer came, a server asked the drummers to pause.

And just as we’re missing the Camino camaraderie of repeat seeing people – we observed a couple arriving at the main square yesterday, saw them again at the Maison de Photographie earlier today and actually ate dinner with them as there was a table shortage.

Rabat, Morocco

Wow, Rabat is quite different from Fez. I didn’t make it here last time around but glad it fit in now. We stayed at a renovated caravanserai – an open courtyard surrounded by rooms on the same and upper levels. When it rains, like this morning, a plastic roof is pulled across. It’s very opulent, decorated with traditional furniture, tiles and rugs. Our room has a four poster bed, and beautiful decorations and shelves with intricate detailing. 

 As Rabat is on the ocean, plenty of sun bathers and wind surfers were about. As were soccer players. Loved how straight these soccer pitch lines were. 

 We saw a lovely sunset and had dinner beside the beach. Although wine was on the menu, Don and I decided we’d try to keep to our new favourite drink – mint tea. Yes, that choice totally surprised us too. Not sure how long we’ll keep it up but it’s been working so far. 

Rabat has wide streets (well the main one) with amazing architecture and modern streetcars at track level (yes, it looked better than TTC, although I know that’s not hard!). We even checked out the Museum of Contemporary Art this afternoon. I could live here AND get to work on time!

   
Likewise, here the medina is in a modern, grid pattern with less touristy things for sale. Unlike Fez, there were lots of locals shopping and no donkeys tearing down the middle. Don was looking out for a silver teapot to keep tea warm long after it’s been poured. Which is funny because Don doesn’t actually like hot tea. But the teapot he bought is pretty, including the stamp that says “England” on the bottom :). I’m serious.

We also walked around an older part of Rabat, where buildings were painted white and blue, giving it a Mediterrean feel. Here we met a man who’d been married to a Canadian artist and was telling us all about Vancouver. This, as it rained on us ever so gently.  In this area it was a requirement to have an ornate door, there were so many.  

    
  

Fez, Morocco

After many hours on the road, the bedraggled pair of us waited at our hotel door while another lot of individuals rang hard at the doorbell at 3:30am. After five anxious minutes, the night guard let us all in and silently handed over the room key. I’ve been dusting off my French and navigation skills ever since. So far we’ve come across lots of helpful Moroccans, including the train agent who lent us his phone to call the hotel in Fez to say we’d be very, very late when arriving. 

Our first day here was spent sleeping! Well the morning anyway. The afternoon we strolled through the narrow medina looking at all the interesting stuff for sale from fruit to rugs to kitchen things. When I wanted to buy two dates, the shopkeeper laughed at my skimpy order and just handed them to me.  

    
 By mid-afternoon we were ready for a break. Through the door of a cafe we walked up four flights of narrow, tiled stairs to have tea on this rooftop.  

  The next day was spent walking through Roman ruins (where weren’t those Romans?) about 50 km northwest of Fez at Volubilis. When times were good, it was a thriving town and the inhabitants were busy building huge arches to thank the Romans for not taxing them (huh?). But then things got tough and the Romans left, as they were wont to do.  

    
 It was quite spectacular to wander around. Every so often we eavesdropped on a tour to get a few more details than our guide book. To get back to Fez, we walked 5km to the nearest town (which let me tan my neglected right side), took a local bus to a bigger town and then a train. I totally need a beer right now but not sure that’s even possible…

Seville, Spain

Our vigorous Plan C is Morocco! This was Don’s suggestion as we walked to Villafranca. Mulling it over, it seemed an awesome idea – we don’t require a visa, Don still needs more countries to even come close to me (who was in Morocco in 2004 but happy to return) and it’s close. 

So we got to Villafranca, found the German and the Canadian from yesterday and told them our plan – they were curious what we’d do – and then took a bus to Leon. There, we enjoyed a marching band playing beside a Gaudi building in the main area and planned for an early morning. Then trains all day, bound for Seville, in the south. We arrived at 9pm and grabbed a taxi to the cathedral in the centre where Don used a Starbucks wifi to book us into a four star hotel for two days. Just what we needed!

Then it was all about shopping for additional clothes for Morocco, downloading the LP guide to Morocco (hard with an unstable internet connection) and making some bookings. As we walked around Seville, I admired these overhead sails to keep pedestrians cool.  

 Over an afternoon beer, we watched cars of all sorts navigate the tiny one-way streets. And noticed most had scraped bumpers. And the buildings tended to have reinforcements at the corners.  

 We would have sightsee’d, except we were too busy with our agenda and there were a colossal amount of tourists compared to the north. To be honest, we were still lamenting the loss of the end of the Camino a bit. I do think Plan C is solid. Will stomp my feet a bit if Plan D materializes. But such is life and travel 🙂

Anyone want to walk 300km of Camino in 2017 with us? The challenge is on!

Day 12 (Villafranca del Bierzo)

A bit of a sleep in and then a lovely 10km walk beside vineyards where we saw many people working to get the grapes off. We also saw a mysterious statue-making yard with no other buildings nearby. I told Don I wanted to put an order in for a giant face. Too bad no one was around.

The town itself was beautiful. A population of about 5,000 and there were at least four massive churches and other heritage buildings.

 It was here I declared that knee spanx do not always solve all your problems. And definitely not in my case. And so we started to scrape together a Plan C for our trip. This was a tough decision made over many hours and glasses of wine. There is a sadness to leaving the Camino in the middle. But all is not lost…

Taking a page from The Scots playbook, the first part of Plan C is to come back in September 2017 to complete the last 300km of the Camino. And we’ve been throwing around the idea of a third trip to get that first 300km from France in.

The second part of Plan C – where to vacation in harmony with my knees – is still unfolding. But it will be an equally awesome adventure, just a little lighter on the kms.

Day 11 (Cacabelos)

Today started off great. This was the view as we were leaving our hotel:

The walk was mainly on sidewalks. By now, I’d noticed that most pilgrims were solo or in pairs, very few larger groups. While it’s relatively easy to meet people on the Camino, I’m sure it’s harder to find someone to walk with at your pace. Happy to be walking with Don!

We stopped here for a cafe con leche and met a woman from Leeds, where I spent my third year of university. We had a good chat about the area around Leeds. These are almost all pilgrims.

 Next was this beautiful town.

We found a pharmacy where we bought some spanx for my knees. I was getting quite serious about managing the ligament issues. As we exited the town, I saw this fantastic pair of shoes, which definitely would have come with me if the shop had been open. Don even offered to carry one ;).

Soon after this found and then lost, we hit a cafe and met a Canadian and German who we had met in Leon and were walking together. The German had a sore ankle so we decided to split a cab to the next town while Don and the Canadian walked. That was a tough decision, the first of many…

Day 10 (Manjarin to Molinaseca – 17km)

We are back in the Camino walking business!

After a lovely last evening in Leon, and a really fabulous dinner that included homemade tuna empanadas, we packed it all up and said goodbye to the Parador. En route I swear I saw a fellow eating an ice-cream with a piece of ham wedged in.

Don and I studied the maps and re-routed until we came up with a good Plan B. Some big boots to fill as we’d been on Plan A for more than a week! It took me a few days to be ok with skipping over some sections (although my knees felt differently) but I guess it’s all part of the experience.

This morning a bus and taxi shaved off about 80km in 3 1/2 hours. Driving by pilgrims, we realized we were leaving behind all the familiar faces we kept bumping into since we were now 3-4 days ahead.

I’ll be honest: today was ugly.  Well ok the scenery of deep green valleys and mountains far to the north was stunning ; it was the rocky path and the walking part that was the opposite to stunning – walking downhill hurts in a thousand different ways.  Even the first town, Manjarin, with its population of one very extroverted and gregarious chap could barely save the day. While I was doing this:

 I really wished I was doing this:

 We met a couple of Finns on the trail with map in hand wondering if they’d missed Manjarin. We told them it was the shack 3 kms back and that the next town was about 4 kms. They confessed they too had envisioned 30km a day and hadn’t really practiced at home. At least we’re in good company with the ambitious pilgrims who are scaling back. Maybe we should form a support group…

Tonight Don and I ate our millionth mixed salad, which comes topped with white asparagus from a can. We never eat it, and wonder if it gets recycled for the next salad.

Day 9 (Leon – rest day)

This was our magnificent accommodation in Leon, which we spotted about four blocks away and gasped. 

 It had everything we wanted: big, soft, fluffy towels, a bathtub, lots of space to spread out, a balcony, and breakfast included. This was our room: 

 Ok just kidding. But San Marcos is huge with an inner courtyard and many rooms with elegant furniture to read a book or hang out. We weren’t the only pilgrims here either :). 

After a short rest, we headed to one of the squares for dinner. We finished ordering and The Scots appeared so we invited them to join us. It was the first time we had more than a passing conversation with other pilgrims. Their Camino structure was interesting – done in three parts over many years – first the beginning, then the end and now the middle. And it also occurred to me that I haven’t asked anyone why they’re here but rather where they started. A much easier question to answer. 

Breakfast was outstanding mainly because of the halved, peeled grapefruits and croissants straight from France. We also saw two different groups from earlier on the walk, Australians from Day 3 and Georgians from The Nutcracker stop yesterday. This Parador is a good choice for the weary. I just wish the fire alarm hadn’t gone off three times at 6am and that our double bed wasn’t just twin beds pushed together. But I found a lovely gift from The Scots: compression bandages. My feet are now scared. 

Today we wandered around the town, shopping a bit, seeing sights and eating tapas.  I could get used to this! My feet adore me right now even though it’s somewhat challenging to figure out the next bit of our walk. 

 Don bought a Camino shell to put on his backpack today. Now I know we’ll not get lost…

Day 8 (Mansilla de las Mulas to Leon – 20km)

It was a two-bottles-of-wine evening, which still got us to bed at 10pm. At the next table we watched a fellow hold up a bottle of wine and pour it over his shoulder into a pint glass. He offered a shot to his friend, and then did it again. Interesting considering his aim was pretty off. Leaving the restaurant, we easily recognized the pilgrims as the ones limping in sport clothes while the Spanish were just arriving. 

This morning we out walked through the door of Mansilla, the first doorway of the pilgrimage in the old Kingdom of Leon.  Yep it was cold, again. 

 Loved this map of our route. Notice the exquisite castle at our end point, yes that’s where we’re staying for the next two nights! 

 We saw a few familiar faces along the way: Florida, a group of four Germans and the Smoker. We all chose the same cafe for a break at the 5km mark. The Nutcracker was playing on loud speakers. One of the Germans conducted the orchestra and bowed at the end. We needed that inspiration to get through the next 15km.

Leon was visible long before we arrived there. We walked and walked and upon reaching the old town, stopped for a rest. 4 Euros for a beer, a red wine and complimentary tapas, and this stunning view.

   All beered up, we brushed off the dust and smoothed down our hair to be presentable at the Parador. It worked as they let us in :). Truly, I’ve never seen a grander hotel.

 

Day 7 (El Burgo Ranero to Mansilla de las Mulas – 19km)

Last night we shared a four bed room at an aubergue with two men. Either we all snored or no one snored, I’m not sure which, but Don and I both managed to get some sleep.

Today, we are continuing our new pace and both using walking poles – me, the ones Don brought, and Don, the one he bought yesterday. It seems to be working for us. Well that and a lot of chocolate!

Most of our walk was again beside a road. Our pants and boots have become very dusty. I saw a second tombstone, likely dedicated to a pilgrim. I think this would be a good way to go, while doing something very meaningful and inspired.

 In the meantime, I’ve named the blisters on my left foot the Axis of Evil. In competition with my knees, they won out for causing my biggest grimaces today. And it’s not over by a long shot.

When we reached our destination, we saw The Scots at the hotel. We last spoke with them two days ago, saying with confidence that we would do 30km a day and likely not meet up again. Well then. 

Coming up, we’ve booked the Parador San Marcos in Leon for two nights. A Parador is a converted heritage building; in this case a former monastery now a luxury hotel. Finally, my feet and I will have a chance to be friends again.