Morocco- Beaches, Markets, and a Plan

There's nothing like a day at the beach with some friendly camels to bring smiles to our faces. 

Even the men aren't creepy anymore! Love the baseball cap under the turban, a new and practical fashion statement.

 We still need to be sleuth about our photos but we enjoy the challenge and are getting quite good at it.

Lately we have been venturing into the back alleys and discovered some wonderful opportunities for Janet's skills. We can't wait to pick up a few tools, rent a little workshop and go at it!

 

We just need to pick up a few things at the market, no problem that it is all men at the market, we're used to that. 

Plus we could probably find some willing and helpful subs who have there own vehicles and would like to come work for us.

We could also get our own company vehicle, we just need to get a donkey next.




We might need some caution tape for some areas and a good Moroccan electrician to help out with these electrical panels, hope he has thick rubber gloves. 

Of course, we will need new company uniforms and now that we will be settling down I think it is time to start choosing a pet.

Morocco- adjusting to the culture

Greetings from the land of beautiful colors and textures, veiled women and generally creepy men. 

If anyone saw Janet posing for this photo they might have stoned us both. We couldn’t help ourselves when we saw these heads on sticks, like stick horses. 

These little girls get a few years of freedom before they too must cloak themselves like their mothers. 

Can you tell that I am having a hard time with my prejudices against a culture that generally oppresses women? 

The women here clearly don’t mind it is their culture but it just feels like they will never experience the freedoms we have as women and that seems so sad and unnecessary in todays world. 

All the pictures we take are on the sly, no one, even the men, want their pictures taken. 

We just have a small camera and sometimes I try and drape a scarf over it, but we stand out so much there isn’t much we can do unnoticed.

 

We use each other as decoys and take the photo behind or just beside one of us whenever we can. Sometimes it works. So we have lots of color, texture, architecture and boat pictures, and a few of the people. There are so many great faces that we just can’t take, bummer. 

I think the hardest part is not understanding a word around us as the common language is French and we are clueless. I think if we could communicate just a little bit it would be much better and the ‘us-them’ barriers would be less. It is such a drag being so cut off from everyone around us because of our lack of language skills. Pointing and smiles work but are limiting when we want to understand what is going on around us. 

We had a couple of good experiences today with 2 different vendors that spoke broken English very well, we were happy to buy whatever product they sold. We now own a little box that will hold toothpicks, an 'antique' Bedouin vial that held mascara to darken above and below their eyes to protect against the desert sun, and some very special almond butter which we will eat tomorrow morning! I think we will adjust but it will take a little work on our part. We are not finding Morocco as welcoming of a culture as South America, India or Thailand but we will persist. 

 

Greece- Tourists in Athens and Swimmers in Milos

We are constantly trying to find the best way to make sightseeing interesting while traveling. In Athens we were able to find a fantastic guide that took us on a mythological tour of the ruins which made them come alive with stories of love, battle, intrigue and jealousy.

Following that we decided to take another tour of the foods of Greece and we were not disappointed! We could move here for the food and the markets alone.

Milos 

This beautiful little Greek Island is known for all its colorful geological formations.

I felt totally surrounded by exquisite natural abstract paintings. I wanted to fill my suitcase with all the multicolored rocks but managed to edit it down to only 8! 

The Mediterranean was warm and beautifully clear and the ultimate intrigue of coming to Milos was to explore its stunning coastline full of inviting caves and arches. 

We missed our fellow pink cap swimmers from Maui and unfortunately our sense of adventure and discovery was not shared by the SwimTrek leaders. 

So, we left the group a day early and found a shoreline we could explore on our own, totally unconstrained.