May 2006

Today I noticed that my fligth back to Austria leaves at 16:20. That gives me one more day in southern Spain because I still catch the flight if I arrive in Lisbon the same day. I took the chance to visit Gibraltar. The British took over the rock 302 years ago and defended it sucessfully against various enemies. Today Gibraltar reminds me pretty much of Great Britain or London. You can quite the same stores and sights are equally expensive. I bought myself a Burton shirt. The shirt is great but it turned out to be a bad idea to buy it BEFORE visiting the upper rock, since a gang of Barbary Macaques (apes) sit around there and wait for tourists to nick stuff from them. Preferably plastic bags and rucksacks. You really have to watch out and hide your stuff.

To escape the thieving apes I made a tour through the mountain's tunnel system. There a 50 km of tunnels, but only 35 km of road on Gibraltar. A German gave me a private tour. I guess he was quite happy to speak some German for a change.

PS: I uploaded some new photos. See them here.

I arrived in Tarifa this morning. I'm pretty done by the long journey. I guess I caught a little travel diarrhea as well. I decided to get a coke and walk around in Tarifa. There is plenty of time to be sick at home.

Visiting Tarifa in may only gives you kind of an idea what's going on here in summer. Even now you see SUVs with surfing stickers, big tan guys with long hair and surfing shops almost everywhere. It must be just crazy in summer.

But for now I'm quite satisfied with a toilet I can see from time to time and a shower. I'd have never believed it, but being smelly can disturb intercultural piece. That's what I learnt on the train from Marakesh last night. I was sharing a compartment with two South Koreans I had met on the desert trip. We must have been really smelly because the Moroccan woman traveling in our compartment complained about us with the conductor and was relocated to another compartment. Diplomatic, I am, I tried to show our good will by showing off my melting deodorant but that left her unimpressed. *lol*

Yesterday evening I returned from my desert trip. Great people in my group. The highlight was a camel-trip and a night in a Berber camp. I`ll publish some pictures very soon.

On the first day we drove through the Atlas mountains and stayed in an hotel located next to a river and a massive stone wall.

Then we visited a Berber family who tried to sell us their carpets. After that we reached the real sand dessert (before it was stone dessert). We rode on camels to the Berber camp and missed to watched the sunset from a dune. Though the dune was still nice. In the evening we listend to Berber tales and spent the night under the open sky. Just imagine how cool that was.

The last day was manly a 10-hour driving day, which I continued with a 10-hour driving night on the train.

All in all a great trip, if my stomache wouldn`t hurt like hell now. I blame the salad and/or the watered orange juice.

Best regards
scipio

I just decided to hop over to Africa for a few days. I haven`t yet been there anyways. Let`s go was drawing a really negative picture of the country, especially Tangier. But I didn`t find it as bad. There might be a few people trying to sell you stuff, and at the port a guy was waiting for me with a fake-ID, saying he works for the tourist information. I let him arrange for a taxi and he explained the way to the ATM. At that point I was virtually prepared for everything. But I guess their real plan was to charge me an exorbitant taxi-fee. The cheeky driver started with 120 MAD. Finally he drove me for 30 MAD. Still overpriced, but I don`t wanna discuss the price forever.

At the trainstation I quickly found some company. In the end we were 6 Westerns going to Marakesh. Especially the two Canadian girls (that`s right mum, on their own in this dangerous country)had quite an idea about what they were doing. Maybe because they have been traveling for 8 months so far.

Marakesh is an awesome city, especially the Medina. I`m glad Evelin, my Mexico-American companion didn`t force me to visit more ruins. She was more into shopping. I didn`t buy anything, but booked a 3-day Sahara Expedition. Already wonder how that`s gonaa be.

All the best
scipio

Since I`m not temped to wait for 5 hours for a bloody bus to Tarifa, I`ll go to Gibraltar first.

I spontaeously decided to leave Lagos, since sun-bathing got boring, and there wasn`t much going on besides that. So I did a short sailing cruise to the grottes and hopped on a bus to Sevilla.

I had a great night out yesterday. The bars aren´t too crowded yet, so it´s easier to just meet everyone. I mostly chatted with two Australian guys and the Austrian barkeeper Monika. Quite impressive to meet Austrians that far away.

Tomorrow I wanna do a boat cruise, since being on the beach all day already gets boring.

I just arrived at the campsite in Lagos. It´s 5 euros a night and they got new toilets and hot showers!! Next to me there is a french couple with a VERY tiny tent and 2 german nurses.

Plans for the evening: empty a bottle of gin and check out the town.

I arrived in Lisbon this evening. I spontanuously had to change my accomodation, because they wanted to bill me 40 bucks just because I didn`t book online. But I found a better one in an old lady´s house. It wasn´t too easy to find.