February 5th, 2008, 5 Comments »
The Intarweb has been very slightly b0rked over the past, oh, 36 hours. Everything works fine, excepting that I can’t access Flickr.com. When I try to visit the site, my browser just churns and churns.
Interestingly, I can see static Flickr images when they’re referenced elsewhere. For example, I can see the little thumbnails in other posts on my home page (like this one).
This wouldn’t be a big deal, except that Flickr widgets on other sites don’t load. So, I wanted to do a few things on the Northern Voice site, but the Flickr widget tries to load in the left sidebar before the main content does. So, the page only loads as far as the title “Photos from Last Year” and then hangs.
I checked in Safari and on Julie’s machine, so it ain’t local to my MacBook. Weird, eh?
Of course, when the service and the access to support for the service live in the same place, I’m kind of pooched on getting help.
5 Comments »
February 3rd, 2008, 4 Comments »
I just got an email which finished with “Go Giants!” The Super Bowl is today, isn’t it? I don’t even know who’s playing. The Giants, apparently, versus…the Patriots.
I haven’t been a fan of the NFL for about two decades, but I’m usually slightly more attentive than this.
Coincidentally, I was watching a different kind of football this afternoon. We went for a walk on the beach, where there were at least a dozen games of soccer ongoing. Most were informal, but some were the equivalent of little league back in Canada. They don’t have any grass fields (that I’ve seen), so they play on the beach.
Then tonight we got a drink and watched a depleted Ghana squad beat Nigeria in the Africa Cup of Nations. I was glad to see the host nation make it through to the semi-finals.
Morocco got ousted in the group phase, so the locals seem to be pulling for neighbouring Tunisia. They face an uphill battle against Cameroon tomorrow.
4 Comments »
January 26th, 2008, 20 Comments »
Caution: travel snobbery and tourist judgment ahead.
So we’ve been living in Essaouira for about three weeks now. It’s a tourist-friendly town on the coast, and we’ve already noticed a slight up-tick in the tourist numbers since first arriving. I’m glad we’ll be leaving before the full weight of the spring tourists descends on these cramped streets.
As you probably know, Morocco is a Muslim nation. It’s quite a liberal one (the most liberal, I’m told), but you still hear the haunting call to prayer five times a day, and there are mosques–with very unassuming doors–on every major street.
As such, men and women dress conservatively. For women, the dress varies from cover-every-but-the-eyes djellabas to conservative, professional attire that covers everything from the neck to the ankles. Here in Essaouira, the rate of women who wear a head scarf covering at least their hair is probably about 75%. In larger cities, that rate would be lower.
Style Tips for the Smart Tourist
Here’s part of what my Lonely Planet Morocco has to say about how to dress:
Your choice of attire still may be perceived as a sign of respect for yourself, your family and your hosts (or lack thereof)…So if you want to make your family look good, and don’t want to miss out on some excellent company–especially among older Moroccans–do make a point to dress modestly.
For men and women alike, this means not wearing shorts and sleeveless tops. Even in trendy nightclubs, clingy clothing, short skirts and low-cut and midriff tops could be construed as, ahem, the oldest kind of professional attire.
That advice is reflected in online forums I’ve read. You’re always going to be recognizably a tourist (more on this in an old post), but it’s easy to respect the local dress code.
And in Essaouira, 19 out of 20 tourists do. Unfortunately, the twentieth always manages to embarrass themselves horribly. It’s not such a big deal for men, but they should leave the shorts on the beach (frankly, that advice ought to apply to the whole globe) and they should not, at any time, wear one of the local’s full length, hooded djellaba. I saw one North American doing that the other day, and he was getting all sorts of smirks from the locals.
Women are more restricted in what they should wear. As such, their fashion faux pas are more egregious. Shorts, short skirts, midriff-baring and low-cut tops, sleeveless shirts–it’s all pretty shameful.
A Few Brain Cells and Jedi Robes
It doesn’t take too many brain cells to:
- Read a guidebook or travel forum and follow some basic sartorial advice.
- Look around. See how much skin the locals aren’t showing, and dress accordingly.
Once every couple of days I see a ridiculously-dressed tourist that I just want to smack.
On a related note, the djellaba was almost certainly the inspiration for Jedi robes (and, come to think of it, the Jawa costumes). In fact, I suspect the costumer on the earliest Star Wars movie just bought one off a Berber’s back in Tunisia and threw it on Alec Guinness.
20 Comments »
January 24th, 2008, 12 Comments »
It occurred to me that I could probably get a .ma domain or two if I wanted, given that I know a local contact in country. I read that that’s a requirement, though this site claims differently. I’m not sure how difficult it is to get one, because I’ve never actually seen a .ma website (though according to Wikipedia, there are 137,187 of them).
Some of the obvious really short domains (dra.ma, trau.ma and so forth) are gone, but I checked a few off this list of words that end in ‘ma’. Those available include:
melodra.ma
ene.ma
nor.ma
sche.ma
You can check other possible domains here.
Of course, they cost about CAN $125 a year, so that’s a bit pricey for a whim. Still, something to think about while I’m here.
12 Comments »
January 23rd, 2008, No Comments »
At the moment, CAN $1 = MAD 7.53. In my experience, very few things are less than one dirham (about 12 Canadian cents). In coins, I’ve seen a half-dirham (it literally has a 1/2 symbol on it), one dirham, five dirham and ten dirham denominations. In bills, there’s a 20, 50, 100, 200 and so forth.
Practically speaking, there are no cents or centimes or santimat. Unlike most other countries I’ve visited, there are no ones and hundreds–it’s just hundreds. On the other hand, you’re not working in absurdly large quantities, as in, say, Zimbabwe or Italy before the Euro. The worst conversion experience I’ve had is Hungary, where one Canadian dollar equaled 175 forints. Try making that calculation on the fly.
Transactions are easy in Morocco. It’s just one number, and it’s almost always below 500. This is a real boon to my incredibly crap French, handy when you have to negotiate the price of many purchases over, say, 10 bucks Canadian.
No Comments »
January 14th, 2008, 3 Comments »
I just got back from Essaouira’s souk, where the locals shop. I bought:
- 6 eggs.
- A whole chicken breast (meaning, uh, all the white meat on the bird). The butcher pulled it from his refrigeration unit–a box of water.
- A mango, 6 plums and 4 apples.
- Some carrots, an onion and a green pepper.
- Some couscous.
- A couple baguettes.
All for 75 dirhams, or just under CAN $10. A little cheaper than Urban Fare, methinks.
3 Comments »
January 8th, 2008, 8 Comments »
We’re finally settled in our temporary home here in Essaouira. All has gone well, though I’m struggling with a bit of gastroenteritis-related unpleasantness. It’s to be expected when visiting the developing world and hopefully will, uh, pass, in the next couple of days.
We’re very happy with our little riad. Technically speaking it has five levels–three floors around a central courtyard and two terraces. The wifi works like a charm, and we’re going to go see ‘the wood man’ later in the week. He’s going to make us a very simple wooden desk where we’ll work for the next two months.
Things should get back to normal around this site in the next couple of days. In the meantime, here are some photos of our riad. I was also fond of this odd tin of ‘email synthetique’. We could all use some of that, occasionally. But how do I apply it?
8 Comments »
January 4th, 2008, 6 Comments »
We have successfully touched down in the Palmeraie, a resorty suburb of Marrakesh. Thanks to LuxuryLink, we’re staying at Jnane Tamsna, a luxurious, garden-filled sprawling compound of lovely Moroccan houses.
I had mixed feelings about staying in the Palmeraie instead of the middle of Marrakesh, but we’ll be living in the dead centre of Essaouira’s medina for two and a half months. I figured we could enjoy a little touristy luxury for a few days. Plus, this place is only about a quarter-full, so we pretty much have the gardens and heated pools to ourselves. It’s gorgeous.
Of All the Gin Joints
We landed in Casablanca, and overnighted in Morroco’s grimy commercial centre. I’ve never much cared for big cities in the developing world (the exception being Havana), and I wasn’t particularly enamoured of Casablanca.
The exception was the extraordinary Hassan II mosque. I gather non-Muslims are usually not permitted inside mosques, so we jumped at the chance for a tour. Maybe they made an exception for this mosque to recover expenses–it cost half a billion dollars to build. From Wikipedia:
Built on reclaimed land, almost half of the surface of the mosque lies over the Atlantic water. This was inspired by the verse of the Qur’an that states “the throne of God was built on the water”. Part of floor of this facility is glass so worshippers can kneel directly over the sea; above, lasers shine at night from the top of the minaret toward Mecca
By a significant margin, it’s the biggest religious building (nay, complex) I’ve ever seen. It can accommodate 25,000 worshippers (20,000 men on the floor, 5,000 women on enclosed balconies). The main worshipping space is mind-bogglingly enormous–it defies description. I took some photos, but they don’t satisfactorily portray the experience.
Riding on the Marrakesh Express
The following morning we took the three-hour train trip down to Marrakesh. The landscape changed from farmland to red rock terrain. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit how much I was reminded of Tatooine, Luke Skywalker’s home planet. Though, of course, I’m pretty sure those scenes were shot in Tunisia.
Morroco seems like an ideal culinary nation for me. The food is flavourful but not particularly spicy. They eat a lot of poultry, and I’ve always preferred cous-cous to rice. Plus, Morocco is mostly a dry nation, so restaurants offer a rich variety of non-alcoholic drinks and juices.
Here’s our nascent Morocco photo set on Flickr, if anybody’s interested. More updates as events warrant and web access permits.
6 Comments »
December 30th, 2007, 3 Comments »
We’re spending the next ten days traveling slowly (via Valetta, Casablanca and Marrakesh) to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. We’ll be mostly offline, but probably checking email occasionally. If you desperately need to get in touch with me, send an SMS to 604.727.5345. Don’t call, because voice calls get redirected via the very-reliable SimulScribe to my email.
Until then, happy new year! See you in 2008.
3 Comments »
October 25th, 2007, 4 Comments »
Last week, we started our search for a place to live for the three months we’ll be spending in Essaouira. It’s a seaside town of about 70,000 people about two hours east of Marrakech.
I was concerned that it would be tricky to find the right property. We wanted something ready-to-rent, complete with Internet access (we didn’t have time to wait around for a week to get it set up, and didn’t want to deal with utility bills and such). On the other hand, we needed a place with kitchen facilities. Combine our requirements with the very spammy, portal-filled search results (so typical of the online travel industry) I was generating, and I thought we were in for a bit of a search.
In Ireland and Malta, we’d relied on human filters to get the job done. When we moved to Ireland, the company hired a ‘relocation expert’ (really just a friend of the head of engineering, I think) to help us find the right flat. In Malta, we hooked up with the country’s biggest real estate company to find our Gharb farmhouse.
However, through some diligent searching, Julie found Dar Zahira (caution, groovy music ahead), a small riad in the centre of Essaouira’s walled city. It’s got three bedrooms, wifi throughout and it looks fairly awesome. We got it for an entirely reasonable price, and are looking forward to three months in North Africa before heading back to Canada.
We’ll be living, roughly speaking, in the center of this map:
View Larger Map
4 Comments »
