Travel with JoY

Arrived to the contrast of the Nouvelle City, outside the walls or Medina of the Old City. Modern, banks and hotels line Mohamed V Avenue. Abdullah met us at the train station and delivers us to Bab Aylen (Bab is Gate) on the east side of the Medina. He then guides us by foot into the Medina about two short blocks to a small alley where we are greeted by Sayid of Riad Shaden. Sayid and Youssef, the managers are always 'service with a smile'. They tell us to 'ask for anything, we can help you'. In typical Moroccan tradition we are served sweet warm mint tea upon arrival and placed in our tiny room on the first floor of the Riad (Moroccan home with inner courtyard). Breakfast each day is strong coffee and warm milk with an assortment of breads such as corn bread, semolina bread and crepes. We asked for boiled eggs each morning to have some protein with all the carbs. We've met fellow travelers mostly from Europe, especially Netherlands. Always fun...

We arrived at the Moroccan International Airport today at Casablanca. No driver appeared as we had hoped. When I called the hotel they told me that the driver had a 'very bad problem with the police', so we were directed to take a taxi and not spend more than 280 Dirham. The driver got 300 out of us. It was a long drive and during the last half hour wound slowly through narrow inner city streets. After being in Cape Town, Casablanca it very scruffy. Everything is dusty and quite a bit of garbage lying around. We finally reached the hotel, a once fairly opulent hotel with the classic Arab tiles, and ornate wood trim and moulding. We were starving so begged the hotel restaurant to open a bit early for lunch. I had my first Moroccan tagine, fish with olives backed in a very flavorful sauce in a clay pot. Quite nice. Everything appeared clean here but it looks like they don't believe in using bleach. In the well dressed restaurant each table was formerly whi...

Being Tourists We've been hitting all the high spots, the V&A Wharf (similar to San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf), the Hop on Hop off Bus Tours. In fact we took the bus half way up that mountain in the background to a beautiful overlook of the city below.  A taxi driver took us on a daylong trip to the Cape Point or Cape of Good Hope.  Along the way we saw the charming little, but endangered African Penguin. Liam has been a great little travel buddy.  He loves attention and just lights right up when you give him a smile.  He 'talks' and coos.....and poos!  Time to take off for a wine tour today to Stellenbosch.  The wine is the most pleasant surprise.  I knew they grew grapes, but had no idea the quality and with a good exchange rate, good prices.  Cheaper than soda and juice!  They're waiting for me, gotta go.

Capetown Here we Come! We leave tomorrow for Africa.   Africa, three times in one year, who would have predicted! We meet Ella and Liam there.  I hear it's beautiful.  We dropped of Randy the cat today with Terri.  Almost finished packing.   It's 80 degrees there during the day. Twelve days, then on to Morocco.

It was supposed to be a two day trip not four plus.  But when we arrived in Brussels, our connection to the flight to Nairobi, I went to the ticket agent to see about a seat upgrade due to the long flight and she said, " we may not be flying to Nairobi, there's been a fire in the airport terminal".  i was shocked.  An hour or so later, after I scrambled to use the internet and communicate with Ella in Nairobi and as luck would have it, Alex from the US Consulate in Kenya who happened to be on Google chat at the moment, I decided to take the one of two options offered to me.  Brussels airlines either offered to put us up for up to two days in Brussels but warned that there would likely be no open flights to Nairobi for much longer than that.  The other option I chose was to fly to Entebbe, Uganda from which it was my responsibility to find my way to Nairobi.  It didn't look too far on the map and I didn't think the Brussels hotel option sounded good.  ...

We couldn't have chosen a much worse timing for this trip.  The day we leave Kenya is the first election in about six or seven years.  One of the leading candidates Uhuru and his deputy are both going before the Hague in April on charges of Human Rights violations as a result of the last election. They are charged with inciting violence and taking advantage of tribal tensions.  There was a lot of violence as a result of that election and already violence this time.  We do have a friend of a friend at the US Embassy who's been giving us personal advice on where to go and not go. Kenya is already one of the most crime ridden and corrupt countries in the world.  Expats, including Ella and Ken, live in a double gated community.  There is a gate at the entrance to their neighborhood, low security actually. Then there is a high security gate at the entrance to their apartment compound. Strangers are vetted through the phones to be sure they really are deliverin...

I While it's still fresh, I need to note the highlights of an amazing day.  Some of the highlights were a family of lions with two young cubs, a couple of cheetahs, many elephants, gazelles, hippos, bat-earred fox; but Yata and I both really enjoyed the giraffes.  After a full day of driving the most spectular landscape;probably the furthest panorama ever, over rolling grasslands; we then visited a Masai village.  The young men did a welcome dance with song for us. They demonstrate some of their native skills and took us into a dung and stick home.  It was very dark and cramped. They say the whole village leaves and builds a new one every nine years because the termites cause their homes to fall down.  There are large termite mounds around, in fact one of the cheetahs was sunning himself on one this morning. We are doing the safari with an international group: Paul, Ukrainian world traveler (fifty countries so far), Slim and wife from Tun...