Bye Bye Melbourne.....

So I left Melbourne in a bit of a hurry and have been travelling along the coast over the past few days....I've done so much stuff but internet cafe's are very scarce (and very expensive!) so this is the first opportunity I've had to write in a while (I'll still have to wait til I get to Sydney to upload photos).

I got back from the ocean road on the Friday so managed to start work at the race track on Saturday. My job was to help put up big marquees. This generally involved carrying poles and sections of the canvas around to different sites where tents were being errected. The work was as boring as any other labor work but I was getting cash in hand at the end of each day....or so I thought.

At the end of the first day the foreman made some excuse about not having any money on him so he'd pay us on Monday for both days. We didn't see him on Monday but made sure we spoke to him on Tuesday. He finally gave us the money for Saturdays work and said he'd pay us on Friday for the week. This wasn't exactly comforting news but there wasn't really much I could do about it so I carried on working til Friday. On the Friday morning I went to get the weeks pay....the guy said he hadn't had a chance to go to the bank blah blah blah . After going on at for a while he agreed to let me drive him to the ATM where he got my weeks pay out (no money for any of the other laborers). I drove him back, worked the couple of hours til lunchtime then buggered off. I didn't wanna go through that every week!

So I packed up, said goodbye to everybody in the flat and left!

Oh, before I left I went on a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It was spectacular, the place holds over 100,000 people and I got to walk on the pitch, in the dressing rooms, the press boxes and even sit on the senior member's leather seats!

Other than that I didn't do anything else exciting before leaving Melbourne but I have done so much stuff over the past few days. Unfortunately I am paying triple the usual rate for internet access so I'll have to write about it later! I am currently in a town called Eden, just inside the New South Wales border. I'll probably make Sydney in about 3-4 days....



My best attempt at making a 'panoramic' view of the MCG

Last stop Granada!

Granada is a cool student town situated at the foot of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains, overlooked by the commanding fortress complex of the Alhambra.

When I arrived at 10am I found that my hostel was at the top of a very steep hill...and I was at the bottom. It wasn't all bad though - the climb did take me through some of the outer gardens of the Alhambra and once I arrived I was rewarded by a dip in the hostel's pool on the rooftop terrace (yes, it was a hostel!).

I spent the day wandering around the town before heading off to the Old Quarter to find the San Nicholas lookout. The lookout is at the top of another large hill (!) but every step was worth it as I was rewarded with the most spectacular view of the Alhambra, its towers rising majestically above the town's buildings and its red battlements cutting through the dark green chestnut trees that covers the hill it sits upon.

In the afternoon I met a couple of English girls and a guy called Tom, who was working at the hostel. We cobbled together some Sangria and Tom took us around the town telling us a bit about Granada. After the sun went down we headed up to San Nicholas lookout to take in the night view of the Alhambra. The night was spent sitting on the edge of the lookout in the warm evening breeze, swapping travelling stories and drinking Sangria while watching guitar players, flamenco dancers and a fire juggler busk for the crowds.

The next day was Alhambra day! I had to get up ridiculously early (not helped by Sangria consumption), queue for ages to get in (while hungover), and was forced to talk to a German Physics teacher that was standing next to me in the queue (I don't think I need to explain why that one was bad). But it was all worth it as I have to say that the Alhambra is probably the most spellbinding tourist attraction I've ever seen....

The "Red Fortress" is a palace and fortress complex of the Moorish rulers of Granada which was constructed during the mid 14th century. The Nazaries Palaces, where the king and other powerful rulers lived is decorated with endless intricate stucco carvings, spectacular arches and beautiful paintings. The palaces also featured lots of beautiful fountains, all connected by little channels running through courtyards and along the paths feeding water to these decorative water features. The palaces (and the whole fortress) are built around beautiful colourful gardens which are perfectly maintained and perfect for a summer afternoon stroll.

Another main section is the Alcazaba (citadel) which has tall towers and ramparts that allowed me to walk along with a swagger, look down on the town below and pretend I was an important Andalucian ruler! The last main section was the Generalife (summer palace) with endless beautiful water gardens and even some water stairs! This place also had more beautiful gardens and a huge courtyard that would host dancers and other entertainment for the King. Another building of note is the Palace of Charles V, the Roman emperor who decided he wanted a palace with a Catholic influence when he took over the region after the conquest of 1492. The palace is a square with a circular courtyard inside that is rimmed with huge stone columns on two floors - no expense was spared there!

The rest of my time in Granada was spent hanging out with the other guests at the hostel, eating some amazing free tapas (a beer for €2 comes with a free plate of tapas....every time!), visiting the caves in the hills behind the city walls and teaching Europeans how to play conkers (the hostel was surrounded with conker trees)!! I am hoping to start a conker revolution in Hungary....

So that was it - after an amazing 3 weeks I headed to the airport for my flight back home to Stanstead. The only good part of the journey back was throwing away the rubbish sandals I bought in Morocco...

Peace out 'til next time....



The town of Granada, overlooked by the spectacular Alhambra



View of the Alhambra from San Nicholas Lookout



Dora, Maria and Tom



The Alhambra at night - looks even more amazing!



A fire juggler at San Nicholas Lookout



Inside the Alhambra, the gardens at Nazerias Palaces



Beautiful carved arches








The ceiling of one of the palace's buildings







A decorative pool in a courtyard at the palace



Stunningly intricate stucco carvings



The Old Quarter












The watergrdens of the Generalife



Water was jumping around all over the place!



Walking through the beautiful gardens







Looking out from the huge towers of the Alcazaba










Tiggy got quite into the conkers tournament



The two finalists before the final battle!



The view from the top of the hills behind the town



A cave behind the towns main walls...




...some of them were actually quite nice!!

España

So it was time to leave Morocco and head to the south of Spain, but not before another Moroccan bus journey.....

Joe was heading to Spain too so we headed off early to catch the bus to Tangier then the boat to Tarifa in Spain. We had just missed a bus (but overtook it 2 hours later while it sat on the roadside...with only 3 wheels attached!) so we had to wait a while. By the time we boarded it was 36 degrees outside and about 56 degrees inside the bus. Everyone piled on the bus and we headed off. After a few minutes we noticed that the three children in the seats opposite were staring straight at Joe. As he was the only white person on the bus (I was cultivating quite a nice tan by then) we thought nothing of it. After 20 minutes they were still staring. After 30 minutes they were still staring....

While I was dying with laughter Joe was getting quite uncomfortable at being stared at so told them to look the other way. Anyway, their mother came over and shooed them into a different seat....and then stared at Joe! This went on for the rest of the journey much to my amusement.

Anyway, we got over to Tarifa on the boat quite late and ended up staying there for the rest of the day. The place had a beautiful beach and windsurfing so I was in my element! We had some beers and met a couple of Dutch girls who were cycling all around Spain then headed out for tapas and paella!

The next day Joe was going to Seville and I was going in the opposite way to Granada. However, I was thwarted by a group of French School children who had bought all the tickets for the only bus to Granada....cheese-eating surrender monkeys (I stole that insult form Joe). Anyway, the obvious thing to do was...to go the completely the opposite direction to Seville!

Seville is BEAUTIFUL. The city centre is full of nice parks and amazingly intricate buildings towering over the many palm trees planted all over the place. It has a river running through it that reminded me a bit of the Thames...except it was emerald green...and had lots of fish in it...and it wasn't cold outside...

There is also quite a pretty old quarter which leads out to a large square that contains the Cathedral of Seville. The cathedral was built over 500 years ago and looks masterfully over the city with its main tower, the Giralda, soaring high up into the sky. We climbed up the Giralda to hear the bell ring and look out over the city - a truly beautiful sight....

Probably the most amazing thing we saw was the Plaza de España, a spectacular building constructed for the Spanish-American exhibition in 1929. The building curves round a huge courtyard to form a semi-circle and has a tiled alcove for every province in Spain that it decorated with wonderful paintings that represent the area.

More tapas (and lots of beer) were consumed and the next morning I headed off to Granada, the last city on my trip. (I'm actually back in the UK now but I'll write all about it tomorrow anyway!).






The Cathedral of Seville



The Giralda



A beautiful stained-glass window in the cathedral



The view from the top of the Giralda



The main bull-fighting ring



This lady guards the cathedral



The Plaza de España



The Plaza de España from another view!



Barcelona alcove



Alicante alcove



Just another beautiful fountain....



They even named a hotel after me!!







Me + Granada...



Looking across the square at the Plaza de España

Chefchaouen

Situated up by the Rif mountains, the lazy town of Chefchaouen is easilly the most chilled out place in Morocco I´ve visited....

I was actually lucky to get there in the first place! The day I had decided to make the trip from Fes was the day after Ramadan had finished. For those who don´t know much about Ramadan (I didn´t) - for one month every year devout Muslims don´t eat or drink ANYTHING between the time the sun rises to the time the sun sets. Once the month is up they have two days of celebration that basically involves visiting the homes of family members and eating all day long. Consequently nothing was open and instead of the 50 or so busses to Chefchaouen, there was one....and it didn´t go all the way to the town....

The company did however provide those who wanted to go the extra 10km to the town with a taxi. Unfortunately that taxi was a battered old Peugeot 205 that had to transport 7 men to the town....so I spent the last 20 minutes of the journey crushed between two fat Moroccans who had clearly not discovered the wonders of deodorant.

Chefchaouen is named 'the blue town', a nickname it receives because all of the buildings in the Medina are painted a beautiful creamy sky blue colour that give the impression the town is a fluffy blue cloud nestling at the foot of the Rif mountains.

The people are equally chilled out too. There was no constant hassles to buy things and no one following us around trying to guide us to placed for a tip. There was however a ridiculous amount of people selling hash. Apparently 90% of the marijuana that comes out of Morocco is grown up in the Rif. Even the waiters in the restaurants would give you the bill and ask if you wanted to buy ´some special smoke´!

I´d met an American guy on the bus and met an American girl and a Spanish couple at the hostel. We all went out for dinner that evening and watched the people wandering around the square from a beautiful roof terrace and drank mint tea til the early hours. The next morning we wandered through the winding blue streets and all agreed that Chefchaouen was the most peaceful part of Morocco we´d visited.

That afternoon it was time for some serious mountain climbing! I´d managed to persuade Joe, the American dude, that he actually wanted to go climbing too - so we headed off about lunchtime. The initial climb was killer - not least because it was 36 degrees outside, but also because 3/4 of the way up it started to get very very steep. By this time it was too late to find a different route so we pressed on. At some points it was full on vertical rock climbing (with no harness) which I loved! As we got higher and higher we came across mountain goats, large lizards and even a scorpion. The view from the top was truly spectacular and worth every bit of the effort.

We headed back down to check out an old mosque before meeting the others for dinner and lots more lovely mint tea. The next day it was off to Spain!! Pictures tomorrow!