Brian on the Road

Upon return Tuesday morning, I took a quick tour of the Hassan II mosque, the 3rd largest mosque in the world. It took something like $3 Billion and 6 years to build. It's impressive. The strangest part was that I didn't get the same sense of wonder as when going to Westminster Abby. That is to say since it was only completed in 1993, it doesn't have any history. I'm sure when people look back in 200 or 400 years, they'll wonder at how it was created, but for now, it's just a really big building that's incredibly ornate. At least to me. Glad I saw it, anyway. That beeping you hear is a missle tracking in on my location...

From Casa we rented a Fiat and drove down to Marakesh. It wasn't quite as cool as they made it seem in Indiana Jones, but what is? We were able to find a really cool place that actually had A/C, so sleeping was nice and cozy. The main square is filled every night with bands, vendors selling everything and anything, and the biggest food court in the world. Granted most of the food is the same, but it's still pretty damn impressive. There's also a medina with a more chill vibe than either Casa or Rabbat's. They also tended to have more handmade goods, especially leather, there. Handmade where, I don't know. We spent the next day in Marakesh as well, checking out an incredibly old palace as well as a newer but still old palace (both names escape me, but I"m sure Wikipedia knows. Both were awe-inspiring to say the least. The idea of having a 90 meter pool 800 years ago boggles my mind. We spent the afternoon at the pool because we were in Africa and it was Africa hot.

The next day we drove a couple hours to Esouira right on the coast. It's a fishing port, and previously a military fort. We bunked down in a very cool little Riad, which is a house with an open area in the middle. Since it rarley rains, it provides tons of use and helps keep things cool. I took a bunch of pics. It also included a sweet little roof deck with beautiful views of the rest of town including the fort walls, ocean, and the other white-washed roof decks. We had an excellent Tajine lunch at an outdoor cafe and then took a walk around town and an obligatory stop in the medina. One of the vendors was creating sculpture made purely from scarp metal. One particularly cool one was made entirely of bike parts. Things like deraileur cages were put to amazing use. Wish I could have bought one, but getting things back to the States is an adventure at best. We managed to secure some bohemia-style beers and enjoy them on the roof. We went out for dinner, hung out a bit more, and hit the hay.

The next morning we piled into the car for a 5 hour drive back to Casa. It was incredibly hot and drivers and driving there is beyond nuts. I thought we were going to die (and I really mean that) twice. Situations like oncoming cars in both lanes and people on scooters in the breakdown lane tend to thin my joie de vive. But we made it back.
After that it was an early night and the next morning it was on to Prague...