Marvao

After a long break since our last work exchange, it was a really good feeling rolling into the bus station in Portalegre, Portugal, knowing that our hosts would be there to pick us up. Our home for the next couple of weeks included our British hosts, Irene and Nick, their three girls, burping champion Meggie the dog, two horses and Frankie the foal.


In exchange for food and very comfortable accommodation in a separate studio apartment, we spent our mornings working on a variety of jobs, mainly constructing a fence for the planned jumping arena for the horses. This involved digging holes in hard and rocky ground with a pick axe and spade (think prison workline minus the cotton picking songs!), cementing the posts in the holes, cutting out rails from the cleared trees, and then attaching the rails using hay-bale wire. Hard work but we were pretty satisfied with our efforts when we left - we'd completed 2 full sides of the arena, ready for the guy with the tractor to come in and level the rest of the space for the other fence sides.


In our spare time we did a lot of lounging around watching videos (tv is a wonderful thing once you've gone without it), walked around and swam in the dam/lake, rode the horses, and visited some gypsy markets where the women compete to see who can yell with the loudest and most annoying voice. We also checked out the tiny town of Marvao and its castle perched high atop a hill that can be seen from Spain, and walked back to the farm via an old cobbled path down the mountain that has been there for centuries.


Next we're off to the Czech Republic for a brief visit before meeting up with friends in Munich for some well deserved beer.

Portugal

Our first stop in Portugal was the capital Lisbon. After getting off the overnight bus, we managed to catch the first metro train of the day, which was a first for me given my normal sleeping habits. We found a room, which unfortunately was at the top of 9 flights of stairs, totalling 92 steps. After 3 days of that and I think I am the stair master....I mastered the stairs.


We found out that the cinemas in Portugal subtitle their Hollywood movies, instead of dubbing. Although this doesn't seem that big a deal, we got to see our first movies in English in months. And see them we did, I think we watched 3 in 2 days. Here, you can actually choose where you will sit in the cinema, enjoy an alcoholic beverage, and top up at intermission.

Walking down one of the main streets passing the countless shoe polishers as we went (which seems to be a tradition here!), I think I was offered drugs by 8 different people in the space of 15 minutes. I guess I did need a haircut and shave but I didn't think I was that bad.

After foolishly trying to go to the Brazilian embassy to organise our Visa's we discovered a waiting line that went out the door and literally around the block. The tail of this line was within a couple of meters of the entry, unfortunately it was headed on the scenic route before heading in. Needless to say we skipped that, and figured we'll try getting our Visas in a less, Portuguese place...say, Germany when we get there.


After a couple of days in Lisbon, we randomly headed for Evora. This turned out to be a nice little place, and we managed to catch a full blown fashion parade, and also headed to the 'Capela Dos Ossa', which translates as the Chapel of Bones. It has this name for a good reason, being that the interior is completely covered with thousands of human bones! Being here was very very creepy.


The inscription on the entrance to the chapel says (translated) 'We bones that are here, we are waiting for yours.' The idea behind this place is to remind people of their mortality, and provoke them to consider their actions in life knowing that they will ultimately end up the same as those on the wall. It certainly achieved those goals....we didn't hang around this place too long!

At one point I realised we were the only people there, and I took this video for those who are interested and game....yes pretty much everything that looks like a brick or anything is a human bone of some sort.

Our last stop in Portugal has brought us east to a small town called Rasa, near Portalegre, not far from the Spanish border. We are currently in the middle of another work exchange, and it has been nice to do some physical work again for the first time in months. The place is beautiful, with a nearby creek, barage, and an imposing castle (in Marvao) that overlooks the entire area.

More on Spain, and surviving Morocco

Granada is a beautiful town set at the base of the Sierra Nevada, a large group of hills in the south of Spain. On the way in we saw all these houses built into the mountain walls, some of which were pretty elaborate and beautiful. The first thing we noticed about Granada was how genuine the town is. Although there is plenty for tourists, and plenty of tourists, the town doesn't feel like it is putting on a show just for us. It sounds simple but I think it is quite difficult to achieve.

The second thing we noticed was how good the Tapas was! It's really cool buying a drink (doesn't have to be alcoholic) and receiving a decent size portion of something you would probably be happy eating for dinner anyway. We later found out that Granada serves Tapas the way it was intended and how it used to be served everywhere.

We also visited the Alhambra, considered one of the greatest achievements of Islamic art and architecture. This is like a giant peaceful garden up one of the hills with a massive fortress around it, and contains a palace as well. The gardens were beautiful, water everywhere, used very well to create the lush gardens and peaceful atmosphere. This is the kind of place you could just spend all day relaxing in, looking out over Granada below. Inside the palace, the detail in the decorative work was outstanding, and the small gardens dotted everywhere made it very relaxing. If you're ever in Granada, the Alhambra is definitely worth seeing.

After Granada we headed south to the Costa De La Sol (coast of the sun), to the small town Nerja. The Costa De La Sol is very popular for tourists, however Nerja doesn't have the big skyscrapers that a lot of the other towns on the coast have. You can scuttle down the stairs to the small beaches at the bottom or stand up the top on the Balcon De Europa and look out over the ocean towards Africa (no you can't see it). We also visited the underground caves, which are massive inside (they hold exclusive concerts in some sections) and contain some amazing rock formations. In Nerja we tried for the first (and definitely not last) time some Iberico cured ham – this comes from the Pata Negra (black pigs) and has fat that is actually good for you (like avocados), as a result of the acorns that the pigs eat. Even if you are vegetarian, this is something you HAVE to try at least once – it's a culinary revelation! But with a starting price of 50 Euros a kilo, it's probably best not to get addicted.

We were quite excited about heading to Morocco, especially after seeing all the ad campaigns about how it was food for the soul. Throughout our travels Anita had also noticed a few different things, especially leather-work that had been made in Morocco, and we figured the markets over there would be fantastic and much cheaper than paying Pounds or Euros. There are also a lot of Australians that head there too, which was a little surprising.

We arrived by ferry into Tangier and immediately it dawned on me that this was not the place it was made out to be. To try and paint the picture, there is basically a steep cliff with an old Roman fortification on the top, surrounded by the Kazbah (yes from the song), and the Medina, which is in this case the nice way of saying slum. Tangier was once an International territory where all sorts of people lived and visited, notably Mick Jagger, where a very famous photo of him was taken in a coffee shop that we visited briefly. On account of it being an international territory, it was a pretty much anything goes kind of place, and I don't think much has changed!

From the moment we stepped off the ferry everything felt very wrong here. I didn't have a single good feeling. Minutes later an African guy was robbed by a pack of street-kids, and as we walked the wrong way along the new waterfront we could feel the eyes of the little packs starring at us from the top of the hill near the Roman wall. Knowing we didn't have long until the sun went down (not a good feeling) we headed back around the other side of the Medina and into the belly of the beast. I'd love to say that things were better from the inside, but it was crazy. Compounding things further was the fact that we were there during Ramadan, and with there only being about half an hour left of daylight, everyone was very irritable because they hadn't eaten or smoked since 4 am!

After resisting a couple of hostile would be guides (this is not as easy as you think) a 'friendly' local helped us to the pension we had chosen from the Lonely Planet guide. Yes accommodation is cheap in Tangier, but the reason is that it wouldn't qualify as accommodation anywhere else....it would be condemned! Our 'friendly' local showed us around that night, taking us to the sights and to a good traditional Moroccan restaurant. The condition of course was that we would come and see his market stall at the end....seemed reasonable enough. We didn't realise that would involve enduring a 2 hour sales pitch about carpets and other assorted shit. So after successfully making insulting offers (my first offer was about 8% of his first price!) for the cheapest stuff we could find we managed to get back to the pension, and bid goodbye to our 'friend' who was only happy to leave after being thanked (ie paid) for his 'services'.

At this point, having not relaxed the entire time and fearing for our safety more than once or twice, we reconsidered our position:

Firstly, yes Morocco is cheaper than most of Europe, but you constantly have to outlay for 'tips' and 'services' etc, making it not cheap; buying anything would involve great debate and bargaining prowess (yeah...they don't practice often!); and finally we are paying considerable money to stay in a slum fearing for our safety. We deliberated on it oh about 5 minutes and we decided to get the hell out of Morocco the following morning. We were a little disappointed at not seeing other parts of Morocco, and it is highly likely that Tangier is worse than other places, but given the snapshot we got, we decided there were lots of other places we'd rather see, starting with Portugal. Our recommendation for anyone thinking of visiting? The exotic Morocco you see in the ads is something you'll probably only find if you're Moroccan, speak fluent Arabic, or go on a package tour.

La Tomatina, tapas y el toros

When planning our long trip, we had little to go by except for a handful of events scattered throughout the year. At the top of our list was La Tomatina - the annual tomato throwing festival held near Valencia in Spain. We landed in Madrid, and while our main focus was on getting to Valencia the following day, we spent enough time wandering through the streets to decide that Madrid was pretty nice for a capital city - loads of little streets (which become deserted between 2 and 5pm - the siesta hours), pretty plazas and squares, and some really nice gardens near the Royal Palace. We spent the night bar hopping, sampling beers and tapas as we went, and trying to pass off a mish-mash of lisped Portuguese as Spanish.


It was a bit of a shock wandering through Valencia, and hearing proper Australian English as the main language spoken. The city centre, while a bit upmarket and tourist oriented, was super clean and dotted with beautiful old buildings and historical landmarks. We walked along the old Turia river bed, which has been converted into a beautiful park strip complete with sporting fields and bike paths, most of the way to the coast to check out the beaches (wide and sandy but still packed).

For us La Tomatina started at some ungodly dark hour of the morning, as we - along with hundreds of other festival goers dressed in white - crammed on the train to the small town of Bunol. Because we got there early we found a good spot to watch the hilarious antics of 'Ham up a greasy pole' - basically a leg of cured ham is tied at the top of a pole smeared with lard, and people try and climb up to get it. The locals were either busy covering the front of their homes with tarps and plastic sheets, or were enjoying the festivities with little bbqs and tables set up in the side streets.


At 11am, the festival started with a bang, and as truck after truck rolled in throwing tomatoes at us, the red missiles started to fly through the crowded streets! At this point of the fight, targets were relatively carefully considered....however not too long after this, one of the trucks stopped and tipped out its entire contents right in front of us...you can imagine what that meant...absolute mayhem! From that point on it was a free-for-all. No-one anywhere was safe and you would have had less tomato on you if you were swimming in tomato soup. By the end of the hour we were standing more than ankle deep in a mix of tomato pulp, plastic cups and lost shoes and t-shirts, painted tomato red from head to toe. It was awesome!



After La Tomatina, we headed south to Granada - more on that in our next post...