Rainy Day Reads

First stop on my trip was Casablanca. This is where the tour started, but since we would meet Saturday night and leave Sunday morning, I decided to arrive early to have time to check out the city. A friend on mine was on the same tour (we had planned it like that), so we meet up on Wednesday evening in Casablanca and had a full 3 days in the city. And that was way too much! I thought Casablanca would be a big tourist town with a lot of things to do. But I was wrong! As I arrived late Wednesday night, Thursday morning we went out to explore the city. We decided to walk around even though it was quite hot and sunny. First we went to the Hassan II Mosque. It was inaugurated in 1993 and has the world’s highest minaret of 210 m. The mosque was designed by a French architect  and decorated by local craftsmen as a nod to the mixed French and Arabic heritage of the city. The prayer room inside holds up to 25,000 people and the courtyard holds another 80,000. That makes this mosque the thi

So I just got back from my long-awaited trip to Morocco and I have a bunch of reviews, pictures and recommendations to share. There are quite a lot, so one blog post for all of it would be too little. I think I will make a little blog post for each city or place we visited so it will be easy and uncomplicated to search for any specific place. In this blog post I will focus on a few general things about Morocco, so here it goes: The trip I went on a group tour with G Adventures ( www.gadventures.com ), because I don’t enjoy traveling completely solo. This way is an easy way to travel because bookings of hotels and transport and some activities are already taken care of, and you have a number of fellow travellers at hand to share the experience. Of course, there are som downsides to traveling like this; some stops might not rock your boat and you might have wanted to stay longer in one place or gone somewhere completely different. Depending on the trip you choose, you get varied

I am leaving for Morocco soon (suddenly it’s so close!) and I thought I would make a little list of all the things I will be bringing with me. Maybe this will also help me not to forget half my stuff, like I did last time I went on vacation!  But here it goes! Morocco is hot and sunny at this time of year, and since I don’t handle the sun very well I will be packing lots of sun protection gear. Furthermore modest clothing is advisable, since Morocco is a Muslim country. In my carry-on luggage that I bring on the airplane and that I will have with me most days I will bring: My glasses My contact lenses A lip balm A bottle of water Snacks A guide book Notebook and pen Camera Ipod and headphones All my travel documents, so: passport, flight tickets, hotel reservation, travel insurance and ID My wallet with money and credit card My cellphone Sunglasses Book for reading Small stock of toilet paper or tissues that can be used as toilet paper Hand sanitizer

When I was recently in Bolivia one of the sights worth seeing mentioned in my guide book was the local Witches Market or Mercado de Hechicería. I decided to stop by as I was spendid the day wandering the city. The book said it would be a "real" witches market with magic items, such as dried up llama fetuses, for sale. I took this with a grain of salt and expected a touristy type affair. But I am glad to say that I was partly mistaken. There were indeed dried up llama fetuses for sale, next to more conventional souvenirs. Not speaking Spanish myself, I found it a little hard to do more than browse the stalls, but I did mange to buy two small statuettes of a llama and an owl to commemorate my trip to the Witches Market. When the lady wrapped them up for me, she put "scarves" of bright colored wool around their necks. I have no idea what that was about, but I am going to assume that the statuettes are a good influence in my house. Heading to the market. I didn'