Its My Bag Man!

A very long time since I blogged and we have done so very much.

I have been bed ridden once again with a bladder/kidney infection and once again on antibiotics. I swear that I will, if not cautious, become immune to the buggers. I did try to see if I would get better without them, but fierce fevers, a temp of 40 degrees and Rosie almost crying with worry, persuaded me to take them again.

On the travel front, we went to Marrakech which we disliked immensely due to the dirt the noise and the fact that every single person in the city has the sole object of removing money from you by any means. Add to this fact the large Club Med in the heart of the Medina full of bullish American and German tourists and you start to get a picture of a sort of disney world without a hygiene certificate.

We went from Marrakech up to Casablanca and stayed for a few days at a site we really liked on the way down. Not French owned like so many, but family owned by Morroccans who are the most charming family we have met and this is where I was ill. When Mohamed the owner found out from his son Hisham that I was ill he came to visit and see if he could help and his wife sent over a Vegetable cous-cous for us which I was sadly unable to eat, but Rosie enjoyed. The guide book does not rate the site very highly due to poor facilities, and I admit that it is getting a bit tired and needs some revamping, but the warm and friendly welcome makes it 5 star in my book.

We left the site early to head up to what was to be our final stop before leaving the continent, and that was Asilah, a pretty little fishing port on the north west coast. Asilah used to be very run down and dirty, but the Moroccan foreign minister who was born there, saw how bad it had become and with the help of a local artist, set up a big international arts and music festival there, every August. The effect on the town was remarkable and it is now one of the prettiest and cleanest medinas we have seen. All the houses are painted white and blue and there are fabulous murals all over the town. We wandered through the little alleyways and bought our last few gifts from the pretty little gift shops before returning to our motorhome which for the grand sum of £1.80 we had parked right on the edge of the beach facing the sunset. A very nice way to remember Africa.

The last day was a huge anticlimax for us. We travelled up via Tangier to get to our boat in Ceuta and we had two occasions of youths trying to climb onto the roof of our van whilst moving and one occasion of kids trying to break the windscreen with stones. We eventually caught our ferry back to Algeciras and got parked up for a rest.

We decided not to stay in Spain, and so we drove the 450 kms to Quartiera in Portugal. We spent 3 nights there and used the time doing laundry, cleaning the van and sorting our trailer out after the roads of Morocco. Now tell me, is it only me that thinks that the Algarve has about as much to do with Portugal as Guantanamo bay has to do with Cuba? I will prolly get clubbed to death by a septuagenarian with yellow shorts and a niblick, but it has to be said. Anyhoo, we then drove up to Almera on the outskirts of Lisbon where we are now parked and both Rosie and I have colds! This even though the weather is actually warmer than it was in North Africa.

I hope to write another shorter blog before we return to the UK on the 1st April.

Love and Peace
Rosie and The Merman

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Oh how long since the last blog entry. So long in fact that I hardly remember that long ago.

We are now sat in a campsite at El Jadida between Casabanca and Safi and about 125 kms from Marrakech. We just left a lovely friendly site right next to the roaring Atlantic Ocean in El Mansouria, about 30 km north of Casablanca and about the first point that we are feeling ok about Morocco. The northern part of the country seems at a loss for identity, and does not know if it is Europe or Africa, but as you travel down that sense changes with every town you pass. That said, we are still a long way from Camels and sand, and are still very much in agriculture and greenery.

We were warned about the expense of booze here, owing to the fact that it is a moderate Muslim country, so we stocked up with a little bit for our journey. 4 litres of brandy 20 litres of wine and 20 litres of beer. Nine days into Morocco and we might have wildly underestimated our requirements as we have already gone through seven litres of wine and a bottle of brandy as well as 24 cans of beer.

Some of you might know that Rosie and I like to bird watch and we are excited about the amazing wealth of bird life here in Morocco. We were sat having a coffee at a motorway service station and three Crested Larks were hopping around in front of the mer-torhome. We have seen cranes and eagles, and have been woken in the morning twice by what can only be described as Clangers, we cannot see them but the comedy song sounds a little like the swanee whistles we sell on our stall. We took a walk and spotted four or five birds that are not even in our European bird guide.

The roads in Morocco are fantastic… for about fifteen minutes after they are laid, and then they deteriorate into potholed monstrosities which are designed to destroy shocks and keep the speeds below 18 mph!

I am able to blog now, thanks to a superb little modem which we managed to acquire second hand from a nice guy in Mohammedia. It is an LG cellular modem and we are getting unlimited mobile broadband for £18 a month. I think the coverage is quite good so we should mostly be within blogging range.

We went to walk on the beach today and decided that this is a great place to sand yacht, so we are staying for a little while to blow the cobwebs with some x-sailing. All we need is a decent breeze and we are good to go. The tides are also perfect for the next few days.

I will post pics asap that is to say as soon as pics are taken.

Love and peace for now
Mermy and la rose

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I am writing this blog with my pda. The laptop should be back from the menders tomorrow or Tuesday after having a new logic board as Apple call it, or a motherboard as we know it. I think that I was to blame for the board overheating, but shhhh! don’t tell apple. Anyhoo, I remembered that I had my old M5000 phone with wireless, windoze, and the all important qwerty keyboard for proper typing, so I dug it out of the cupboard and away we go.

So to recap the story so far. We damaged our awning in Benicasim, which we had fixed in Murcia by the top blokes at Caravanas Murcia. We then had our starter motor and our laptop break so we got the former fixed by the guys down at the local garage for €210 which given the current exchange rate is about £210! Our puter is in the capable hands of the apple shop in Alicante and they have pushed us to the front of the queue.

We are staying here in Santa Pola till the 3rd or 4th of Jan and then trooping down to Morocco.

We had a nice gentle xmas day, spending the day bird watching at the bird reserve at La Marina with a picnic lunch, followed by a walk on the beach. The evening was a duck on the barbeque and too much brandy.

I hope all you fine people had a grand xmas and are planning an equally grand new year. I will be wearing my kilt.

Love and peace
Rosie and the Merman

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In Alicante, computer broken, awning repaired and now the starter motor has gone kaput on the mertorhome.
We are just going to rent a car to do loads of running around.

Love and peace
Rosie and the merman

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This cannot be right, it has poured down with rain since midnight last night and being a monday, everything is closed here. We have spent the day playing games, reading and watching dvd’s. Needless to say we would rather have been out on the seafront.

I am not going to get a drop of sympathy from you guys, but spare a thought for Rosie because we ran out of booze last night and cannot restock till tomorrow;)

Love and peace
Rosie n Mermy.

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Met two really nice French lads today who were cycling through Benicasim en route to Senegal. Front and back panniers, tents and sleeping bags and huge grins on their tanned faces. They are going to be gone from their homes in Grenoble for three years, and when I said that was a long time to go to Senegal and back, they casually mentioned that they were getting a ship from Senegal to South America and then were going to cycle from Guyana to the cape and up to the USA before heading back to France.

It is a very exciting planet we live on and the end of the street is now a thousand miles or more away.

I hope we pass them again between here and Agadir, I would like to buy them a beer.

Love and Peace
Mermy and La Rose.

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So we moved 200 kms down the coast and are now in Benicasim near Valencia. We found a nice site that is very cheap but the down side is that the staff are miserable. Probably from dealing with all the Brits and Dutch that make up 90% of the residents.

Rosie and I cycled down to the town today and walked round the market. It is a typical spanish market with loads of clothes, shoes and fruit & veg. We then rode along the sea front to a hotel that has free wi-fi. The coffee is yummy and we are sat looking over the Med and an empty soft sand beach.

As I type Rosie has just picked up a little bird that got inside the bar and flew into a window. She put it outside and it has been about 20 minutes but it seems to be coming round.

Oh well, back home to eat lunch and plan our day tomorrow.

Peace and love
Rosie and The Merman

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Today Rosie and I had a fantastic day out in Barcelona on our bikes. We caught the train to Sants station and cycled down to the Fira and then up the hill to the Montjuic castle. En route we did a fantastic geocache multi and afterwards rode down the mountain at high speed to La Ramba for a late lunch. I took loads and loads of great pics including the olympic stadium and some video over the city. We eventually caught the train home to Sitges at 1815 and came home to play cards and drink wine and to eat catalan ham and fresh bread……Shame that I had my camera stolen by a toerag on La Rambla…. I never felt a thing. After all my years of travelling you might think I would be wiser!
Oh well, just lucky it was only my pocket cheapy and not my good one, but the pics were the sad loss.

Love and peace
Mermy

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I like Sitges very much.
It has a lovely ambience about it and there is no sense of menace. I guess it is because Sitges is the Brighton of Spain. There are gays everywhere you look and a quick google tells you the full picture with over 26 gay bars in the tiny centre. Rosie bless her does not possess a gaydar and was unaware of the fact till I brought it to her attention. That in itself though is a good indicator of how chilled out the town is.

Today we cycled every inch of the town, exploring allyways and beaches and finding cool surprises around every corner. The whole population of the town was out walking, rollerblading, cycling or rollerskating. How cool is it to see old fashioned rollerskates instead of blades!

On Tuesday we are heading down the coast to Valencia where we will be visiting a friend.

Love and Peace
Rosie and The Merman

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So we went from Cognac down to St Fort Sur Né where we stayed for free at a vinyard. The free stay cost us almost €40 after we were professionally mugged by the owners who persuaded us to by booze that we are pretty sure we didn’t need or particularly want. We do however now possess a fine bottle of Grande Champagne Cognac that is 25 years old and begging to be sipped. On the subject of booze, we have found that Saint Lidl of paupers are now all over France and sell a very nice 8% strong ale for only €0.47 which means we can get sozzed for a couple of squid.

We went from St Fort to Bordeaux but the weather was crappy and so we headed south in the direction of Toulouse and are currently stealing wifi from the golden arches in Castelsarrasin before heading to Carcasson for a couple of days.

Peace and love

Mermy and la Rosie.

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