Africa
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Back Across The North: Chefchaouen-Tetouan-Tangier
When your driver introduces himself by saying “you can relax, I am good driver”, it’s a fair chance you’re going to be in for a buttock-clenching white-knuckle ride for the next chunk of your life, which is just how it is for our journey from Chefchaouen to Tetouan. With no rental car and no public transport between the two towns we have no option but to negotiate a fee with a “grand taxi” driver. Michaela can’t even bear to look forwards at times, this guy has what you might call an interesting overtaking technique, one which involves passing within half an inch of the vehicle he’s rounding, at great speed.…
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Moroccan Roll Lifestyle
Mehdi’s brother’s friend with the rental car office is waiting for us, car clean if a little battle scarred, he even has paperwork and insurance documents ready – often when we’ve done this kind of “local” hire before, the only paperwork which changes hands is cash. “Gendarmerie” he explains, with a wave of his hand. Our destination for our only day on the road in the Rif Mountains is the tiny village of Akchour, gateway to a renowned spectacular waterfall hike. Actually, it’s not just the hike that’s spectacular, the drive from Chefchaouen to Akchour is pretty amazing too. The huge, sweeping mountain terrain is so scenic, so dramatic. Regularly…
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Chefchaouen, The Blue Pearl Of Morocco
It’s funny how habits change when alcohol is taken out of the equation. With no bars to explore or beers to imbibe, our evenings come to an earlier end, and, as a consequence of bedtime creeping forward, morning comes round more quickly too. I wake around 5:15 on our second morning in Chefchaouen, darkness still edging its battle with dawn. A distant call to prayer drifts up from the town below, within minutes joined by many others, muezzins at different tones, discordant yet haunting, mournful yet evocative, echoing off walls and off the mountains themselves, growing in number until it’s impossible to work out whether I am listening to five…
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Into Africa: Sometimes Things Don’t Go To Plan
Very often there is something special about a port town, a feeling of frontier, of moving on, of adventure. Despite the fact that a large percentage of those passing through spend at most a single night in the town, there is a certain excitement about such places and we’ve regularly found them to be lively, vibrant towns with an air unique to their situation. And then there’s Algeciras. Gateway in and out of Europe it might be, but make no mistake, Algeciras is as scruffy and ugly as it gets. No wonder everyone passes through quickly; I am reminded of Bill Bryson’s comments about Dover. A quick ride on Seville’s…
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Michaela’s Favourite Photographs #11: First Light
Tafraout, Morocco, 2016. I have to admit that this one is more my favourite than Michaela’s: I love it not just for itself, but also for what it represents. Out on the edge of the desert, the nights were cold, our breath clearly visible in the crisp morning air as we took breakfast. Within a few short hours the temperature had rocketed and the days were so hot. As we rose early one morning and braced ourselves against the cold, the first light of the day crept down from the tops of the mountains, sunshine creeping down the slopes towards the town…
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Michaela’s Favourite Photographs #10: Quiet Streets
Marrakech, Morocco, 2015 and Bratislava, Slovakia, 2014. Sometimes in the busiest and most manic of cities, it’s possible to turn a corner and suddenly find yourself in a little enclave of peace. It’s hard to accentuate this in a photograph – unless you’re lucky enough for one single person to wander into the quiet alley at just the right moment. That single figure somehow conveys peace more eloquently than a wholly empty street can….
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Michaela’s Favourite Photographs: #2 The Seaweed Farmer
Paje, Zanzibar, 2013. Between the coast and the reef, in the gentle milky waters of the Indian Ocean, ladies farm seaweed, sitting in the water for hours on end before trudging, like this lady, back to shore with their haul. Michaela perfectly captured the loneliness of their working day with this beautiful shot.
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Michaela’s Favourite Photographs: #1 The Lost Tomato
Marrakech, 2015. This one was a stroke of luck, Michaela had no idea that she had caught this tomato in mid-flight until we looked at the photo much later. It was intended to be a shot of the contrasting types of transport ahead of us as we drove back to the airport – only to capture the moment when one solitary tomato made its bid for freedom.
- Africa, Belize, Central America, Independent travel, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, North America, Panama, Photography, Travel Blog, Wildlife
That Was 2022
When we retired at the end of 2019, full of wide eyed enthusiasm about seeing the world and feeling like the entire world was our oyster, we had a vision of what a year would look like. This was of course before we had any inkling that something very nasty was about to escape from China and have something of an impact on those plans. Resourceful as we were in ‘20 and ‘21 (we travelled as much as we could and more than most), 2022 has probably been the first year which really did match the dreams we had at the start. As a year which started in Costa Rica…
- Africa, Asia, Central America, England, Greece, Independent travel, India, Mexico, North America, Photography, Transport, Travel Blog, Turkey, World food
Questions About Travel
Travelling the way we do, in regular lengthy stretches, is not something everyone is fortunate enough, well enough or even inclined to do. Whatever your chosen style of travel, there are some questions which all of us who do so are asked on a regular basis. Like… What do you miss about home? Answer: very little. My stock answer is “proper English ale” which is true, I do find myself craving a good pint sometimes. Michaela meanwhile goes straight for the roast lamb and mint sauce. With both of our families being scattered around the country, we always make a round of visits on our return and probably don’t see…
