Eye of the Tempest

Laughing Lisa

tempest — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:07:00 GMT

I spent much of the next two weeks learning about Barcelona´s countercultural philosophies, debates and practices. I met people from all over the world and started picking up my Spanish again. In the meantime, I was also still searching for a new flat on a daily basis: "Try again in a month or two when the market is better" someone suggested. "I don´t want to live with a native English speaker" another honestly stated. I was having no luck househunting. I not only needed a place to live, though, I needed a steady address which people could send mail to, so I made my way to Barcelona´s Principal post office which, I discovered, accepts mail for people from all over the world (called the "List De Correos, " translated: "Post Office List"), which can be picked up just by showing your passport to the desk clerk. Yay! One more problem solved!

I was also still feeling fairly unwell, despite having followed the doctor´s strict regime to the letter. I had no place of my own and no work, but doors seemed to be opening up to me everywhere; through the social centre, I was put in touch with free Spanish classes, workshops and youth centre. I was meeting so many interesting people, from a German architect who is also a BMX stunt performer to an Argentinian girl doing experiments with composting techniques and soil regeneration. I was, in fact, given a c.1975 model BMX, blue, by a girl who was leaving the city that day and could not bare to sell it: "Take good care of my bike," she said, "I rode her from Barcelona to Portugal and back again!" I was impressed and promised to take very good care of her. The bike struck me as a "Lisa," but when I suggested this name to a friend he said, "It´s a masterpiece! Call it "Mona Lisa!" I didn´t want to have her stuck with being called a "moaner" (and groaner), so we finally settled on "Laughing Lisa" (although the painful sound she makes going up hills would make "Squealing Lisa" more appropriate). Now, I was more mobile and Barcelona is an excellent bike riding city. In fact, it is more fun, suitable and economical to ride a bike in Barcelona than almost any other form of transport; especially cars. I became more mobile than ever before: yay - another problem solved!

Finally, on the 16th, I found a flat in a perfect location for the right price. My housemate, Krisna, was a real gentleman, very polite and clean, who worked late night security shifts and wanted to get another housemate into a third room as well. I moved in the next morning and breathed a deep sigh: after living in a house with fifteen others, it was good to have my own space again to relax and get on with my writing (finally!).

Flat luck!

tempest — Wed, 4 Oct 2006 19:55:00 GMT

Although I had been fairly ill since coming back to Barcelona, I was well aware that my two month sublease expired on October 1st, less than one week away. I searched through www.loquo.com, where I had found the current flat in less than three days, but this time I had no such luck. Every place I looked at was a disaster zone, everything from potential housemates who were not interested in knowing my name to shoe boxes with no windows and remarkably child-like wallpapering montages (to keep the water from seeping through too quickly).

By October 1st I had not found a new place yet, so I called around a few friends in Barcelona to see if anyone could put me up until I had sorted a new apartment. One friend, Phillope, responded almost immediately, "Well, of course you can stay with us, but also know that there are eight other guests staying over besides you." Eight other guests? When I got there, it turned out that Phillope lived in a huge, three story building with a backyard and nine permanent housemates. They had rented out the building not only to live there, but to also create a social centre for arts and cultural workshops in the garden out the back. the people in the house came from all over the world; from Japan to Argentina to Germany. There was communal cooking and a lot of music and philosophical/ Left win activist talk (reminded me of Confest). One of the housemates and three of her guests had just returned from a ´Ladyfest,´which is a feminist festival that travels all over Europe largely promoting the empowerment of women in the arts. Another group were journeying to the South of Spain from Germany because they wanted to escape the Winter cold. Another group still were headed to Berlin from the south of Spain because they had run out of money and wanted to find cheap accomodation and work for the Winter. There were vegetarians and eco-activists, anarchists and socialists, street performers and disability/social workers all rolled into a single, run down old building. Everyone was very busy with their own personal projects, but had plenty of time to talk and share information, travel tips and funny stories. Finally: after months of wandering around Barcelona, I had found what I was looking for: one of the places where Barcelona´s famous countercultural creativity is fostered!

Barcelona - again!

tempest — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:34:00 GMT

I spent the next three days hibernating, catching up on paperwork and overdue website blogs (:)) and doggedly transferring my photos from my overloaded camera phone onto my long missed laptop. I was sill fairly ill, but happy to finally be back and free to relax and recover from my adventures in a quite, clean and friendly space. I thought I would give my cough a few more days to see if it would recover on its own, but one of my housemates approached me on the third day and asked if I would like her to accompany me to the hospital (I had kept her awake coughing all night). I eagerly agreed and two days later, on her day off, she took me down to the local clinic and acted as a translator for me to the doctor. Within a few hours, after an examination and some x-rays, the doctor diagnosed me with a chest infection and a stomach parasite. She put me on hefty antibiotics and a strict diet of boiled rice, apples and bananas for the minimum of an entire week! I all but stayed in bed that week. I even almost missed the La Merce festival!

The La Merce festival is known as Barcelona´s birthday party. For many locals, it is not only a city wide celebration but marks the end of the Summer festival season. There were more than six public access stages set up all over the city that held live music performances from Friday to Monday afternoon. One night I saw a Twarek rock band with six electric guitars up front played by maestros in traditional blue desert garb. I saw Asian Dub Foundation and some awesome reggae support bands the next night. There was one park dedicated solely to electronica and garage music, targetting teenage audiences, whilst the Ciutadella park had live circus performances, clown acts, touch sculptures and circus workshops for kids all day, every day of the festival. World class pyrotechnics (fireworks) exploded across the beach skyline at precisely ten every night (and yes, I could and did set my watch by it!). There were plays and street performances, dances, concerts, stalls and costumes everywhere. I even managed to catch some of the closing ceremony in Plaza Espana. At the closing ceremony, they lined the fountain terrace with sixteen amplifiers on either side, strung up from lamp posts, which played classical symphonies. Before me, the great fountain itself was dancing gracefully to the music with splashes of different coloured lights reflecting through the entire range of twists and spurts, fluffs and springs that the fountain could possibly procure. It was a waterworks performance set to classical music and it was pure magic!

Tune in next time for Tempest Trails.

Some Tempest time.

Some Tempest channel.

Medieval Malaga

tempest — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 18:38:00 GMT

With a heavy heart I journeyed in one, long bus trip all the way from Essouaira to Tangiers (about fifteen house including stop offs). I skipped the tour of Tangiers again and headed straight for the port, taking the fast ferry back to Algeciras. There I had another two hours to wait for the bus to Malaga, from where the night trains left for Barcelona. I used the time to book a hostel in Malaga over the internet, which included my arrival time, before boarding yet another bus. I finally arrived at Malaga´s bus station at half past twelve, disheveled, sick and exhausted after twenty seven hours of mostly bus travel. I tried to find a taxi to take me to the hostel, but they kept looking at the address I´d gotten from the website and telling me it didn´t exist. Standing in the bus station, confused and tired, I called the hostel up and was informed by the receptionist that they were actually situated in Malaga´s province, not in Malaga city. He suggested I make another booking with him for the next night and take a bus there in the morning. At 1am, after twenty seven hours of bus travel with a fever, a chesty cough and still recovering from the food poisoning, I found myself standing on the edge of exhaustion with no where to sleep in a Malaga bus station. Not happy!

As I walked with all my bags to a nearby late night restaurant to ask for directions, the sky broke apart in a massive electrical storm. Thunder, lightning and sleeted rain crashed down around me as I scuttled for cover. In the restaurant, I chanced upon another girl from Australia who lent me her Malaga guide book and helped me find another hostel that was actually situated in the town. By 3am, I was settled in the first place that had a vacancy.

In the morning, I awoke at about 9am to find the storm still raging, but by 11am the sky had completely cleared and the day was heating up beautifully! Still feeling sick, I wandered into the town to find a chemist for some panadol, but when I arrived I discovered that, far from simply not speaking fluent enough Spanish, I could not talk at all! The chemist smiled at me standing there confused with my dictionary in hand and said, "I...speak...little...English. Please..." (translated: "I can speak a little bit of English. Go ahead and try asking me for what you need in English.") I pointed to my throat and squeaked. He giggled, ran off and returned with a packet of throat lozenges.

"This ... very good...larinhitis." (translated: "These lozenges are excellent for treating laryngitis."

I could only smile in gratitude for his understanding.

When I arrived at the train station that first afternoon, armed only with my throat lozenges and a dictionary, it was absolute chaos. I waited for over two hours in three lines before I was impatiently told "No es billettas para Barcelona ahoy." (translated: "There are no tickets for Barcelona today.") No argument.

I was confused, but went to try my luck at the bus station. "No more tickets to Barcelona for today or tomorrow. Try on Thursday. Next!"

It turns out, although I was not aware of it at the time, that the electrical storm that had hit Malaga overnight was a very rare event and had managed to block off all trains out of the city for about two days. On the other end, Barcelona had also suffered a massive, three day freak storm which had flooded the city and submerged the underground metro. This had blocked off the train lines into Barcelona for a further three days. Having found no reason for why there were no tickets, I booked myself into a hostel and took off the rest of the afternoon to explore Malaga a little.

I wandered around the georgeous, narrow streets of Malaga´s town centre and into a free photographic exhibit by Huburtus Hierl called "Picasso en la Plaza de Toros" (translated: "Picasso in the Bullring.") This was a collection of photographs of Picasso watching a bullfighting match, with all the horror and excitement of the event expressed transparently in his wide eyes. I soon discovered that in addition to being an absolutely stunning town with breathtaking vistas, exotic gardens, a wide variety of restaurants and bars and historical monuments around every corner, Malaga was completely devoted to it´s favourite son: Picasso. There are no less than three galleries permanently dedicated to Picaso´s works and numerous monuments and exhibits revealing his life. One of these exhibits was housed in an ornate, sixteenth century Andalusian mansion called "The Buenavista Palace" which sits atop of a Phoenecian, Roman and Moorish archeological excavation site. As a history student and a Picasso fan, I was in Heaven!

The next morning I tried again to book my ticket back to Barcelona and to my comfortable, warm flat on the Renfe (Spanish rail service) website or by phone, but all attempts failed. I wandered out of the train station still sick and confused, almost out of money and frustrated that, while Malaga is beautiful and interesting, I was nevertheless stranded there.

I went in search of a doctor, but still non-communicative from the laryngitis, the only directions I could manage to extract from anyone was to walk Westwards to the public hospital. This turned out to be an almost two hour walk under Malaga´s midday sun and when I arrived, exhausted and dehydrated, I spent another hour just registering with the reception nurse for the emergency queue. I couldn´t talk in English, let alone Spanish, but I could understand her remark to another nurse over my head that the hospital´s translator would not be in for a few days. What should she do with me? Tired and defeated, I left the hospital and discovered a bus stop right outside that took me almost directly to my hostel´s doorstep.

Over the next few days I took things easy: I rested a lot, ate really nutritious vegetarian food and explored the stunning city: the extensive gardens, the Monte Gibralfaro, the museums and galleries, the Great Cathedral and the excavation of an intact Roman ampitheatre. I didn´t go out much at night, mostly because I was still feeling so ill, but from what I saw, they can boast a roaring night life there in September.

By far the most rewarding surprise, though, was the Alcazaba. From the outside, the imposing facade of this Medieval Mudejar palace (some of the restorations date back to the eleventh century, while others date to more recent times; the fourteenth century) stares down formidably from the hilltops. Once inside, you walk up a curving path through six gates, each one more wondrous than the last (yes, exactly like a fairy tale!). The very footpaths are decorated with coloured stones set in intricate patterns, the walls are littered with ornate designs and the architecture is exquisite! In one nook there was a marble bath tub overhung with ivy creepers. Around another corner a vined terrace with doves and pidgeons feeding from its central fountain (Plaza de Armas). Throughout the palace there were water features everywhere, refreshing the air and providing the atmosphere with a cool tranquility. I took so many photos even my head spun! (see photo gallery). The next day, though, I went back without my camera and just enjoyed soaking in the atmosphere and fancying myself back in the thirteenth century.

By Friday the storm damage at both ends had been cleared and I booked a day train ticket to Barcelona with veritable ease, scheduled to leave Malaga on Saturday morning. By Saturday night I was back in Barcelona, greeted by chilly winds and the cleanup efforts after the recent floods. I hopped over a puddle in the underground metro and made my way ´home.´ I had only lived in my flat for about five days before I left Barcelona. I had expected to only be gone for one, perhaps a maximum of two weeks. That was over six weeks and many fantastic adventures earlier.

That night I finally collapsed into my very own warm, comfortable bed and - well, MY VERY OWN WARM, COMFORTABLE BED!

Next time on Tempest Trails:

- Doctors and diets.

- Barcelona´s Birthday!

- Clowns, fireworks and waterworks.

Some Tempest Time.

Some Tempest Channel.

How do you pronounce "Essouaira"?

tempest — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 18:03:00 GMT

I contacted my housemates back in Barcelona to let them know I was alright and stayed in Rabat for the next week, meeting people, getting used to the culture, asking questions and getting organised for the trip down South. I went to visit a shop where they made mosaics and I watched them expertly chip dozens of ceramic pieces into find shapes and fit them into the most amazing designs. Mosaic´s are everywhere here! Even the street fountains in the Medina are each colourful masterpieces. Likewise, the woodcarving skills are astonishing! ´Ordinary´pieces of furniture, such as chairs and doors, are intricately carved mahogany on closer inspection. I also went to visit a workhouse where enormous carpets are woven in much the same style as I had seen in the Stirling castle Medieval tapestry exhibit. In Rabat, though, I got to sit in and watch the weavers work so fast that I could barely see their hands moving! (see photo gallery: the photo is not blurred!)

I went to eat at so many people´s houses, dishes which I had never heard nor seen the likes of before. It was hard to say no: practially no one I spoke to had heard of ´vegetarianism,´but they nevertheless were intrigued and started making special efforts to find a variety of dishes which they could cook for me without fish or meat in them. In Morocco, it is also usual for everyone at the table to eat from common dishes, but unlike me, they somehow manage not to spill food everywhere on the path from the centre of the table to their mouths! Some of the women also taught me how to apply henna tattoos properly and took me to the ´Hammam´(Moroccan bath house), which is quite a ritual and a worthwhile experience.

Meanwhile, I got a lesson in chameleon care 101: it turns out that, according to the internet sites I consulted, most chameleons don´t make it to five weeks old. Secondly, they don´t like being sprayed with water, but sometimes enjoy sitting in it. Thirdly, they need to bask in the sunshine every day. Fourth, they eat flies and other small insects, not just lettuce and need to eat three times a day, not once or twice. Fifth, chameleons only start catching their own flies once they are a bit older. Until about five or wix weeks, they have to have their jaws mannually pried open and the flies placed directly inside. This left me with the task of collecting fresh insects every day to feed Gus, which is a trickier task than it sounds! At two or three weeks, chameleons need almost constant care. I eventually found him a plastic soap box to live in and decorated it with tissues and small twigs. Gus went with me almost everywhere and was so small that his pink soap box fit right inside my pocket!

On Thursday night Alison arrived and turned out to be excellent company. She preferred to go surfing during the days, but in the evenings it was easier and more comfortable for both of us to go around with another female companion. I had met many women who were travelling through Morocco alone and said they had no problems. I, however, was not such a seasoned traveller and still found comfort and safety in numbers.

After a few more days in Rabat, though, the culture shock really started to sink in, and so did my stomach! By Monday I had full blown fever and the worst case of diarrhea in my life! I felt really ill and as the day progressed, it only got worse. We had planned to leave for Essouaira the next day, but when my travel crew came over in the evening to organise departure details and found me so sick, they immediately got worried and started feeding me all sorts of home remedies; one gave me a sweet herbal tead while another stuffed me full with raw, dry cumin powder that tasted repulsive! (four or five tablespoon´s worth!) This made me throw up, which helped with the nausea, but not the diarrhea. I drank heaps of bottled water and slept a lot. I woke up early the next morning still weak, but miraculously well enough to travel again - or so I thought.

Our first destination was Essouaira (if you think it´s a difficult spelling, try pronouncing it!), a jewel of a town on the coastline between Casablanca and the Western Sahara. It is known for its fierce Atlantic winds, as the Easternmost point in Morocco, for it´s windsurfing, it´s Hippie history, as Jimi Hendrix´s second home and, most notoriously, as the home of Gnoa music and the Gnoa Music Festival (held annually in June). Gnoa music is a style of mostly accoustic music which developed in Morocco. It tends to have a lot of fingerpicking work, intricate beats and is a lot of fun to dance to. Essouaira is also notorious for it´s fine arts, crafts, seafood, intricate alleyways and even has a Portugues sea front fortress (to compliment the Moorish sea front fortresses I had visited in Southern Spain). I got the feeling the town was ancient, so was surprised to discover that it had only sprung up in the previous two hundred years. It is a really beautiful, friendly little town and a comfortable, tourist orientated (and priced) way to taste Moroccan life and culture outside the big cities.

The next morning I awoke feeling really ill again, so the group decided that another day or two in Essouaira couldn´t hurt. That evening, though, while still weak from the stomach upset, I got caught in a misty, cold fog blown in from the sea and came down with a chesty cought and high fever again to boot. My travel friends were worried about me, but were also anxious to get going as they had limited time for their planned trip.

A day later I awoke feeling even worse to find Gus had passed away in the night. I don´t know what he died of or if there was anything I could have done better, but I was very upset. I moreover realised that I had not only run out of time (I had three weeks to get back to Barcelona and find a new flat) and money, but I needed proper medical care and my friends needed their long planned holiday. It was time for me to leave Morocco, surfing trip or not.

At nine o´clock that night, still hazy with fever, I boarded an overnight bus to Tangiers which arrived at about midday. I felt exhausted from sickness, utterly defeated and really did not want to leave Morocco at all. I had been enjoying learning all about their culture, history and the various different ways of life all so foreign to my own knowledge. I had made friends, been received by open doors and had unique opportunities laid before me. I had also never had the chance to learn how to surf or to see the Western Saharan desert. I knew, however, that despite my friends´concern and care, I foremost needed to get to somewhere more familiar that had English speakers, clean water and medical care, as soon as possible: back to Spain.

Next time on Tempest Trails:

- Trapped in Paradise!

- Storms and trains!

- Can you say "yo enfermero!"? (translated: "I am sick!")

Some Tempest Time.

Some Tempest Channel.

Surfing Morocco

tempest — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 20:00:00 GMT

On Friday I was just about ready to head back up to Spain, satisfied with my short stay in Morocco and promising myself a more substantial visit sometime in the distant future. As I was taking one last look around the Medina, I bumped into Bob who worked with the Ouderia surf club and who I had met with Beth and Barry four days earlier. He invited me to come sit with his friends who were having coffee in a street cafe´nearby, another of whom also worked with the surf club. At teh table, the conversation, as I gathered it from variously translated snippets, centred mostly around organising a lift to a surf competition that weekend. Would I like to come? "Well, I´ve never been to one before. What are they like?" They couldn´t believe that, coming from Australia, I netiehr surf nor have ever attended a surf competition. For them, that settled it! They organised an extra place in the car for me and picked me up early Saturday morning. I was in for a surprise: we drove about an hour south of Rabat to a beautiful beach with pristine waters covered in umbrellas, beach combers, body boarders and surfers. There were so many people jumbled together in the water that at one point, I saw Bob surf around no less than four swimmers in order to ride his wave out!

When the competition began, though, the water was soon cleared as eager faces watched the action. I was receiving intermittent updates on the competition rules and the progress of the various surfers from an American friend of Bob´s, Rick, who was on holidays in Rabat. On shore, there was a festive atmosphere, with people meeting and greeting each other, sharing food and inviting others for coffee everywhere. There was popular dance music and reggae playing on the loudspeaker, but also people playing drums and guitars in little gatherings littered around. Bikinis and board shorts, mint tea and food everywhere! There were people gathered from all over Morocco, and quite a few international visitors, at this ´local´competition. I was introduced to so many people my head began to swim! (heheheh! - pun intended). At sundown, we went back to town to pick up camping gear and to get more food and my hosts even found an extra tent for me! We then returned to the competition site to find it littered with bonfires and other campers, playing guitars and drums and singing and talking. The next day, the competition continued, but it was a more blustery day and by five o´clock, it was all over and everyone was tired.

While I was at the competition, I got talking to Rick and asked him what his plan in Morocco was. He turned out to be waiting on another friend, Alison from Scotland, to come from overseas later that week and go on a surfing tour of the Southern Moroccan coastline. They had met Bob, who was also an official surfing coach and tour guide, on previous surfing trips to Morocco many years earlier and were getting a group together to go South on an informal trip for a few weeks.

"We could teach you to surf. Do you want to come with us?" Rick invited. Did I have the time? Di I have the funds? Would I ever get an opportunity like this again?

Once again, I was faced with the eerie choice of North, to comfortably fulfill my original plans, or South, to grasp the opportunity laid before me. Barcelona began to seem like a far off vision, an elusive dream I couldn´t quite grasp.

Next time on Tempest Trails:

- North or South?

- Chameleon care 101.

- Did Tempest learn manage to learn how to surf?

- Magic Cummin powder!

- ´Hamdulah´! Alot!

Some Tempest Time.

Some Tempest Channel.

Welcome to Rabat

tempest — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 18:57:00 GMT

The next day we wandered into the market area of the Medina at around 2pm for some lunch, but once again found it sparesely populated. It turns out that like in Spain, Morocco also has a siesta, from about 1 or 2 in the afternoon until around 5 o´clock. At three, all the shops were closed and the streets were really empty. We meandered curiously through the Medina, past the Ouderia, between the two great cemetaries and down to the beach front. That´s where we found the missing population of Rabat: sunning themselves on the beachfront, drinking coffee and paddling out into the surf. In Rabat, there is a fertile and rapidly expanding beach and surfing culture developing which, unlike in many other countries I have encountered, has earned the respect and acceptance of the Mainstream population. It still seems to be in it´s early stages, but is also known for it´s social youth work and for increasing Moroccan environmental concern (from absolutely zilch to something), especially concerning local beaches and other areas.

Over the next day or so, Beth, Barry and I got to know the layout of the city and met literally dozens of locals who invited us for mint tea (aka.´Moroccan whiskey´)´and meals. Rabat is one of the few major cities in Morocco not known as a tourist centre and although it does see its fair share of tourists, one gets the feeling that despite the ´capital city´status, Rabat is more like an extensive village: everybody knows everybody else´s business. Friendly travellers, it seems, is everybody´s business, and every friendly person we encountered was eager for us to meet their entire families! Moroccan´s pride themselves on their hospitality to strangers, which, coming from grab-what-you-can Europe, is sometimes so all-embracing it can become unnerving!

Later in the afternoon, the markets opened and scores of people emerged in their immaculate evening best for all night food and frolic. The place was packed and we wandered around checking out the range not just of exotic products, but of the people themselves: the Moroccans wore ´traditional´clothing of every description, from ornate T-shirts to full garb from head to toe. There were ´Moroccan ninja´women walking beside girls with pony tails wearing boob tubes. There were board shorts, baseball caps and kaftans. There wer Nike runners, alligator skin stilettos and camel leather sandals. I come from Australia, where over seventy percent of the population is of British descent and where even in the cultural ´salad´that is Melbourne, there is a distinct culture of conformity. Here, I was overwhelmed by the sheer variety of constumes, faces, crafts and cultures all mingling together with seemingly few cultural prejudices or cliquish snobbery. I will never call someone ´typically Moroccan´again! There was also a visible police presence, nevertheless, that evening confirmed that Rabat was less geared towards the tourism than towards the local industry.

Late that evening, Beth and Barry decided they had had enough and were eager to get back to Malaga in Spain by the next afternoon (one day early), but I was reluctant to rush off so soon. I decided that, if I was sensible, Rabat was not such a dangerous place to stay alone for a few extra days and get to know a little more about Moroccan culture. After all, when would I get a chance like this again? So I bade them farewell at the bus station that night then approached the nearest police officer and asked for help to get a taxi. He not only got me a taxi and organised a realistic price for me back to the Hotel Gaulois, he also gave me his personal mobile phone number to keep with me just in case I ran into any problems while in Rabat. When I arrived back at the hotel, I was greeted by the friendly desk clerk who, when he discovered my friends had gone on ahead, gave me a room upgrade and a heap of common sense advice about safety, fun and historical monuments around Rabat and Morocco in general.

Although I was naturally worried about being a woman alone in Morocco, it was clear that Rabat was a much safer and a more relaxed tourist front atmosphere than many other places around Morocco. The people in Rabat went out of their way to be friendly and to make me feel safe and secure. Also, helping out if anyone looks to be lost or in trouble is such an innate part of their culture that, far from being attacked or mugged, I was often swamped with numerous good intentioned souls trying to ensure that no one harassed me! (and, of course, ensuring that I had eaten enough food that day, that the directions I had been given by someone else were accurate, did I need a place to stay ... etc.)

The next day I woke up to find the streets jam packed all morning until around 2 o´clock in the afternoon. I wandered around all afternoon, lost in the throngs, the flags and the celebrations. I wasn´t sure what was going on, but everyone was in a good mood. It turned out to be the birthday of the Kind of Morocco that day: the beaches were packed, celebrations all around and the ancient monuments lit up with neon decorations! Of course, as the capital of Morocco, the seat of Government and the home of the Royal Palace, Rabat was packed out and exploded into festivities. Before I had arrived in Morocco, I was not even aware that it was still governed by a King. Suddenly, his photo was everywhere, gold framed in every business and home. Flags waved and everywhere I was told the new King was bringing an era of open relations and change in Morocco: there had been a dramatic increase in employment, international trade relations, economic growth, personal freedoms, women´s rights and police presence. Crime had plummeted, although some spoke of the conditions in Moroccan prisons as still fairly horrifying and needing much improvement. Also, I came to discover that while the Moroccan pharmacies and doctors were suprisingly comprehensive, the hospitals were considered places you go only as a last resort in an emergency and likewise needed more attention.

Over the next few days I got to explore the Medina, the Ancient Kazbah overlooking Sale´and Rabat´s beaches, the old cemetaries by the foreshore and I meandered through the Kazbah´s royal gardens. I got ornate henna tattoos all over my arms, my hair cut, ate good food and drank orange juice freshly squeezed in front of me (for about .30euros a glass) and spent time in the markets searching and negotiating for the perfect sandals (came out with Berkenstocks!). I also took my time to buy heaps of spices in bulk and choosing presents from the exotic Moroccan range to send to friends and family back home. Sometime that afternoon, whilst walking around the market, I discovered a man selling live turtles and chameleons. While I was standing nearby, a child upset one of the boxes, spilling haqnd-sized turtles everywhere. I helped the stall holder gather them all up and for my efforts he insisted I take the two week old chameleon I had been ´communicating´with from his collection. I tried to refuse, but the little thing looked up at me with one bulging eye and curled his little tail around my fingertip. I fell helplessly in love! (see photo gallery!)

That night, at the Hotel Gaulois, I pulled my chameleon out and tried to feed it some lettuce I´d procured.

"What´s your name?" I asked it, "Is it Jubjub?" It remained obstinately still.

"Oscar? Terrence?" I felt a little like I was talking to Rumplestiltskin.

"Rumplestiltskin?" No response.

"Gus?" He cocked one eye in my direction rapidly, then slowly turned his head and started crawling towards me. So, that was how I met Gus.

Next time on Tempest Trails:

- Sun, surf and camping Morocco?

- More Moroccan hospitality.

- Tempest surfing in Morocco?

Some Tempest Time.

Some Tempest Channel

Morockin!

tempest — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:20:00 GMT

Early on Saturday morning, I bade a hearty farewell to Pablo at Sevilla´s bus station, then prepared for the next leg of my adventure. I bussed from Sevilla to Algeciras all Saturday morning and met up with the Austrian couple (Barry and Beth) there in the afternoon. We all three agreed that we wanted to move fast and see as much as possible before heading back to Spain in four days time. We had heard that Tangiers was a tourist trap and not particularly safe for unseasoned travellers, especially at night, so we headed almost directly from the ferry port to the train station and were in Asilah, a relaxed coastal holiday town about three hours south of Tangiers, by about 11pm. We found a friendly camping ground and fell asleep almost moments after setting up the tent, about midnight, for sheer travel exhaustion.

The next day we awoke surrounded by literally hundreds of campers holidaying in Asilah from all over Morocco! Busy families, grandparents and cousins were all busy around the water taps and bathrooms having their morning mint teas and breakfasts. Barry came back from the bathroom really excited and announced that we didn´t need to buy water because all the locals were drinking straight from the tap! I had to burst his bubble and explain that the locals had adjusted to the tap water in their childhoods, but that we would be too sensetive and could get very sick. We walked into the town centre that afternoon and looked around the food markets, enjoying the bustle of life and the relaxed atmosphere. We also explored the country style 'bazaar' shops for which Morocco was famous and took in the culture a little. I bought a toy oud, which is a kind of small, Arabic style guitar that is commonly found across North Africa. Barry bought some leather slip on shoes. Beth tried on some outfits but didn´t find anything that fit. At dinner we each decided that we only had time for each of us to choose one wish we wanted to fulfill whilst in Morocco: I said I wanted to buy comfortable sandals in a proper ´souk´ (marketplace). Barry wanted to take a surfing lesson in Rabat, Morocco´s capital. Beth wanted to eat really good, home-made couscous. As Beth and my wishes were not place specific, we all decided to hop a train to Rabat that night.

The train journey was an experience in itself. The general rules are:

- sit if you can find a seat.

- put something down on seats you want to keep if you get up for anything

- don´t get involved in any Moroccan arguments (well, heated debates ...). You can´t possibly win! Just sit back and enjoy the entertainment.

- bring you own water and snacks. Also, bring some extra water for the elderly lady faint from heat exhaustion and second hand smoke inhalation in the corner next to the window that doesn´t open.

The train can sit at the station waiting to take off for between two minutes and an hour, but rest assured the regulars don´t know exactly when it will leave either. There are no signs or announcements, or sometimes stations, where the train stops. So you had better have some idea of how far/ long you are supposed to be travelling for and if there are any train changeovers half way through. You could try asking someone who speaks English, but chances are they will try to give you helpful directions even if they actually have no idea.

The whole train journey seemed to be a fairly social, meet and greet affair. This turned out not to only make the five hour train ride (supposed to be three) a whole lot more interesting, but meant that when the train did finally stop in the middle of nowhere and everyone jumped off the train, the people we were sitting next to took pity on our confusion. In very broken English, one man told us everyone had to get off and wait for another train to Merakesh, which would arrive in a few minutes, or for a later train to Rabat, which would arrive in about twenty at a differend bend in the tracks. He apologised that he was going to Merakesh so could not stay to make sure we got on the train to Rabat alright, but then asked around for someone going to Rabat who could show us the way. He talked to a few people in Arabic and then directed us to follow a small family with a lot of luggage who spoke no English at all. Although it turns out that this little family were not actually going our way at all, the train inspector who was checking our tickets just as the train was about to head off to Fez did. He was able to point us to yet another train nearby that was on its last call. We jumped off the second train, ran fast and were pulled aboard the moving third train by an open door full of helpful hands. The final proof that we were on the right train this time, however, only came two hours later when we actually pulled into Rabat´s main train station on Avenue Mohammed V at about midnight.

We wandered through the empty streets of uptown Rabat, past the shop windows with prices that surprisingly matched most Spanish prices I had seen. The streets were palm lined, decorated with neon lights, comparatively clean and all but empty! We saw almost as many uniformed police around that night as people in the train station. We meandered towards the Medina looking for hotels to stay in, but we were out of luck. The first few places were too pricey. The next few were full. Some hotels had no windows or showers, whilst others were full of cockroaches. Finally, at about 2am, we found the Hotel Gaulois which had single rooms for about 13 euros a night. The Hotel Gaulois boasts a shower and toilet for every floor of the hotel, floor assistants, daily cleaning services, a twenty-four hour desk, friendly staff who can speak some English, a decently priced breakfast and a lobby decorated largely in crimson velvet. After the range of hotel shambles we had looked at that night, I was impressed!

Next time on Tempest Trails:

- Negotiating Morocco without a net!

- How will Tempest get back to Barcelona?

- Birthday bash!

- Who was Gus?

Some Tempest Time.

Some Tempest Channel.

Andalucian Tranquility: Part Two.

tempest — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 21:12:00 GMT

The next evening I found myself in Cadiz, dropped off by the most hospitable resident in all of Andalusia, Pablo, who gave me a quick tour of the town and insisted I come stay with him and his family in Sevilla after I´d seen Cadiz. I took his number before he left and wandered around the georgeous and wealthy looking town for a hostel. There were few tourists, but many Spaniards crowding the streets and overcrowding the bars and restaurants. I was baffled that such a small town on the Costa de la Luz contained such a dense population! I persisted in my search for a hostel or even a hotel bed, but after three or four hours of futile, sweaty door knocking someone was kind enough to tell me it was a local holiday weekend and Cadiz is Andalucia´s favourite local holiday destination! Luckily, though, Andalucians like to party all night long, so I spent the entire night wandering around the busy, joy filled streets checking out the bars, meeting people (communicating through a mixture of terrible Spanish, almost non-existent English and a bunch of wild hand gestures), drinking many coffees and taking lots of photographs of the town´s quaint architecture. Not a bad night after all!

The next morning I took a tour of the Great Cathedral of Cadiz, first going up into the recently opened, Medieval bell tower. At the top of the tower was a platform surrounded by six iron bells, each of a different size and thickness, the smallest of which was still five times the size of my head! The main area of the Cathedral, which is still used, is a massive Baroque fest of gold brocade and Rennaissance architecture. I tried to visit a few other monuments on the Cadiz sightseer´s ´to do´list, but they were mostly closed for the public holiday. I ended up wandering through the Parque Genoves during siesta where I bumped into some jugglers enjoying their day off at the park. We ended up chatting for an hour or so, before one of the jugglers, who part times as a historic tour guide in Cadiz, decided it was his absolute duty (as an ambassador for the city) to take me on a personal, historic tour of the Castillo (Castle of) Santa Catalina, a Moorish sea front castle in the shape of a five pointed star (you can see this from aerial photographs). Arturo pointed out things I wouldn´t normally have considered, such as that the main part of the castle, and the city for that matter, was built from compressed coral rocks taken directly from Cadiz´s shore. If you look closely at the porous walls, you can distinguish spiral shells and coral formations of all descriptions. My new found guide pointed out many such historic facts in Cadiz as we made our way around the old city. We finally ended up at the holiday´s special parade of the virgin Madonna, complete with band and float (see photo gallery).

I left Cadiz on this happy, fairytale note and slept heavily the entire bus ride to Seville (or Sevilla, as the locals call it). I was greeted at the bus station by a smiling Pablo, welcoming me proudly to his great and wonderful city. He took me back to his family´s home and introduced me around. He then led me to a room all set up with fresh sheets and puffed up pillows and a huge bathroom next door. Then told me to hurry up and get ready because after we ate, he was going to show me HIS Sevilla! Over the next three days we were constantly on the go, from the Juderia (the well preserved Jewish quarter in the centre of town), to the Cathedral Giralda (the third largest Cathedral in the world - it was massive!), to the botanical gardens. We went to the Museo Arqueologico (Museum of Archaeology) in the botanical gardens, where I learnt that Sevilla and Cadiz were actually founded by the seafaring Phoenecians way back in the seventh century BCE (around the time that Homer recited the Odessey). This was way back before Christianity or Islam even existed, let alone their millenia long conflicts of Iberian supremacy! We then walked through Plaza de Americas; a square of little note except for the masses of doves which flock there and which are so calm and tame that they can happily eat out of the hands of excitable, wonder-filled toddlers! Pablo took me all over Sevilla; from weird and wonderful clubs, cafes and restaurants to the prison which held Cervantes while he wrote his famous "Don Quixote" series. Of the sights, probably the most rewarding was the amazing Reales Alcazares; the royal Alcazar palace with its intricately decorated, elaborate architecture and gardens, fountains, hedge mazes, pools and even a real hedge labaryth you could actually hide or get lost in (for a few minutes anyway) - check out the photos because my words fall short!

We ate Sevillian food, met heaps of Sevillian locals, avoided the hot August sun (much to my heat-loving dissapointment), improved my Spanish in leaps and bounds and experienced an amazing, local version of Sevilla I have not since heard any other traveller describe. The highlight, however, was on Friday when Pablo invited me to Casa de la Memoria for a traditional Flamenco performance. In a small, unmistakably Sevillian courtyard, two dancers (Anna Marques and Antonio Molino "Choro") and two musicians (Jeromo Segura and Juan Campallo) whipped up a frenzy of black dancing shoes and guitar riffs as intricate as the Real Alcazar, whilst performing ´Marquesita.´ It was an authentically memorable experience - especially for my last night visiting Pablo´s Sevilla!

On Friday afternoon, having decided to push on to Cordoba or possibly even Madrid, I consulted the internet and found I had more money that I had thought in my accounts; that´s funny. I scanned my emails and saw one from Mum talking, amongst other things, about how I sounded like I was having such an amazing time and had I found her suprise yet. A suprise? Extra travel money? I was still in Sevilla, which is geographically fairly close to Algeciras, where the ferries leave for Morocco from. I had already decided, though, to leisurely head North back towards Barcelona over the next week, where I had a comfortable and paid for flat awaiting me and a whole city to discover. After all, I had already enjoyed an adventurous, wonderful and inspiring two weeks travelling around Southern Spain. On the other hand, Morocco was so close! I still had the phone number of that lovely Austrian couple from Torre de la Pena who had invited me to accompany them to Morocco sometime that weekend ...

Hmmm - North or South?

Next time on Tempest Trails:

- Will Tempest leisurely meander up to Barcelona via Cordoba, or will she make it down to the elusive Morocco for a few days?

- Where do you find the perfect sandals?

- Who was Gus?

Some Tempest time.

Some Tempest channel.

Andalucian Tranquility: Part One.

tempest — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 18:04:00 GMT

"Is it morning already¨?"

Consciousness seeped in through my fuzziness and revealed the wafting beachcomber voices and brilliant sunshine to actually be a bright torch brandished by a pair of Andalucian policemen babbling at me in Spanish.

"Hola!" I called out of the tent groggily, "Mi Espagnol is muoy povre. Hablar despacio, por favor!" (translated: "Hi! My Spanish is very poor. Please speak slowly!")

They laughed at me and asked where I was from.

"Australia."

"Australia? Whoa - muchos lejos!" ("Australia? Whoa - that´s mighty far!")

"Si, si!" I agreed as I tumbled into some clothes and out of my tent. By this time, one of the police officers had wandered off to speak to a Hungarian couple nearby.

"Hablar Ingles?" ("Do you speak English?") the remaining officer asked.

"Si!" I mean, yes!" I responded eagerly, hoping that they could then explain what they wanted.

"Yo soy no hablar Ingles!" ("I don´t speak English!") he resounded. After a moment he added thoughtfully "Mi amigo hablan poquito Ingles. Una momento, por favor." ("My friend speaks a little English. One moment, please.")

I checked my clock and it was almost two in the morning. We waited, smiling politely at each other in the moonlight, for his fellow officer to get back.

"Okay," the second officer began, "excuse ... my English is ..." he shrugged. "You no sleep aci (here). You go. You car?"

"Huh?" I replied.

"Okay. You go Hungarian car. I talk with them. Okay?"

"Okay." I responded obediently.

He went off to talk with the Hungarian couple and left me and the other officer smiling silently at each other again. He soon returned, babbled rapidy at me some more in Spanish and made some radical hand movements indicating I had to move my tent.

"Balle?" ("Okay?") he asked.

"Balle." ("Okay.") I responded fittingly. The two officers left smiling.

As I later understood it, I was not supposed to camp in that place. Since I didn´t have a car, the officer had organised a lift for me with the nearest car he could find: the Hungarian couple. Seemed like an obvious solution for him, except for some miniscule details: when I went over to talk to the Hungarian couple after the police left, they could speak neither English nor Spanish, had no idea what the police officer had wanted and had no room in their car besides.

Where to go? I decided that, considering the long day, my best bet was to drag my assembled tent with all my belongings down to the nearby beach and nestle in between some sheltering rocks. Surely the beach would provide a good night´s rest? I settled into my sleeping bag, pleased at the cushioning effect of the sand beneath the tent floor and the shelter that the rocks around me had provided from the moaning coastal wind. I fell back into a deep sleep around three-ish, breathing in fresh sea air and with a vague sense of accomplishment amidst the natural elements.

Then ... at four thirty in the morning ... like every August morning before in the entire history of Spain, the natural tide came back in ...

The ´sheltering´rocks nearby provided sufficiently hard surfaces for the waves to crash against and splash my tent with sprays of cold sea water. I was spluttered awake to find the wind had picked up as well, blustering sand through the holes in the tent´s netting. I tumbled out of my tent for a second time that night to find the ocean rushing up within a metre of my tent! Unable to see for the dark and the flying sand, I dragged everything urgently up a nearby incline and nevertheless managed to secure the fly down, dive in, rug up and fall into a deep, well earned sleep.

I awoke again at about 10am to the sound of people walking on the beach, gentle waves slapping the sand and the sun doing her warm up rounds. Everything in my tent was saturated with sand, including my eyelashes, but I was so happy the night was over and that I´d managed to get a really deep sleep. I sat outside my tent and watched the beach wake up over some breakfast I had deemed the least sandy of all my food. Then I packed up my tent and started for the camping ground to see if there were any spaces available. I later discovered that the rocks I had sheltered in the night before were once part of a Medieval Moorish fortress. It had, in fact, been one of the longest outstanding strongholds in the last battle against the Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula in the eleventh century. The fortress was literally crumbling into the sea like some ancient biblical description. I felt honoured and suprised to have unknowingly sheltered in such a monumental nexus of History! When I went back the next day, there were even tourists taking photos of themselves standing next to my ancient sleeping quarters!

I met up with my Belgian friends again who took me to the Torre De La Pena front desk and, despite the camping ground being full again, convinced the manager I wouldn´t take up much room. I set up my tent and looked around hazily after the long night and relazed into the beautiful tranquility that is Torre De La Pena. I spent a glorious day drinking coffee at the campers´only beach front restaurant (see photo gallery for pictures), swimming and relaxing on the beach watching the windsurfers glide across the water. I met scores of holiday makers from all over Europe, not just Spain, spending their Summer vacations there. That evening, the camping ground was filled with the bubbles of conversation from campers swapping stories about their day, their holidays and laughing about their far off lives. I met a family from Italy with three children, a couple from Austria who were headed to Morocco the next weekend, a German and a Catalan group of students who were on their Summer break together and another campsite of Sevillians who enjoyed playing flamenco around the campfire to the early hours every night. I was in Bliss!

The next afternoon I ventured towards the main road and caught a bus to Tarifa, the nearest town, in search of an internet bar and a few essentials. Tarifa is the Southernmost tip of Spain and is reputedly the European origin of docking tolls for ships, hence the term ´tarrif.´ Tarifa is widely reputed to be the ´Surfers Paradise´of Spain. It is true they both share a wealth of vacationers, a wide shopping range, nightly entertainment and are surrounded by sunny beaches, but physically they couldn´t be more different. Far from the jumble of Surfers´ Paradise´s modern skyscrapers, Tarifa is a stunning example of Spain´s preserved Moorish town planning, architecture and physical history. Directly inside the ancient, walled district of town with the solid gates, the Medieval buildings are painted white and house modern shops of every description. Go a few streets to the left and the rest of the quarters are dulled to a natural sandstone colour from use and are still active, busy neighbourhoods just as they were a thousand years ago! Directly to the right of the main entrance I spotted a sign saying "Chilimos: Comida Vegetariana." Now, as a vegetarian, I have found Spain a little difficult to negotiate; in Barcelona, there is a little more variety, of course, but for the most part, vegetarian means tortilla (omelette) or cheese bocadillos (rolls) as the only alternatives. Here, in this little coastal town of Tarifa, I found a restaurant that not only made my favourite dish (vegetarian lasagne), but made it really well and with soya meat as well! I was overjoyed and gobbled it down way too quickly - I had to follow it up with a slice of their luscious baked cheese cake!

After dinner I found an internet cafe (the most expensive in Spain so far) and spent a half hour letting people know I was not in Morocco after all. The sun had set by then as I wandered around the streets of Tarifa which were bustling with tourists. I followed the general flow of traffic to find myself in a night craft market (a little pricey for my taste, but quite a nice, good quality range). Beyond the market was a Mudejar castle (one of three in the town) and, of course, the port itself, where the ferries were rushing to and from Morocco (without me on them, I noted forlornly).

I spent the next few days in the tranquile haze that envelopes all the holiday makers on the Costa de la Luz; wandering across the beaches, over to explore some ruins, through National parklands or down to the nearby town for an evening stroll in my own, sweet time. I even made sure to eat at least one ice cream every day, just to put the cherry on the top! By Saturday, though, I was feeling somewhat restless. I had looked at the maps on the internet and had spoken to numerous travellers who suggested the best way back to Barcelona from Tarifa was to travel to Seville via Cadiz and then by train to Barcelona via Madrid. Any way I looked at it, it was going to be a long journey and I didn´t want to rush through such oft dreamed of destinations. I spoke with some of the Sevillians at the camping ground for recommendations. One of them, Pablo, was heading back to Seville via Cadiz the very next day and would not hear of me taking the bus!

.... tune in next time for "Andalucian Tranquility: Part Two."

¿Spain Without A Map? Part 2.

tempest — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:13:00 GMT

Our first night in Algeciras we slept near the beach three in the car again and awoke early for a morning swim at the beach before cleaning and returning the car. After a few hours of nervously driving around this overcrowded Spanish port town unable to find the right address, a car came careening towards us head on, swerving out of the way in the last seconds. My heart pounding, I purposefully pulled the car over to a nearby parking space and started shaking fro the near miss. Although I was the only one contractually allowed to drive the hire car, I couldn´t drive any further. I checked the car over, which was miraculously unblemished, and called the car hire company. I was lucky they had an English speaking operator available to whom I could clearly explain that I was too shaken by the near miss to safely drive the car back in time. The operator was very sympathetic and suggested that instead of losing another 80 euros for another day´s car hire, she could put a call in to the towe truck company at the rate of 50 euros and have the car picked up.

My travel friends offered to go with the Spanish speaking towe truck driver and leave me for an hour or so to calm down in the park. While I was waiting, a lovely couple, Sara and Ralph, vacationing from Belgium with their two very large dogs (a one year old Great Dane and a Rhodesian Ridgeback cross) came to have lunch on the park bench next to me. They were visiting Algeciras from a camping ground called Torre De La Pena, on the Costa De La Luz (The Coast of Light). They told me that in the camping ground there were many international backpackers, a beautiful beach and acres of National Parks. They offered me a lift there, but were planning on leaving later that day. I thanked them for their offer and took their phone number. Soon after, my travel mates returned but had received word that their friends who had gone on ahead from Barcelona had been delayed. They had decided to try and find some accomodation in Algeciras for a few days until their friends caught up, rather than head straight to Morocco. Tired from all the dramas, haphazard travelling plans and miscommunications, I decided that this couple were probably not the best choice to go with to a country so foreign to my knowledge as Morocco. I also realised that I had already spent a good half of my allotted travel money and had not even paid for the ferry to Tangiers yet (which, I discovered, was twice as expensive as expected - 35 euros each way!). I decided there and then that if I could no longer budget for Morocco, at least I could have a few days relaxing on a sunny beach on the Costa de la Luz. So I wished the two travelers good luck and caught up with the Belgian couple.

An hour later I was jumbled into the back seat with their two huge ´puppies´ and on my way to Andalucia´s Atlantic coastline. We drove for about an hour, past an awesome landscape covered in natural scrublands and ancient ruins. Graceful, white windmills cut through the fierce Atlantic winds for Green electricity. ** The coastline overflowed with picturesque beaches and across the vast, blue ocean, we could see the Moroccan mountains looming like ghosts in the distance. (Morocco - I was so close!)

We arrived at the camping ground shortly before twilight to find it packed full (´completo´) and I was invited to try again for a vacancy after checkout in the morning. I was therefore left with just enough time to find a nearby camping spot for the night before sunset. Sara also happened to have a spare tent and a sleeping mat to lend me - although this was hardly suprising as the couple were traveling with EVERYTHING - all the latest camping equipment, a kitchen table, chairs, a king size mattress and even a chest of drawers! The couple also helped me set up the tent near some other campers, invited me to join in on their freshly cooked vegetarian dinner, and even waked me back to my tent afterwards!

I had to pinch myself: one week earlier I had been couch serfing in Edinburgh. Three days earlier I had my own flat and room in Barcelona. That morning, I had woken up at the other end of SPani following two unreliable travelers, in the back of a hire car, had almost been in a head on collision and was a few hours from going to Morocco. I felt like I had leapt head first into the rabbit hole and had landed safely in a place so tranquil and breathtaking that I had already nicknamed it "where Gd Himself goes for time out!" That evening I fell asleep contented, with a full stomach and looking up at the stars through the netting in my tent´s roof. I was lulled by the rhythmic waves washing gently ashore. Despite the setbacks, I couldn´t believe my luck!

Next time on Tempest Trails:

- How will Tempest survive the Costa De La Luz without sunnies?

- A vegetarian´s delight!

- What police?

- Who was Gus?

Same Tempest time.

Same Tempest Channel.

(which we all know is as soon as I can, especially considering ...)

** (NB. For all those who postulate that energy windmills would be an eyesore or devalue in property in Victoria: here, across the scrublands and Eucalyptus forested hilltops, they blend into the vista rather naturally and are about as out of place as the historic ruins are. Moreover this area has subsequently become one of the most valuable property markets in all of Spain!)

¿Spain Without A Map? Part One.

tempest — Tue, 8 Aug 2006 15:52:00 GMT

From the Boom festival in Portugal to a week in Morocco: boy, do plans have a habit of changing! My day bag was already packed of a weeklong camping festival in Portugal, so it was a small matter to swap a few items to be more suited to a week of hotels in Morocco: a longer skirt, a more modest T-shirt, double check my first aid kit and a few toys for entertainment: my practice poi, some contact balls, some pens, a sketch pad and a book. I left behind my bathers, my fire poi, my newly reunited fire staff, any one of my many jumpers, my sleeping bag, most of my toiletries, my laptop, tent, spare shoes and my ipod, in favour of my emergency first aid thermal blanket (folds up really small and light), a thermal singlet and a packet of baby wipes (never forget the baby wipes!).

Unfortunately, I also left behind a map of Spain and, ironically, while I was on the bus down to Valencia in the wee hours of Monday morning it suddenly occured to me that I didn´t know the layout of Spain very well. I had studies it once for a medieval history assignment, but that was one of many books amongst many maps many years ago. I recalled, for instance, that Barcelona was at the top right hand corner of Spain, that Madrid was approximately in the middle, and that Toledo and Seville, with their greater Mudejar influences, were stationed somewhere below. Somehow the rest of Spain eluded my memory. I suddenly realised I was travelling through Spain without a map! - breathe - Something only I could end up doing by accident!

We arrived in Valencia and hopped off the bus just before dawn on Monday morning. "Hmm," I yawned sleepily, "I wonder where I can get a Valencia orange?" We had some breakfast then found an internet cafe to alert relevant peoples that we were headed to Morocco that day (and not Portugal). Incidentally, while I was on the internet I had a really good look at the map of Spain: "Valencia is no where near Morocco!" I turned to my more "experienced" traveler friends confused. Turns out, their original plans was to bus halfway down Spain, to Valencia, where it would be easier to hitch a lift through the rest of Spain and down to Algeciras, where the ferry leaves for Morocco from. A little more skeptical, I was reassured by our numbers and by the fact that they had done this many times before.

I followed the others walking around Valencia all through the long, hot and humid day with our packs whilst looking for a place to hitch hike from. We incidentally took in the massive bull fighting ring, the Aquarium, the port, some other interesting sights I never discovered the names of (see photo gallery for an example), a shopping centre, a ring road around the West side of the city and a little broken Spanish with Valencian locals (almost no chance you will find someone who speaks English down there). Actually, even putting the exhaustive walk with backpacks aside, Valencia did not impress me that much. It seemed to be largely under construction, geared towards the America´s Cup Yoacht race and, especially compared to Barcelona, simply bare. I love the heat, though, and was feeling inspired at the prospect of a trip to ´Morocco,´ so I was happy to follow my Spanish speaking guides through central Valencia, across the entire port and back around the ring road as they ´tried´to recall the way to a good hitch hiking spot. Finally, after about six hours of walking in the hot sun, we were stopped by police and told that hitch hiking was illegal in Valencia. The police were fairly polite, but still didn´t take enough time to give us directions back into the city centre. About two hours later (at about 6pm), we eventually found directions to a cheap car hire place, which turned out to be about a block from the bus station we had walked out from at 6am! As I was the only person with an international licence I the group, I hired the car under my name (although my new friends were happy to do the talking and translate the essential for me) from the non-English speaking attendant and we were finally on our way to Algeciras. After a long, long day with sore feet in Valencia, things started looking up again.

We drove down the highway late into the night, through Albacete (on an unintended detour) and ended up with all three of us sleeping in the tiny hired hatchback somewhere off the roadside near Murcia (I later discovered that in most places in rural Spain, it is illegal to set up a tent in the National forests - something about building a structure without a council permit, but sleeping in a car is allowed). By lunchtime the next day we hit Granada; there were cars and buses everywhere running traffic lights, scooting around careless pedestrians, skimming roughly past a scooter or a pram ... I started to get nervous and uncertain driving around the town. We parked the car and went for some lunch, a small walk around the city and an internet cafe (locutorio) to check where to return the car to that evening in Algeciras: "What do you mean the car is late? I hired it for twenty four hours and it´s barely 2 o´clock in the afternoon!" I spluttered in disbelief at the only English speaking telephone receptionist at the car hire company. Turns out that my Spanish speaking friends´ ´necessary translations´didn´t include that the car was supposed to be returned by one o´clock, at a cost of 80 euros ciphered directly from my credit card. I was in shock - the car had originally only cost 16 euros (divided by three) to hire, and suddenly it cost 96! I got off the phone feeling mopey and defeated. We reasoned, though, that since we had already paid heavily for an extra day´s hire, we should push on towards Algeciras.

We arrived in Algeciras about two hours before sunset and headed towards the Playa de Guitares. This beach is really beautiful; it has a clean, gentle surf perfect for swimming in, countless large colourful shells and a small seaside clothes market. To one side lies Algeciras´extensive port. To the other, hillsides covered in green forests. Out to sea, the Rock of Gibraltor looms large across the horizon. As twilight fell that evening, the moon was large and red and shone down on a bay littered with twinkling lights from the cruise ships and ferries. I mentioned to one of my travel friends; "This view is so perfect it would look too fake if it was a painting!"

Next time on Tempest Trails: ¿Spain Without A Map? Part Two.

- Will Tempest return the hire car in time on Wednesday?

- Will Tempest and co make it to Morocco?

- Who was Gus?

Some Tempest Time.

Some Tempest Channel.

Barcelona easy.

tempest — Sat, 5 Aug 2006 15:57:00 GMT

On Saturday I woke up late and headed to Barcelona beach for a few hours for some sun, surf and a much needed 5 euro Thai massage. There I bumped into some friends I knew from the last time I was in Barcelona in May, who invited me to come to a nightclub in a cave that night. So around 1am we shared two taxis to some remote village (I don't know the name of) and find ourselves dropped off at the entrance to what looks, at first, like any normal nightclub. Inside the cave, the music was pumping ( a bit too hard for my usual taste) and the crowd was jumping and ... yeah, I know: now I'm just ripping off some 90's rap song! The cave was humongous, though, and had a bar, toilets, a stage, lights and even a coat room; a whole nightclub built into it's walls! Where the walls were left bare, including the naturally formed stalactites and stalagmites, they glistened in the laser lights with the humidity of all the dancers packed inside. THey absorbed the racket beautifully! Outdoors, in the nightclub courtyard, there was a much smaller set of decks playing more relaxed melodies to people wanting a break. From the comparatively serene courtyard, the thunder from within the cave was almost inaudible!

The next afternoon was hot and sunny so some friends and I made our way to the famous park Guell, designed by Gaudi: Barcelona's favourite (surrealist) architect! It was built into the side of a hill, with the journey up the path an ever changing feast for the senses. At one bend, pan pipes reverberated down from a Romanesque terrace. At another, violins shook the eucalypts and other aromatic plants in the extensive gardens. On the top of the hill, there was an awesome view of Barcelona right out to the bay. A group of musicians, including a disproportionate conglomerate of djembe drummers, were playing impulsively amongst themselves; incidentally providing music for the rest of us to enjoy and juggle to all through the afternoon.

Monday and Tuesday I looked up loquo.com to find a place to rent in Barcelona for a month or two. www.loquo.com is a fantastic, free public notice board for jobs, lifts, apartments, etc. which is particularly useful in Barcelona, but it's well used, so you've got to get onto it quick if you want that apartment/car/lift. At this point, I was still sleeping on the couch of a generous friend's overcrowded share apartment. On Tuesday afternoon, I got a call back about what seemed to be a perfect apartment. I was greeted by a tall, Italian girl with crazy hair who said she was looking for a family of friends in the flat, and a very calm and collected Chilean man who was a budding film director, both of whom I took to right away. By that evening I had moved into my first, very own apartment in Barcelona. I was giddy with glee! It was spacious, clean, relaxed and had large windows and three balconies. I immediately felt comfortable and settled. It was all terribly easy and not working around a hostel or other people's timetables freed up a lot of time and energy for more interesting activities. Yay for having my own place!

Meanwhile, I had also arrived back in Barcelona with just a few days to spare to get to the week long Boom Festival; one of Europe's foremost and largest Trance and World Music Festivals, held every second year in the foothills of Northern Portugal. This year it was also going to include a focus on sustainability and environmental awareness. It was always going to be hard finding a lift all the way across the Iberian Peninsula that late, but as an active researcher of Countercultural and European Carnival Traditions and of Sustainability efforts, I felt it was my absolute duty to try! So I set aside a slim 300 euros (100 or so for the transport/ gas, 100 for the ticket and another hundred for coffee, food, emergencies, etc.) and sent out messages to as many people I knew would be heading that way to give me a lift, or at least catch the bus/ train with me (there were suprisingly almost no directions on how to get to the festival on the Boom website). I searched for flights but found them booked out. I went to loquo.com and followed up potential lifts advirtised there, but they all fell through. I even tried organising with several friends to journey to the festival together, but when by Saturday afternoon I found myself still in Barcelona at Sans Estacio with no trains or buses leaving for Portugal till the next afternoon, I finally conceded it was not going to happen.

Despondant and grumpy at missing out on the big party, I bumped into a jumbly crew of backpackers arriving for a one night stop over in Barcelona on their way down to Morocco. We ended up staying out all night (well, it was a Saturday night in Barcelona) and having an absolute ball! By Sunday evening, two of the group had gone on ahead via Madrid, and the other two were trying to convince me to use the 300 euros I had set aside for Boom to go to Morocco with them instead. They reasoned that it shouldn't cost more than 40 euros to bus down to Southern Spain, another 30 or so for two way travel across the straight and if you didn't stay long and weren't discriminating, Morocco was not too expensive. Besides, they reasoned, they had been there many times before so they could show me around and easily get me back within a week or so. It was all just too "Barcelona easy."

And here's the exact point where my plans started to go awfully askew: I said, "That sounds like fun!"

Next time on Catch-up Tempest Trails:

- Will Tempest make it to Morocco?

- What does Tempest mean by "awefully askew"?

- Will Tempest remember to bring/ look at a map of Spain before leaving?

- Who was Gus?

Some Tempest time!

Some Tempest channel!

Farewell Scotland

tempest — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 00:55:00 GMT

To all those eagerly awaiting the next installments of my blog: sorry for the delay folks. A slight unpredictable adventure through the south of Spain and Morocco separated me from my computor for a while. All details in good time, though in this case, the next few days. "How on earth did she get from Scotland to Morocco?" I hear you ask.

Well ...

My last two weeks in Scotland way back in July were the best by far. Did I mention that the public health care system there is brilliant? I finally found a physio who realigned my back - thanks Mandy! I also managed to sell my car with great ease. I put an ad with photos on the Autotrader website on Sunday night. On Monday afternoon the ad was posted and within two or three hours I had foud interested phone calls. Within a day the car was sold and the date set to pick it up for the day before I was supposed to leave Scotland the next week. Perfect!

I took the opportunity and the car to go see to a few more towns around Kincardine, where I was staying, and partake of the local historical monuments. Scotland's like a bit of a theme park for historians. Almost every town I happened across, whether Culross or Clackmannan, had a deep historical heritage with numerous ruins and monuments standing as evidence and memorial. For instance, I made my way to Dunfermline to find the Robert Henryson memorial foundation, which had thus far eluded every telephone attempt to make contact. Robert Henryson was a fifteenth century Scottish poet who wrote a very comical, controversial, contemporary version of Aesop's Fables, which I studied for a university assignment. So I was naturally interested in visiting the town he lived in. When I got there, no one had heard of Henryson, but they directed me towards the town hall, which was a gloriously gothic construction with Tudor Turrets, complete with gargoyles and dragons (very reminiscent of Stirling castle). I walked from there down the cobble street road towards the old church I had spied, which stood around its old gravestones like a monument to the old world. It was the famous Dunfermline Abbey, complete with "King Robert The Bruce" carved out into its highest turrets.

Around the back fo the graveyard I found a small plaque dedicated to the victims of cholera from 1832. This was the first of a series of cholera pandemics to reach British shores that wiped out about a fifth of the United Kingdom over the eighteenth century. The disease took so many people so suddenly that in many places they were buried in mass, unmarked graves (another university assignment). It read "This plaque commemorates the 158 people who died in the outbreak of cholera which swept through Dunfermline in 1832. Victims of the disease are buried in this area." I know it seems morbid, but YAY! This was more evidence of the impact of the nineteenth century cholera epidemic on ... okay, I guess it's going to take a bit more travel to take the history nerd out of the girl!

Just behind the cholera plaque, I was transported back into the eleventh century by the ruins of the 'original' Dunfermline Abbey, behind the fourteenth or fifteenth century, 'new' Dunfermline Abbey I already described. The empty facades of the ruins whispered silently in the late afternoon of everything they had seen, which I will never have access to, no matter how long I spend investigating and researching. Inspiring, belittling and vaguely frustrating! I took a left into the royal botanical gardens, which turned into one of the most rewarding experiences for me in all of Scotland. It was a haven of exotic plants, fairy tale troll bridges, twinkling streams and best of all, a crumbling tower fortress (Malcolm Canmore's tower) of undetermined age, although it is at least one thousand years old so far. It was once part of a pre-Norman royal residence/ fortress for Scotland. Wow! (Check out the photos)

After wandering around the gardens for a while, I headed back into the town around dusk and was convinced by its cobblestone charm to wander around for a while. I never found the Robert Henryson society. Instead I found a pub, still in use, that is over two hundred years old, a wall attached to a house built in the fourteenth century, an old church or two, a few memorial plaques to successful sons of Dunfermline, another pub called 'Somewhere Else,' but mostly a gentle Summer evening in a pub filled town in countryside Scotland.

Week 2: Wickerman! Edinburgh! Barcelona?

The next weekend I bundled a friend into the car with me and we headed down to the border for the Wickerman festival. It was a conglomeration of music and arts, with fun rides and 'all the fun of the fair' for three days. I got to see dozens of bands, from electronica to folk and reggae, but the highlight was a fourteen piece keyley (traditional Scottish music and dance) band late on the first night which sent the audience absolutely wild! The sound was astonishing and suprisingly beautiful (now I know when I heard bagpipes back in Oz that they were playing them badly!) Another highlight was the midnight burning of the four or five metre high human effigy made of wicker.. Now I know you are asking, "Is this a branch out from the Burning Man festival in Nevada?" Well, I asked the festival goers this very same question myself. Turns out most people there had never heard of the Burning Man. The burning of the wickerman is a Celtic tradition going back over a thousand years, symbolising the end of the harvest season and the rebirth of the land's fertility cycle. When Christianity came to Scotland way back in the early Middle Ages, the belief was spread that the ancient Celts originally burnt humans at the Wickerman festivities as an annual sacrifice to the gods. Most of the evidence and recent research, however, suggests that the original sacrifices were wicker effigies, not human sacrifices. These were made of wicker (wood) to symbolise the rebirth of the harvest year. It was also a great weekend celebration with many happy Scots and much wine, song and merriment splashed about.

On the way back from the festival we stopped off at Dundrennan Abbey of the Cistercian, or white monk, order. This abbey is commonly believed to have been established in the twelfth century and its ruins stand as a monument of evidence to the crossover from Roman to Gothic style religious architecture. Although in ruins and surrounded by graves, Dundrennan Abbey is worth a few hours for its serenity and striking beauty. Even amongst the crumbled remnants you will find an intricate structures full of halls, doorways, high arches and steep stairwells. An odd point of note; a suprisingly high number of people buried in Dundrennan Abbey lived over eighty years, even during times of disease, drought and poor life expectancy throughout the rest of Britain. I wander what their secret was?

The next week I headed off to Edinburgh to spend a couple of days in the big smoke, staying with a friend I met at the Meadows firetwirling meets. We spent most of the day walking around and relaxing in the park on that sunny Summer afternoon. There was much talk about the Edinburgh fringe festival and the build up for it, which was due to start in two weeks, but I was headed back to Barcelona that weekend so was a bit detached from all the festival talk.

Follow up from earlier blog: Before I left Scotland I went through everything I owned and was carrying with me and cut it down by a third. I had been seven plus kilos overweight on the way into Scotland, had a mess of 'things' to sort through everytime I wanted to go out and had only recently recovered from an injured back. On the way out I wanted to be lighter, less bulky and more versatile. I knew it wouldn't last long, as usual, but as I was about to learn, travelling light has many advantages over travelling well equipped

After almost two months of up and down health, dramas, festivals and money worries (Scotland is not THAT much cheaper than England, and still rates as the most expensive place I have so far visited despite the free healthcare and the comfortable couches of generous friends), I was sorry to leave in the end. I felt I was just starting to get to know people, to make friendships and figure the ins and outs of Scottish life ... but I was eager to get back to my base in Barcelona, and to my firestick that I had bought three days before leaving it behind. A two week visit to Scotland had quickly stretched into two months and Barcelona already seemed like a far off dream.

The flight back to Barcelona was a bit of a nightmare. I missed the first flight - long story - on Thursday afternoon, so booked another flight for Friday afternoon. About a half hour off landing, news came over that Barcelona airport was on strike, so we were doubling back to an airstrip in France. The airline organised buses to drive us the rest of the way to Barcelona, so we spent over three hours all jumbled into a stuffy bus with all our luggage. I arrived tired and frustrated, but was met at Plaza Catalunya by an old friend from Belgrade who I hadn't seen in years. The friends he was travelling with had arrived that morning from a nearby village in France and were fresh, well rested and excited to explore the city. They insisted I come with them immediately and helped carry my backpack around with us to a number of random restaurants and bars for food and wine and a long night of catching up. I was definately back in Barcelona! I decided then and there I was going to stay in Barcelona for a few months, at least, despite having missed most of the Barcelona Summer, and get to know the place a whole lot better. After all, I had spent more time in Scotland than Barcelona at this stage, which was not my original plan. How the best laid plans do go astray ...

Next time on Tempest Trails:

- How did the 'stay in Barcelona for a few months at least' turn into an adventure like no other through Southern Spain and Morocco?

- How did Tempest survive 6 weeks across two countries with only a day pack?

- Who was Gus?

For more updates on the exciting adventures of Tempest, click onto Tempest Trails:

Same Tempest time.

Same Tempest channel.

England - PLAY to your heart's content!

tempest — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:30:00 GMT

Play To Your Heart’s Content!

What a crazy first weekend of July! I got a lift from some people I met at the fire twirling meets on Monday nights in the Meadows in Edinburgh down to the Play festival near Shrewsbury in England. This was the second year running of this annual, unique and purposefully small festival, the focus of which is a conference for jugglers of everything from knives to tea cups to fire. Any ‘toy’ you could possibly play with, from fire twirling equipment to juggling clubs to a trapeze, was exhausted over the weekend. My mind was boggled continuously by what people could do, what they could invent and reinvent in their own backyards. Everyone was boggled! It made for an amazing community atmosphere of encouragement, learning, wonder and support. Anyone and everyone was encouraged to bring out their original ideas and toys, performances and exhibitions, even if they were not sure it would work, and run it by as many other people as possible. Onlookers were continuously amazed, enthusiastic and most of all, appreciative of the intricate skills and devotion involved in the creation and implementation of each new idea, whether it was fantastic to watch and worked first time or merely showed promise.

I’d been laid up for weeks before I arrived at Play due to a bad back, but with the help of some ibuprofen and sheer adrenaline boosted excitement (spying a full size circus tent at one end of the field, a trapeze at the other, and people playing with firetoys and juggling equipment in between) within fifteen minutes of arrival I was three foot in the air jumping about on kangaroo stilts! Kangaroo stilts are a recently invented kind of stilts modeled after the structure of a kangaroo leg, which allows the stilt walker to jump and bound up, down, around in circles or at up to 20kph across country. I was unsteady and unsure bouncing that far off the uneven grass, but it was immense fun! Tired from the journey and chilled from the English night, I crashed early so I could wake up warm and refreshed the next day.

Early the next morning I wandered stiff and bleary eyed up to the organic and vegetarian coffee and food stall and got sidetracked by the odd couple queued in front of me: they were rolling contact balls between them, across their arms, down their backs, across their chests, a hop up from foot to elbow, a hop from elbow onto fist … smooth as water. As I watched in ashamed disbelief (after years of practice I can barely roll a contact ball up my arm!) one started playing with her tea cup, rolling it up and down her arms in sync with her rolling ball until finally, the ball dropped - straight into her tea cup. I was astonished and wanted to clap, but they were just passing the time waiting for their coffee refill. It wasn’t until I later pointed them out to an organizer that he laughed and told me they happen to be from a troop of world class contact ball performers … (oops, their performance name eludes me). Minutes later I was in the midst of a circle of twenty festival goers all twirling poi (one chain with a ball/weight attached the end held in each hand), swapping ideas, coming up with new moves and teaching each other more obscure variations. From about 10am to 6 or 7 in the evening there was a steady stream of workshops, three at a time, offering lessons in everything from knitting, to balloon art, to various forms of fire twirling to trapeze. Every evening there were professional performances, which demonstrated how the toys that we were playing could be transformed, with a little fairy dust and some positive thinking, into jaw dropping performances by professional ‘players.’

I was extraordinarily fortunate to be at this little festival; I had found out about it only a week or so before through a friend from Australia who was volunteering there on the gate. I checked out the website on the net and decided it was an opportunity too good to miss, so I contacted the organizers as soon as I could via a very chirpy email, offering my services as a First Aid assistant volunteer, in exchange for my ticket. They were very friendly and were glad of any extra first aiders they could call on, especially considering the encouraging and experimental nature of the festival.

At the festival, I was not only on First Aid, I also held a discussion about the emergence of sustainability in Western culture, and how to be economical and ecological at home. My discussion, however, was hijacked by an acrobat in the midst of mental turmoil, trying to figure out what the significance of acrobatics was to society, or if it had any integral virtue at all. The discussion largely turned towards the history of circus and the inversion of reality (grotesque theory) in society, the freak side shows of the nineteenth century and their connection to the sudden boom in anthropology, which many believe led to Western theories of equality, the civil rights movement and the rise in respect for alternative cultures and philosophies over the twentieth century. We eventually concluded that by pushing the boundaries and norms of society, the inversion of reality, such as is seen in many circus performances and at festivals like Play, were designed to broaden minds, encourage people think outside their boxes and to reinvent themselves and refresh their ill tested perspectives. The acrobat was very pleased with this and on the whole, I think the discussion went well, despite the sidetrack.

The greatest highlights of the festival for me, besides the enormous fun, the people and learning new ideas, were the Play Olympics, the Guinness Fire twirling attempt, and the final night Renegade performance.

The Play Olympics held many competitions, such as juggling three balls, five balls, clubs, balancing anything on the end of whatever body part you wanted for the longest and hoola hoop races, to name a few. I’m proud to say I came second in the juggle three balls event, but placed no where anywhere else (but I took lots of cool photos!).

The Guinness Book of Records Fire twirling attempt was an attempt at trying to get the largest catastrophe of fire twirlers to perform a choreographed show. At first I was at patriotic odds about participating: after all, I was helping England to outdo the Australian record. Then someone pointed out that if England gets the record, Australia will have to meet the challenge by making their next Guinness attempt even bigger and better. That settled it: I helped England get the record by two! The night cleared away a threatening storm without even a whisper of thunder. We stood under the stars at the ready, wicks soaked in paraffin and the air smelling like an excited petrol station. The circle was so large that the message to light up and start had to be sent from one end to the other by broken telephone, but the results were breathtaking! A wheel of fire spun from the inner sanctum of the crowd of twirlers out towards the edge in twirling streaks of bright fire balls and back again. Obviously I couldn’t take photos while participating, but the excitement left hours of fire twirling in its wake, of which I did take photos (see gallery).

Finally, the Renegade concert was a steady stream of unusual and eye opening short acts which lasted until the sun came up. It was held on the last night of the festival and anyone and everyone was encouraged to get up on stage and show what they’d learnt at the festival, or what they’d been working on at home. It was astonishing: there were demonstrations from the UK junior juggling champion, to a tissue aerial performer, to contact fire staff and even Japanese bondage art!

But the most special aspect of the entire Play festival were the people who arrived child like: wide eyed, enthusiastic and in the spirit of playing. They arrived ready to teach, learn, participate and share their skills open heartedly! By the end of the weekend, my mind boggled with new friends, toys, tricks, tents, performances … I could barely lift my arms for two days afterwards from playing so much!

Sterling Stirling!

tempest — Tue, 4 Jul 2006 20:42:00 GMT

Well, the sunny weather didn't last long and the winds and gales Scotland is better known for have returned. The days are still about 18 hours long, with sunrise arriving before 4am any day. In the past two weeks I have explored Edinburgh a bit more, especially the Meadows (behind the old city) a central meeting place for the young, travelers and performers of all sorts. I didn't get to explore Edinburgh castle much, but it is well worth an afternoon. Don't miss out on a stroll down the Royal Mile or the vista from the Edinburgh museum!

The highlight of my historic Scotland tour, however, has definitely been Stirling! This busy little town was for centureis the centre of royalty and power in the North of Britain, the gateway into Scotland and the scene of the defining battles of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. Parts of Stirling castle can be dated back as far as the eleventh century, but as would be expected from a building so central to the protection of Scotland and in constant use since then, there have been additions, subtractions and significant renovations over the years as the requirements of the fort vs. royal castle have mutated. This is where Mary Queen of Scotts gave birth to James VI, the first Scottish king of the united Great Britain at the turn of the seventeenth century (contemporary to Shakespeare), and threw him an extensive three day welcoming party complete with new, bejeweled clothing for every guest, fireworks and battle reenactments aimed at impressing the greatest courts of Europe with Scotland's finery. The renovations and archeological excavations currently going on are dedicated to giving the visitor a real feel for the castle in its height, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Unfortunately, most of the renovations are aimed at restoring damage imposed in the last two hundred years by soldiers using the castle as barracks. If you are interested in the Scottish armed forces, however, the castle also contains a museum dedicated to the history of Scottish warfare (including a guide to their uniforms, from dirks to nineteenth century battlefield medical equipment and techniques). You can take a guided tour, a headphones tour, or just run about on your own discovering the ins and outs of a castle so rambling, I'm sure it inspired Marvin Peake's Gormenghast!

Just down the road from Stirling castle there are a number of other historical sights well worth the visit: Argyle's house is the epitome of a Renaissance manor. The Church of the Holy Rood (it's so old, it was RENOVATED in the 14th century!) is also magnificent and is incidentally the Church where James VI was coronated. Attached to the Church is Cowane's hospital, which was not, in fact, a hospital in the modern sense, but in the old fashioned sense: a place of charitable refuge. Also well worth a wander is the Valley cemetery, parts of which date back almost five centuries, with some very interesting grave stones, and a monument pyramid known as the 'Star pyramid' about which there has circulated many rumours and conspiracy theories. Apparently, the engravings and referenced biblical passages around the four sides, once researched and assembled, create a riddle. If you want to work out the riddle, however, I would recommend you take some charcoal and some butcher paper as some of the engravings are very difficult to read with the naked eye.

There is also an old Stirling jail and the Tollbooth (colloquialism for court house/ tax office/ administrative centre) just down the road, which according to my medieval tastes are not quite as interesting, but only because they were built and used in the Victorian in period. There is still plenty at the jail and Tollbooth for those fascinated with the history of the Scottish armed forces, interested in the morbid history of convicts and convictions, or for those more interested in nineteenth century Britain.

Nearby Stirling, and in fact visible from everywhere in the area, is the great Wallace Monument. This is less of a historical monument, and more of a museum to the great national hero and to Scottish war heroes since. Get on your walking shoes, however, 'cos this museum goes up five steep staircases!

Stirling county has been central to Scottish independence and warfare since before the birth of the Scottish nation, mainly due to its positioning and surrounding areas. According to the historical tour guides at Stirling castle, the castle itself was built upon a crag of volcanic rock, but up until the last century, the surrounding areas were entirely fog shrouded marshlands. The Scottish soldiers were notorious for their light armour, which allowed them to move quickly and deftly through the heath and marsh, while the English soldiors typically had very heavy plate armour and fully armoured war horses. The only place such heavily armoured English soldiers could traverse the marshlands and not sink or get bogged down was down a road and across a single bridge overlooked by Stirling castle and within firing range of its canons. This strategic detail apparently gave the Scotts the advantage over invading English armies on countless occasions, and won them back their independence over and over again. The catch cry that rang for centuries that 'he who holds Stirling castle, holds all of Scotland' is no exaggeration, and from the castle on top of Stirling hill, this becomes obvious.

Incidentally, Stirling town is also an excellent place to grab a cuppa, a nice meal, have a night out or just to stroll around. There are plenty of restaurants and pubs, and there is quite a selection of events going on all Summer long in Stirling. Although Stirling is not central to Scottish life and government anymore, it is still the central town in the breathtaking Fife area in Southern Scotland, and roads to all areas of Scotland still pass by her gates. Edinburgh might be a beautiful and romantic city, but Stirling is hands down more fascinating and full of historical wonder!

Check out my photo gallery in the next few days for accompanying pictures,especially of old Stirling.

England - PLAY to your heart's content!

tempest — Mon, 3 Jul 2006 02:30:00 GMT

Play To Your Heart’s Content!