Where's Ron?
Morocco, January-February 2017
Ron near Rotarua, NZ, January 2015
Fez to Asliah, Morocco
9 February 2017
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
Here in Virginia our weather has varied from balmy (mid-70s on Monday-Wednesday) to wintery - today the high was only mid-30s with a howling north wind. I was going to walk the 1.5 miles to a local garage to pick up my car, but decided to wait until tomorrow and hope the wind has died down then. I now have hellebores blooming and daffodil leaves poking a few inches out of the ground, but we hope for extended periods of cool nights so all the local fruit trees and other things don't bud out prematurely and then freeze.
In case anyone wonders, the package Ron talked about shipping from Morocco arrived in only a few days - we were amazed. The tea glasses were unscathed, but some of the metal lanterns have some dents and bends in them.
I'm gradually getting things in order for my departure - I leave to meet Ron in Granada on 16 February, a week from today.
There are two messages from Ron below, a short one sent on 6 February and a longer one sent today, 9 February.
Love to all,
Ellen
6 February 2017
Moulay Idris, MoroccoHello, my dear,
Just back from the afternoon in the Roman ruins of Volubilis outside of Moulay Idris. The best picture I can find is: Holy Moulay - Moulay Idriss is built on two hills. Photograph: Mattes Ren/AFP, see http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2011/apr/30/moulay-idriss-guesthouse-accommodation
In Fez I visited the tannery yesterday, had dinner with Doug and Janet [local friends and neighbors and fellow pipeline fighters] at their very nice Riad, and the night before I had a lambburger at the Cafe Clock restaurant which was one of my strangest restaurant experiences yet. Trying to find my way out I found a small movie theatrre for about a dozen or less seats showing a very strange movie. Now I understand the owner also opened a restaurant here so I am off to find it.
More when I get some time.
Love and miss you,
Ron
From Fez to Asliah by way of Rabat
9 February 2017
Asilah, MoroccoHello, my dear,
Now sitting in a restaurant in Asilan, on the north west coast south of Tangier, eating my tomato, onion and cucumber salad and my white rice with some few vegetables for color (which I asked to have heated after getting it cold before in other places) while I wait on my fish and shrimp to be grilled (which I had picked out earlier.) I thought I had learned how to control what I got, but again I got all kinds of things I had not ordered: a bowl of olives, a plate of french fries (which I am assuming was covered with mayo), and a plate of what I think were baked beans in a tomato sauce. Plus the shrimp and fish arrived in a bed of lettuce, sliced onions and tomatoes along with a bunch of thick lemon slices.
When the fish and shrimp arrived I had to put the computer away because there was just not enough space.
I have now finished my large fish dinner and moved up the street to a cafe which has wifi and a glass of hot Lipton tea with lemon and sugar. The news is on the TV but of course I can not understand it. There were some military pictures of equipment and from the other scenes I would say in Muslim cities. There are scenes of rubble [Ellen guesses Mosul?] which reminds me of what I see on our news. When the female announcer came on, I would say this was not local news, maybe news from France. Or maybe they used a cut from the French news. But it does not sound French either.
There was a couple with Doug and Janet who live up the road from us, on the west side of 151 just past Dick Woods Road in Albemarle. Imagine coming to Mocorro to meet out neighbors up the road and have dinner with them and Doug and Janet - Doug and Janet had invited us to dinner before I left but it was called off because of a snow storm. Their tour group I believe is 16 people and all their arrangements are made by the tour, including all the guides along the way. I liked their accommodations, meals and guides. They have taken several tours with the same company and it sounds wonderful. Perhaps a lot more sensible for Morocco than my free lance style.
Normally I spend hours on the Internet figuring out what I want to see, where I want to go, where to stay, how to get there, etc - the logistics of travel. They just had to go. And this time, because of the pipeline issues, I did not do my research and I am finding the logistics difficult.
From Fez, where I shared some time with Doug and Janet, I took a bus to Meknes because when I got to the bus station I found out there was no bus to Volubilis, the Roman ruins outside of the town of Moulay Idriss, which I didn't know much about. So I took the bus to Meknes, hiked to the French Cultural Center where the Grand Taxis are (shared taxis with 6 passengers and a driver) and took the Grand Taxi to Moulay Idriss. I had done a little checking on accommodations and picked out a place from Hotels.com. It turned out to be very near where the Grand Taxi left me, but by the time I found it I had had a grand walking tour of the city carrying my pack and shoulder bag.
I read that the owner of Cafe Clock, where I had my lamb burger in Fez, had opened a place in Moulay Idrisss, but it turned out to not be open. I found another upscale Riad I had read about, they gave me a tour, and I checked out their menu and ordered dinner in advance. I wrote about this meal.
But I don't remember writing about the couple I had dinner with who were staying there. He was Jewish and had been raised in Clifton Forge, Virginia - on the other side of the mountains from us. His wife had been raised in Charlottesville. Both of their families have died or moved away. They have lived in Paris for a long time and his career as a scientists also resulted in a lot of travel. But they have been traveling for years and years on fold-up bikes. He knew about Bike Fridays but they didn't have them. He showed me their pictures of biking through Japan last spring/summer. Quite different from my train travel in the winter.
He approached the topic of Trump carefully to figure out where I stood. We agreed on so many things it was incredible. Politics, climate change, travel, bicycling, on and on. If we come to France we can stay with them and they will provide us fold-up bikes!
They are considering moving to Morocco because of the political situation in France. If the right winger Le Pen gets elected along with Trump and Putin, he sees difficulty for the survival of Europe.
After two nights in the Holy City and learning that my visit to the temple served as one trip to Mecca, and my wonderful days wandering around in the Roman Ruins and the city on the hill, I caught a Grand Taxi back to Meknes then a train to Rabat. I had hoped to get a connection to another small city north of where I am now, Larache, but the train didn't go there and I was too late to make other arrangements so I wandered around trying to find a place I had read about in the Lonely Planet online. But when I finally found it it was not open, perhaps had gone out of business. So I was shown a couple of other places, very expensive, and finally a Riad in the medina had a master suite vacant, top floor, with more floor space than some apartments. It was late and would not be rented and they gave it to me for a heavily discounted rate which was still twice my normal rate.
Then I took a very long night walk to find a restaurant and see the water front and the town center. Even the Medina seemed to be more modern than many of the places I have seen and Rabat had a feeling of more life to it.
This morning after breakfast I walked the long walk to get out of the Medina and caught a taxi for the last bit to catch the 10:30 train to the north. I had found out I could take the train to a city near Larache and then catch a bus the rest of the way. But when I bought my ticket I found the train went to Asilan without a transfer and it would probably be easier to then go back along the coast to Larache. But having arrived in Asilan I might just stay here.
On the train, on my phone, I found there was a hostel here. The signal was too weak to find out much, but I wrote the name down. At the train station I showed the taxi driver the name of the hostel and he seemed to know about it. But he took me to a hotel with the same name which was under construction. When I asked about the hostel, everyone kept pointing to the building next door, which had a sign calling it a Residentia. They showed me a room for $30 that had a kitchen, hot water, tv, a very large living room, a patio, an icebox, and was bigger than then the master-suite I had had the night before for less than half price. The only thing it does not have is Wifi.
But last night, when I had wifi, I was too tired to use it, and just fell asleep after my long walk.
I may stay here a couple of days. You can probably google Asilan and know more than I do, but it seems nice. Beach, boats, nice accommodation, good restaurants, fish, lemon, a stove to make my tea. Now if I can just find a lemon....
Love you and looking forward to slowing down and staying in our Airbnb apartments in Spain.
Just a few more days.
Ron
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Last updated: 10 February 2017
