CRAB-AGEDDON 2019!

The Bay of Pigs.

Famous for scuba diving and, oh yeah, a botched CIA supported invasion of Cuba in the 60s.

The only real reminder of that was a museum that I was really interested in seeing in the town of Playa Giron.

A museum that was closed for the few days I was there because it is the 58th anniversary of the invasion on April 15 and they were spiffing it up!

So there were tanks and planes out front we could see.

(In fact there are a lot of places in Cuba where there are tanks and planes to see if you'd like to.

Also a lot of bloody uniforms, and hats supposedly worn by Che or Cienfuegos or Fidel himself!

What's interesting is some of these hats and other items look like they are brand new and have never been worn.

Maybe the guys didn't sweat much back in the 50s? In Cuba... where it's really hot and humid.)

So the fabulous Fabian and Hannah and I came to the Bay of Pigs to do some scuba diving and to snorkel a sink hole.

"The fabulous who?" you ask.

Well, Fabian and Hannah are two totally awesome German's I met while rock climbing in Vinales. They are some of the most fun folks I have ever met backpacking and I hope to see them again somewhere in this amazing world of ours. (Currently they are in Mexico working in a commune, adopting baby possums and playing in drum circles. :)

In a classic bit of traveling I had set up a climbing day for 9am on Monday, the day I returned my scooter. There's one Casa in Vinales that knows the rock climbing, so I stopped by there on Saturday to set up the climb. (One thing I learned about Cuba is you have to be 1 or 2 steps ahead of where you are currently at, planning for what you are doing in the future. Cause if you don't... odds are it won't work out how you planned...

which sometimes is just as it should be.)

So Monday rolls around, and I go to return my scooter at 8:30.

Well, it's Cuba.

It takes a little while to get it taken care of.

Then I had to book a bus ticket to leave the next day to head to the bay of pigs.

There's two options of places to book a bus ticket. Both of them were helping other people.

I waited patiently, but at this point it was 9:10, and I was late for climbing. So I asked if I could come back later,

she said If I was back by 3:30 or 4:00 I should be fine to book for tomorrow, but she can't reserve without making phone calls and collecting money.

Well that will work out. I'll come back...

So off to climbing. Meet my awesome guide, Yaroby, gear up in a shed full of quite a lot of rock climbing gear. All donated from travelers because officially climbing is not legal in Cuba. Even though there are hundreds of bolted sport climbing routes in the Vinales area and they have competitions and it is a favorite place to climb for people from all over the world. But for some reason the Cuban government doesn't see how it can make money?  Or maybe there is something else going on?

Then we pick up Fabian and Hannah from a random outdoorsy restaurant on someone's ranch.

Originally I was by myself, but they had called in last night around 9pm. (Right about the time I was writing in my journal how it would be really nice to meet some cool travel friends to travel with... I'm not kidding. It was at almost the exact same time.)

We spend the day climbing in this AWESOME almost cave.  It was really a crevase between the rocks of the Magote near town. Walls 30 meters tall (that's 99 feet for all us Americans. ).   It was shaded almost the entire day, but for about 15 minutes when the sun shot straight down on us. Fabian did all the leads, and I went up the routes afterwards. I was really happy with myself. As some of you know I used to rock climb all the time, but have drifted out of it and haven't been climbing in 10 years... 12 years... maybe more. Likely more.  It was SO FUN!  I was really happy how quickly the techniques came back. And sure, my forearm strength eventually gave out on the 4th of 5 routes. But it was awesome to be on the rock again.

Yep, I'm way up there!

Meanwhile making friends!

Afterwards we all sat on the guides porch. Talked about climbing, and they invited me for lunch... and as one of my travel guidelines (stolen from "the Beach") is to "Never refuse an invitation". I said yes and off we went...

which means I was not going to get back in time to get the bus ticket.

Which means I would likely stay another day in Vinales.

And that seems like the perfect plan. :)

We ate, we explored caves, walked into this hidden valley inside a Magote that was like Jurassic Park (minus the T-Rex). Though there were PIGS! One mama and 3 or 4 little ones that kept coming up to us as the night fell and we told stories in the dark. We were "attacked" by a strange insect that looks like a cicada with glowing eyes. We thought it was a lightning bug until it flew into my headlamp and landed on the ground next to us. Don't know what it is. But we made up stories about it.

A grand day with some great people.

Traveling done right...




 

So after that day and another exploring caves and riding in the rain, we rode a taxi collectivo to Havana... The car was a beat up old Cadillac with a Jesus gear shifter and eyelids on the lights.  It dropped us in some field next to the highway along with a bunch of other travelers on the south side of Havana. Somehow everyone ended up in other Taxis, cars and these classic old ford buses to get to where they are going. It's amazing that any of this works and that anyone gets paid. But it does... and I guess they do.

Bus Stop, Cuban Style

As our bus rolled down the 2 lane road along the east side of the bay of pigs I noted to Hannah that "It smells like death."

She said "The bus driver just said its the dead crabs on the bus tires."

Apparently the crabs live on the swamp side of the road, and in April they cross from the swamp to the sea to bathe...

then back across the road to get the naughty-naughty on.

Then BACK across the road to lay their eggs.

Then return to the swamp side to live out the rest of the year.

Two months later the babies cross.

And strangely the next month the BIG crabs cross to do the same thing.

It smells pretty bad, but when we got into Playa Giron, a one horse town if there ever was one, the smell had passed.

But the whole place felt like the apocalypse had come.

It was grey, overcast and there was almost NO ONE AROUND.

So Strange.

We even walked to the "resort" to check about diving and there was almost no one there.

Peeling paint on the "bungalows" (which are just cinder block buildings painted in bright colors").

They are building a lot more... but they are almost all empty.

As was the pool area and the lobby.

Well the next morning we go DIVE!

And man... it is GREAT DIVING!

And only $25/dive!

Hannah and I did 2. Fabian isn't certified (yet!) so he snorkeled. And of course there were other folks there...

almost all German or Swiss. (I'm noticing a pattern in Cuba. :)

I haven't gone diving in 4 1/2 years, so I was a little nervous to get a refresher and make sure it was all safe.

Talk about "riding a bike" It all came back really quickly. And the nice thing is, you just climb down a 4 rung ladder into the ocean with all your gear on, and start scuba diving right there. The reef wall is about 30 meters (100 feet) off the shore. So you don't even get in a boat.

You just take a bus... that smells like death cause it is running over crabs.

On the second dive we saw this HUGE soft coral the size of a person that looked like a giant Horn. It was bright purple and swaying in the current.

And also there as a shipwreck! Which you could swim through. So beautiful and amazing. I love it!

Back in town, we enjoy lunch, then rent bikes to ride the 19km to the flooded Cenote to go snorkeling. Because that is what one does.

The bikes were actually pretty good, brought by some random person the Casa owner called up. They cost 5CUC a day I think.

So we mount up, Fabian starts singing "Push it to the Limit" by Survivor (from the movie Scarface) and I laughed out loud. I sing that song regularly!

 

So we pushed it to the limit and rode north out of town.

Along the 2 lane road that few cars drive on.

Past the occasional smashed crab. Or maimed crab. Or crab flipped over cooking in the sun.

There were a number of them, but not toooo crazy.

We stopped to swim at a little beach resort cove. It was a pretty hot day, so it felt great.

And I took some pictures of the lines of dead crabs in the "yard" of the place. I figured I might as well get some pics to remember. I mean, dozens of dead crabs. It's pretty gross and weird.

RIDE ON!

So I put Survivor playing on my iPhone and we're riding free and fast. The road is flat and clear. It's a pretty great day!

Fabian and Hannah were about 100 meters in front of me.

This crab had crossed 3/4's of the road in front of me... safe from harm... good job Crab!

Then the little ass hole turns around and runs right back in front of my bike!

Not wanting to kill him I slammed on both breaks....

The bike stopped...

I did not.

I flew right over the handlebars going pretty fast. Cursing as I went and thinking "Protect your head!"

So I slammed into the ground hands first and rolled over... popping back up to my feet and stumbling back a few feet.

THEN THE PAIN HIT.

My wrists and palms were all cut up. My knee. My shoulder. My finger.

ANd my ribs...

The crab lived and wandered back into the grass.

Hannah and Fabian eventually rode back as I was bent over.

Now conveniently Hannah is a doctor!

So she checked my wrist (that was bruising pretty badly) and my ribs and said that she thinks its just bruised.

"Do you want to keep going? Or head back?"

Oh, if nothing is broken, we keep going. There is a Cenote to snorkel.

At this point you might say: "Craig. Why did you hit BOTH brakes??"

Great question. And it occured to me that the scooter that I'd ridden for 2 days, the back break is on the left hand... and on a bike the left brake is the FRONT brake.

So habit of two days.

Well, the sink hold wasn't much further. Maybe 3 or 4km.

I did NOT hit the brakes if a crab ran in front of the bike.

I did try to avoid them, but if they charged, I will say a few crabs might likely have crunched under the back tire. In fact I guarantee it. It was a nasty sound, but I'm not wiping out again.

We get to the Cenote around 4:45 or so. And the path in has crabs in the rocks all around us.

We get to the largest flooded Cenote in Cuba and jump in. We snorkel.

And collect trash, because there was a bit of trash around. Not India level of trash. But there was some ,and figured we would leave it better than we found it. With Fabian leading the charge to collect bottles and cans.

And on the far side of the Cenote, all along the rocks, coating the otherside in fact... were crabs.

I'm talking hundreds.

Probably thousands of crabs.

Lined up next to the edge of the cenote. I don't think they swim, so they just stop there... thwarted on their way to the sea.

We swam back into the darker passages of the Cenote. Where the water was only 3 feet wide. With this rock wall of crabs next to us. Climbing over each other. Squirming around. It's pretty creepy and gross. And really surreal.

Around 6 we figured it was time to head back. About 2 hours ride and the sun sets at 7:45.

We put shoes on and I notice we are the last people there besides the two people who had closed up the snack shop hours ago and were watching some Spanish language action flick on the tube tv.

As we walk out, we notice the path has quite a bit more crabs on it than on the way in...

Now the silly thing about the crabs is if they feel threatened (or want to be intimidating) they PUT THEIR HANDS UP IN THE AIR!

And they can't walk forward. So they walk sideways really slow, or stumble backwards like a strange child's wind up toy.

Now if YOU put YOUR HANDS UP IN THE AIR... they will respond in kind.

It's pretty hilarious.

So we started singing the Trance song "Put your hands up in the air!" and would put our hands up and the crabs would put their hands up and stumble back...

We reach the road, walk out onto it, and look left towards Playa Giron...

And the ENTIRE ROAD AS FAR AS YOU CAN SEE WAS COVERED IN THOUSANDS OF CRABS.

 

Look right... and the same sight.

Um....

Fabian asked the two workers how long the crabs would be there. An hour or two.

Manana. Tomorrow.

So that means we have to right up to 19km down a road covered in creepy, crawly, skittering crabs.

Yes it does.

Oh boy.

So we start... and when they are in mass, the crabs will slowly part if you ride slow and steady.

Sort of.

Because some of the little suckers would charge you. They would attack you.

They would try to claw the bike tires (with their wind up toy precision).

Sometimes they would grab hold and get rolled up and over and down.

Sometimes they would somehow make it THROUGH the spinning spokes of the bike tires safely...

and sometimes they wouldn't.

The CRUNCH of a crab under the tire happened quite a number of times.

It's a nasty sound.

More than one got hit by the pedals and rolled along.

Often I would just lift my feet up in the air and roll straight and hope I didn't hit any.

Seriously, WTF???

Now both Hannah and Fabian are vegetarians... and even they didn't like these crabs by the end of this.

I mean, they are really dumb. They attack bikes... and TRUCKS.

Every 10 or 15 minutes we would hear the sound of an oncoming truck or car or bus...

and here it would come...

SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH, CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUCH just obliterating crabs by the thousands.

And then we would race after it in the wake, trying to cover as much ground as possible before the tide of crabs closed on the road again.

One car creeped past us, everyone inside videotaping the silly gringos bike riding through the crabs.

It was pretty funny.

In truth I shot quite a lot of video too, because the whole thing seems out of this world.

In some sections of the road there were dead and maimed crabs everywhere. One with only one claw and no legs dragging itself across the road.

Others with broken legs.

Some we ran over... and they were fine.

Some crabs were eating their crushed or maimed kin.

And every once in awhile a turkey vulture would enjoy the dead crab buffet.

Now you might ask: do people eat them?

Nope. They are toxic to people. (The big ones next month aren't thought! So feast up!)

In fact these crabs have no natural predators in the area.

And even though they must die by the tens or hundreds of thousands.

Maybe even millions.

The locals say there are WAY more crabs now than 5 or 10 years ago.

Eventually they started to thin out, and then it was just the flattened crabs killed the day before or whenever.

So we could stop and take a breath.

And Fabian looked down and said "Did you notice what the red sand is?"

Because red sand lined both side of the road.

But on closer inspection it was clear it was not sand...

it was pulverized crab shells.

Kilometers of pulverized crab shells lining the side of the road.

Did they die yesterday?

Last week?

Last year?

Who knows?

The sun set before we reached town, and we watched it from this old reef coastline... surrounded by crabs crawling around the old rocks. It was lovely.

The crabs were hanging off the edge by the ocean. We contemplated what it must be like, to just live going back and forth across a road that wasn't always there (But likely has been since before the CIA tried to take the bay of Pigs.).

We did make it back in one piece... mostly.

There was a field in town, dotted with crabs about every 3 feet (1 meter). It reminded me of the shot from the Walking Dead where the zombie wanders through the

grass field. Only there were hundreds of these.

We rode to the beach and met with our diving friends.

We drank beer. Ate. And toasted one mans new grand child he just found out he was going to have.

Life goes on.

For us and for the crabs...

So the apocalypse we felt when we arrived wasn't for humans... it was for crabs.

And yet still they live and grow and spread....

Maybe someday they will spread beyond this little corner of the world...

CraigO

PS:  As I finished writing this, PUSH IT TO THE LIMIT just kicked on. I'm not kidding. :)

PPS:  It's almost 4 weeks later and my ribs still hurt a little bit. I've had it checked after I got back and it is just a bruise. I guess they take 4 weeks or more to heal so I'm right on track.

Everything else was good in like a week. Though it looks like I might have some small scars on my knee. Was it worth it?  Well, I'd double check the brakes before riding ANYTHING again. But otherwise, hell yeah!

I’M GOING BACK TO BALI

 May 9, 2013

For the finale of Indonesia it's time to return to where it began: Bali.

But first some scuba diving in Komodo National Park. Supposedly some of the best in the world, and I can tell you that it's really great. The coral was perfect. The fish innumerable. And we had turtles swim withing a meter of us. I just watched the dude and he was checking me out as he cruised by. Now the currents are really strong here, so you really have to pay attention to your guide, and when he says to stop and turn around, you best do it. Or you'll be pushed down into the deep.

On the second dive it was a drift dive along this coral wall. And I have never been on a ride like this. The current is so strong we were FLYING over the coral. There was no way to slow down and if you drifted away from the wall you got pushed along even faster. It was pretty wild.

To leave Flores Island we took a flight. It was a propeller plane, that was actually pretty good sized. Maybe 45 passengers. A/C. Comfy seats. Much more elaborate than I thought it would be. The airport in Labuan Bajo is an old cinderblock building, but it fortunately had an air conditioning unit which we stood by for 45 minutes to cool down. They're building a new one right next to it, so things are changing. The dive master said 2 years ago there were 5 dive shops. Today there are over 20. My suggestion would be to get your ass to Flores now. It's an amazing place with the sweet balance of tourist services and local flavor that is hard to come by. It's really a wonderful place. The islands are impossibly beautiful. I stood outside our room on our last night and watched the sunset and every single direction was a postcard for tropical perfection. This place rules. I wish we hadn't already bought our ticket. I wish we had more time.

But the time has come to go back to Bali... and we did.

Bali is an entirely different animal with all the tourists and traffic and people. But it's wonderful as well. We headed up to the "mountain" town of Ubud. This is where Julia Roberts found "Love" in "Eat, Pray, Love". And it's a cool town. TONS of stores selling art of every conceivable kind. The art represents all the villages from all around. Wood carving. Bone carving (very cool). Kites. Textiles. Dresses. Penises.

Yep, I wrote that. There's a strange amount of phallises all over. Some small. Some HUGE. (Like 3 feet huge). Some on kites. Some on dragons. Some as ashtrays. Not sure what the fascination with the cock is. But hey, what you gonna do?

We saw a "fire show". It involved 50+ men chanting in a circle as folks in costumes danced around. There was a crazy monkey-man. Burning coconuts. And it even rained during the performance, which was really cool. They performed it at the temple where they've done it for hundreds of years. It was cool.

The next day was the Eco Bike Ride. I think they say "Eco" cause that's what all us traveling hippy tourists give a shit about. Not sure what's Eco about it, but it was super awesome anyway. You ride in a van up to the crater rim of Mount Batur. The view is awesome. Apparently it blew it's top in 1963 and created the lake there and knocked the top 1000+ meters off the top of the mountain. Nutso.

Then we hit a coffee plantation. You get to sample beans, chilis, and shit coffee. Not that it's bad, but it's literally made with shit. Yep. There are these little ferret like animals that eat the beans, which are fermented in their stomach and then they crap out the bean whole. Then some brilliant Balinese person decided to roast the beans and make coffee. And sell it for a shit ton of money (pun intended). It cost $6 for a cup there. $12 for a cup in Ubud. And you know what...

...it's bitter like coffee is. I'm not a coffee conneseur, so I'm not the best judge. But the other samples were good. Some much so.

Then it's no the bikes for a 25km downhill ride where you stop at a traditional village, where we take pictures of people making bamboo mats. And it occured to me how weird it is that we come into peoples homes and take pictures. That's weird. It would be like someone coming into my room while I"m editing and taking pictures, going "wow, that's so cool and different." Not sure how I feel about it. But I did learn alot about traditional Balinese family life and beliefs, so in the end it's probably okay. They do get paid as well.

We stop at rice paddy's and other cool spots. It was fun.

The end has an optional 8km uphill portion, which me and a gal Jennifer from Germany went for. It wasn't to hard, but it was hot as balls. And the last 1 km was on a busy main road with big trucks.

A great trip.

This is a car road too, not just for bikes

The rest of the time in Ubud was spent eating, seeing shows, enjoying the swimming pool at our totally awesome tree house temple homestay. Homestay because it indeed is someone's house. However, it's like the coolest multilevel, temple, castle place ever. Our room was at the top and looked like a treehouse with ornate carvings of Hindu scenes and swastikas.

Um, what?

Yep, swastikas. Lot's of them. Some vertical. Some at the 45degree Nazi angle. What's up with that?

Well, turns out the swastika was and is one of the oldest symbols in history. It means all sorts of stuff and was only corrupted by the Nazi's during the 30's and 40's. So for much of the world it still means peace, prosperity, good luck, good fortune, good health etc etc etc.

And so ends the Indonesian portion of the trip. I can tell you, it was awesome. Alicia was a great travel buddy and the country is an awesome place. It's so cool how each island is different and unique. The people are wonderful. The terrain spectacular. It really is much cooler than I even thought it would be. It was a place I always wanted to go, but didn't know much about it. Very little in fact. Now I know enough to recommend it. I definitely say GO.

Bali is the most tourist friendly. And parts of it are challenging. But overall Indonesia is a wonderful, fascinating, beautiful country.

So we both left today. Alicia is on her way back to LA. I flew a few hours and landed in another land. A place that already feels very different. Malaysia.

I rode a bullet train from the airport. I saw the Patronas towers in the distance. I ate beef balls at a stall in Chinatown at 10pm. I'm staying at a hostel. I'm on my own and ready to see where the road takes me...

Craig O

PS: I appologize for the lack of emails, but I've been having big issues with Gmail security. Often when I log in from a new computer the security locks me out and the ONLY option they give me to verify myself is through a text message. Guess what? My phone is in LA. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know as I'd like to keep the updates coming.

EVER WALKED IN BLOOD?

Well today I have.

Much less than I was expecting. From the sounds of it, this holiday was going to be rivers of goats blood running down the streets as many, many, MANY goats were ritually sacrificed for the holiday Eid al-Adha. All those goats coming out of trunks and trucks and beng hauled on the back of donkeys. Every one of them.

And to top it off... I got sick last night! Ugh. So after waking up at midnight and throwing up (for only 5 minutes or so... I lucked out),
I didn't feel to swift. Been draggnig all day, but after what happened in Guatemala (see puke and shit simultaniously for 3 or 4 days... remember that one team?), I felt pretty lucky. I've been careful not to drink water and not eat cut vegatables. But obviously something got me. Oh well, it happens.

So when I finally woke up and drug myself up to the rooftop terrace on a beautiful sunny day, I peered off over the town. There was no traffic. No horns. Just the sounds of families spending time together. I looked to the terrace next to mine and a grey haired man, his son, and his grandson drug a goat out on the patio...

(My vegan freinds (Cadry, David...any other ones) should stop reading now...until you see the capital letters saying you can read again)....

...they all had plastic "aprons" on and sharp knives. 4 kids were there watching. 2 boys. 2 girls. Probably 6, 8, 10 and 12. The 12 year old girl looked over and saw me. I offered a wave and said "Bonjour". She cringed and pointed at the goat, who was suprisingly not struggling. Then the son (who was 14 maybe,) got the honors of cutting the goats throat as dad and grandpa held it down. It kicked a little, and then just lay there. The 12 year old girl cringed and looked away. The other kids were sort of dancing on the table.

One of them turned and saw me. Said "Bonjour". I returned it. Then the grandpa looked at me and said a few thngs in French with a smile. I said "Parle Vouz English?". He smiled "English. Welcome Morocco!" And they went back to what they were doing. Which was washing the blood with a bucket and eventually cutting off the goats head...

well, this didn't exactly sit well with my upset stomach, so I headed inside. (Though later when I peeked out the goat head was cooking on a hot plate and the animal had been skinned. Seems like everyone here knows how to do this. I don't have any idea how you butcher an animal. Though I know my uncle Kev does! :)

As I looked off the balconies, and you could smell the hundreds of goats being cooked. I also realized that those weren't all clothes hanging over balconies. Nope, that's inside out goat skin. Yep, hanging like a bedsheet over the balcony. Don't see that everyday.

VEGAN FRIENDS, YOU MAY CONTINUE TO READ NOW... :)

So the purpose of this, I was informed at the panoramic lookout later in the day, is a symbol of Ibriham's sacrifice for Allah. He was the first prophet (after Mohammed) and there seems to be some sort of choice he had to make between a Jewish son and a Muslim son. As often happens with my lack of language skills, and the thick accents that I'm not quite used to listening to, I missed exactly what it's for. But I had been told that Moroccan's are the main country that ACTUALLY do the sacrifice. And as I said before, this is a very holy day. Meant to be with family, and much of the meat gets given to those less fortunate. Sure, there are status points for how big your goat is, but for the most part it's not nearly as commercial as Christmas is. It's Christmas...with goats.

So I went for a bike ride in the afternoon. Along a cool road on the side of the bluff. The area looks a lot like the southwest. Parts of New Mexico perhaps. The roman ruins of Volubilis are below. And other than the 4 boys who threw rocks at me (no clue what that was about.) It was a very pleasant ride.

(Yesterday I visited Volubilis for 3 or 4 hours. It was sunny, and rainy, and sunny again. The ruins are awesome. TONS of mosaics in the ruined houses. Very elaborate. Been there for 2000 years. And pllars and columns and other houses. It was really amazing. A great day and really fascinating).

I met a Spaniard on my bike ride who rode up behind me and said "Hi". He's riding from Spain to Mauritania (Which is south of Morocco) to visit his girlfriend. 10 weeks on the road. Very little stuff. Was nice to chat with someone who spoke decent English. Sure it's my own shortcoming, but damn it, I'm ready to have some conversations with someone. The chopped conversations I've been having are nice and all, but it's fun to have a REAL conversation with someone. I'm hoping that Fez will have more tourists and English speakers. (Though I've been told that the level of touts increases dramatically there).

So I'm back in my fancy ass house. Writing another email update because I have no one to talk too. Sure, I could wander around town again, but I did that as the sun set. It was super super cool. This town covers two hills, and I went down the backside, had amazng views, ran into lots of people playing and laughing. I was searching for the thermal Roman bath, that apparently is somewhere, but I never found it. Oh well. So I'm here, writing this, with the sounds of a family coming through the front door. Every time someone knocks on the door next door or talks, it sounds like they are here. The Spanish guy is stayng a couple doors down (where I ate last night), but we didn't set up a time to meet later, so alas, no conversation.

I JUST remembered that you have to do that when you're backpacking / travelng. You have to say "Hey, you want to meet for dinner? Cool, come by at 7pm". OH YEAH! Funny, we're so used to the endless instant access of celphones that I forgot you had to make PLANS to see people and stick to them. Hilarious. Guess I should have chatted a bit more with the british folks I saw earlier and maybe we could have met for dinner. (Guess I don't quite have my "See" legs back all the way!)

A NOTE ON MOROCCO:
So I'm havng a great trip (and yes the "i" key on this keyboard sucks), but I have to say that Morocco is definitly living up to the culture shock travel challenge I was looking for this time. It's not the easiest place to be a traveler. And not just because I don't speak the language. There is a different way of dong things here, with constant tipping, and touts and people people EVERYWHERE. (which is why I enjoyed just stopping on the side of the road on my bike ride. It was me, olive trees, and silence for half and hour). Now, if I lived in New York, maybe the people everywhere would be more familiar. But I don't. And it's also me. I like people and crowds, but I also like my space. And not only are people everywhere, if you engage, many times they are into tout and selling mode. Not always. I've had some interesting interactions with folks just sayng hi. One guy shook my hand, and then just held it as we got by on a broken conversation. It was a little unnerving...until I realized that often Moroccan men will do that. But you never know if someone is being friendly or sellng you something. And honestly, I haven't been to Fez, or the grand daddy: Marrakesh. I have a feeling it's going to be pretty wild.

So if I had to rate Morocco's travel level now (on my travel scale), I'd give it a 4 of 6. If I spoke French, perhaps it would be 1/2 a point less. Who knows.

But again, it's all part of the adventure. Being out of my comfort zone is a good thng.

Craigo