The last (but technically first) post
So I'm going to do this backwards, but in the end it will work. You'll see. I'm going to start at the end of our vacation to Spain, Morocco, and Portugal and post towards the beginning. That way they will go in chronological order on this site, unlike that clusterfuck post of the last vacation to the UK.
So here's the deal. Rachel and I went on Christmas vacation for 3 weeks to technically 4 different countries and I'm going to show you every little piece of our vacation, whether you like it or not.
The place that we stayed in was owned by some Spanish guy that was renting to Ian, Carol's husband. He was there for a short time while working for Exxon Mobile. Well, the house had some stuff in it that the owners left behind (I think they stay there in the summer) and hence was "off-limits" to us. Basically it was this cupboard. Notice the Dom Perignon and Johnnie Walker Blue label. Probably 2000 dollars worth of booze in the cabinet.
At least when we stayed there Laurie would cook for us, so it saved us some money (and was nice to have home-cooked meals). Although in this pic Rachel and cooked chili as well, so we had that and seafood pie and curry chicken. Nice.
The world's smallest roundabout--one little palm tree. This was the entrance to the private compound where we stayed in Spain. Notice the Mediterranean Sea in the background.
So the dryer was fucked up. You had to empty this container which pretty much filled up with water after every load you did. I don't know why it just doesn't vent outside like an American dryer, but alas here I am emptying the damn thing.
That's where it goes in.
And that was the washer. Notice how everything is in Spanish. I had to look the words up in the Spanish/English dictionary to figure out how to use the damn thing.
And another weird thing--the door locks. It was a double lock like Bahrain, but if you look closely you can see that at the top and bottom of the door are 3 cylinders that lock as well. Try kicking this door in--or using the tried tested and true method of the drivers license/credit card. Ain't gonna work, buddy.
The kitchen of the flat.
And the other side of the kitchen. For a 2500 dollar a month place the kitchen was pretty tiny.
And the super-rich town of Sotogrande. This was right down the road from our flat, within walking distance. There were high-end restaurants, shops and bars right on the water. And did I mention lots and lots of expensive boats?
Another view down the street. The water is to the right.
Another view.
Walked out on one of the piers to get this shot.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a really, really, really expensive boat. Millions of dollars. It was hands down the largest in the port. You can see how big it is in relation to the boat that's in front of it. That wasn't a small boat either, so you can get some idea of how damn big this thing was.
Looking back toward the businesses.
You can see how close we were to Gibraltar.
Dead center in this pic is the water path that would lead to behind the flat--that's the exit to the sea if we had a boat.
The beach near the entrance to Sotogrande. It, like everything else in that town, was really nice.
Another view.
Taken from the beach--that's the next town over.
There were these really old I guess lighthouses at the entrance to Sotogrande. I really don't know what they were except that they were old and cool. You can see one of them dead center.
And this is the other one. Well, half of the other one.
Like I said, I don't know what they were, but they looked cool.
Looking down the path by the beach.
A cactus by the beach.
Overlooking the beach--those buildings you see in the back is Sotogrande, the pictures above.
Me pumping gas. Most places were pre-pay, so you had to guess how much you needed to fill it up. This was just before returning the car, so I had to fill it up. I guessed 20 euros would do it and it stopped at 19. Well, I wasn't going to leave that euro behind so I topped it up and spilled diesel everywhere. Oh well.
All of the signs in Spain were in Spanish (obviously) except in some tourist spots where they would have English as well. And that was it, except for signs that had to do with the ferry or the town of Algiceras, where the ferry port was--then they had Arabic on them. Obviously it was for the Moroccans, but it was still weird to suddenly see a sign like this one out of nowhere. Reminded me of home (Bahrain.)
Rachel liked this roundabout with the fountain near the flat, so I had to stop so she could get a picture.
And here we are leaving again (that's Gibraltar) on the fucking ferry to go back to fucking Morocco. I did NOT want to go back to that country, but I had no choice because our plane was leaving from Casablanca. This time, our "fast" ferry was running, so we were able to use the tickets that we bought online. Normally, the fast ferry takes an hour or so, but it was windy as hell and the water was really choppy. I knew it was going to take a long time, and I was right. It took over 2 hours to get back. And it got to be so rocky that they wouldn't let you outside on the deck (I assume because they think you may fall overboard). Everybody was puking everywhere, including Rachel who puked in the bathroom. I, on the other hand, am sea strong. It didn't bother me one bit.
You can see we are still in the port--those are cargo ships and the massive machines they use to load and unload them.
Another shot of them...
I thought this was funny. This was the ferry that we were on.
The back of the ferry. That's some dude looking out.
And we finally got to Tangier. This time they didn't have a fancy passenger unload system. We had to go down to where the load the cars and walk off the same ramp the cars use. And on top of that it was fucking pouring.
This is of the Mediterranean on the way. Those waves are bigger than they look.
Off the back of the boat. You can see Gibraltar in the haze.
And the Casablanca airport, waiting. Here's a story for you. So when we got to Tangier off the ferry the plan was to have someone approach us (as the always do) that spoke English to get us a taxi to drive to Casablanca. Originally the plan was to take a train, but after the little situation in Fes and after seeing how shitty most everything in Morocco is we thought we'd just pay a bit more to take a taxi which would provide door to door service. So as we got off the ferry in the rain an old dude asked us if we spoke English and if we needed a taxi, just like my plan. That's where it got ugly. We told him Casablanca (which is about 4 to 5 hours by car from Tangier) and he told us 3000 dirhams. Fuck off buddy. We obviously weren't going to pay that, so I haggled him down to 1700 dirhams, which is still a bit more than we wanted to pay. But we were cold, wet, and Rachel was sick so we hopped in to the mandatory piece of shit Mercedes with the cab driver who spoke only Spanish, French, and Arabic. Lovely. So all went well for the next hour or so as we headed back in the driving rain. All until the car basically stopped running on the highway in the middle of nowhere. So here we are, in a shitty country, with a shitty broken car, us with no cell phone or otherwise way of getting help. Well, luckily the car started back up, but would only run solidly for about 3 minutes then would start chugging, like it was missing. He would shift down to 1st gear, we'd chug along at about 10 miles an hour for a few minutes, then it would clear up. He'd upshift, we'd get up to speed, then the fucking thing would do it again. And again. And again. And the shitty thing was that there was no communication between him and us because he couldn't speak English. Eventually we gathered (through broken Spanish) that he said there was water in the diesel and that's what was causing the problem. So eventually (after about 2 hours of that) we stopped in some shitty village so he could find us another shitty cab to take us the rest of the way, cause lord knows we wanted the hell out of his cab. So he found us another shitty taxi. He paid that taxi driver out of what we gave him to get us the rest of the way to Casablanca. This time, our taxi driver had a buddy who rode with us the whole time. He could speak very little English, but it was better than nothing. So, we get into Casablanca (6 loooong hours from Tangier total) and the driver's buddy asked for the hotel address. Fair enough. He then stops in the middle of the street, flags down a petit taxi and dumps us with him. So then we had to pay this guy to get us the rest of the way. 1742 dirhams and 3 taxis later we were at our hotel. I knew those cocksuckers were going to do that, but what can you do. At that point we were too tired to care. All should have went well at this point, but nooooo. As we sat down for breakfast the next day, I asked for a bottled water. She gave me one with mold all over the label. I then asked for another one, which also had mold all over the label but she tried to pull the label off before giving it to me. Too bad, I already saw it and was pissed. I just wanted the hell out of Morocco. So we walked downstairs to leave. Another problem. We were supposed to go with Kareem to the airport, but not for a few more hours. We wanted to call him because I wanted him to pick us up early so we could go to the Harley shop, but the hotel's phones didn't work (I suspect because they didn't pay the bill.) So we had a hotel guy flag down a taxi to take us to the airport. The taxi he stopped had a lady in the front seat but he kicked her out for us. I felt bad that this taxi driver just kicked out one of his fares (and she looked pissed) for us, but at that point I just wanted to go to the airport. So we get to the airport, get checked in and wait. We were 4 hours early, but I didn't care. At least we were at the airport. Welllllll... to add insult to injury, our plane was delayed 4 hours. FOUR HOURS. The good thing is that we had a 7 hour layover in Dubai, so we made our next flight. But it was like the gods didn't want us to leave that fucking country. I will never, ever go back to Morocco.
A sign at the airport in Morocco. Notice how the sign is in French and Arabic only. Almost all of Morocco was like that.
Our room key to the shitty hotel in Casablanca.
Me waiting at the airport. And I don't look (or feel) very happy at this point.
Our airplane. At first they said the delay was from the dock thing that we board the plane on (which never worked). Then they said it was the wind. It was windy, and when we finally took off we went through some serious turbulence--probably the worst I've ever experienced. Mom would have shit her pants:)
And the last reminder of Morocco. The shitty bathrooms at the airport. The wing that we were waiting in was new, but in the bathrooms you would think it was built 50 years ago. Rachel took this picture--notice the lack of seat. And, while she was waiting in line, some African lady pissed with the door open. The men's restrooms weren't any better either.
Moral of the story. Don't visit Morocco. Do visit Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar.
Although I will say I'm glad I saw Morocco first hand, but I will never, ever go there again. Never.
So here's the deal. Rachel and I went on Christmas vacation for 3 weeks to technically 4 different countries and I'm going to show you every little piece of our vacation, whether you like it or not.
The place that we stayed in was owned by some Spanish guy that was renting to Ian, Carol's husband. He was there for a short time while working for Exxon Mobile. Well, the house had some stuff in it that the owners left behind (I think they stay there in the summer) and hence was "off-limits" to us. Basically it was this cupboard. Notice the Dom Perignon and Johnnie Walker Blue label. Probably 2000 dollars worth of booze in the cabinet.
At least when we stayed there Laurie would cook for us, so it saved us some money (and was nice to have home-cooked meals). Although in this pic Rachel and cooked chili as well, so we had that and seafood pie and curry chicken. Nice.
The world's smallest roundabout--one little palm tree. This was the entrance to the private compound where we stayed in Spain. Notice the Mediterranean Sea in the background.
So the dryer was fucked up. You had to empty this container which pretty much filled up with water after every load you did. I don't know why it just doesn't vent outside like an American dryer, but alas here I am emptying the damn thing.
That's where it goes in.
And that was the washer. Notice how everything is in Spanish. I had to look the words up in the Spanish/English dictionary to figure out how to use the damn thing.
And another weird thing--the door locks. It was a double lock like Bahrain, but if you look closely you can see that at the top and bottom of the door are 3 cylinders that lock as well. Try kicking this door in--or using the tried tested and true method of the drivers license/credit card. Ain't gonna work, buddy.
The kitchen of the flat.
And the other side of the kitchen. For a 2500 dollar a month place the kitchen was pretty tiny.
And the super-rich town of Sotogrande. This was right down the road from our flat, within walking distance. There were high-end restaurants, shops and bars right on the water. And did I mention lots and lots of expensive boats?
Another view down the street. The water is to the right.
Another view.
Walked out on one of the piers to get this shot.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a really, really, really expensive boat. Millions of dollars. It was hands down the largest in the port. You can see how big it is in relation to the boat that's in front of it. That wasn't a small boat either, so you can get some idea of how damn big this thing was.
Looking back toward the businesses.
You can see how close we were to Gibraltar. 
Dead center in this pic is the water path that would lead to behind the flat--that's the exit to the sea if we had a boat.
The beach near the entrance to Sotogrande. It, like everything else in that town, was really nice.
Another view.
Taken from the beach--that's the next town over.
There were these really old I guess lighthouses at the entrance to Sotogrande. I really don't know what they were except that they were old and cool. You can see one of them dead center.
And this is the other one. Well, half of the other one.
Like I said, I don't know what they were, but they looked cool.
Looking down the path by the beach.
A cactus by the beach.
Overlooking the beach--those buildings you see in the back is Sotogrande, the pictures above.
Me pumping gas. Most places were pre-pay, so you had to guess how much you needed to fill it up. This was just before returning the car, so I had to fill it up. I guessed 20 euros would do it and it stopped at 19. Well, I wasn't going to leave that euro behind so I topped it up and spilled diesel everywhere. Oh well.
All of the signs in Spain were in Spanish (obviously) except in some tourist spots where they would have English as well. And that was it, except for signs that had to do with the ferry or the town of Algiceras, where the ferry port was--then they had Arabic on them. Obviously it was for the Moroccans, but it was still weird to suddenly see a sign like this one out of nowhere. Reminded me of home (Bahrain.)
Rachel liked this roundabout with the fountain near the flat, so I had to stop so she could get a picture.
And here we are leaving again (that's Gibraltar) on the fucking ferry to go back to fucking Morocco. I did NOT want to go back to that country, but I had no choice because our plane was leaving from Casablanca. This time, our "fast" ferry was running, so we were able to use the tickets that we bought online. Normally, the fast ferry takes an hour or so, but it was windy as hell and the water was really choppy. I knew it was going to take a long time, and I was right. It took over 2 hours to get back. And it got to be so rocky that they wouldn't let you outside on the deck (I assume because they think you may fall overboard). Everybody was puking everywhere, including Rachel who puked in the bathroom. I, on the other hand, am sea strong. It didn't bother me one bit.
You can see we are still in the port--those are cargo ships and the massive machines they use to load and unload them.
Another shot of them...
I thought this was funny. This was the ferry that we were on.
The back of the ferry. That's some dude looking out.
And we finally got to Tangier. This time they didn't have a fancy passenger unload system. We had to go down to where the load the cars and walk off the same ramp the cars use. And on top of that it was fucking pouring.
This is of the Mediterranean on the way. Those waves are bigger than they look.
Off the back of the boat. You can see Gibraltar in the haze.
And the Casablanca airport, waiting. Here's a story for you. So when we got to Tangier off the ferry the plan was to have someone approach us (as the always do) that spoke English to get us a taxi to drive to Casablanca. Originally the plan was to take a train, but after the little situation in Fes and after seeing how shitty most everything in Morocco is we thought we'd just pay a bit more to take a taxi which would provide door to door service. So as we got off the ferry in the rain an old dude asked us if we spoke English and if we needed a taxi, just like my plan. That's where it got ugly. We told him Casablanca (which is about 4 to 5 hours by car from Tangier) and he told us 3000 dirhams. Fuck off buddy. We obviously weren't going to pay that, so I haggled him down to 1700 dirhams, which is still a bit more than we wanted to pay. But we were cold, wet, and Rachel was sick so we hopped in to the mandatory piece of shit Mercedes with the cab driver who spoke only Spanish, French, and Arabic. Lovely. So all went well for the next hour or so as we headed back in the driving rain. All until the car basically stopped running on the highway in the middle of nowhere. So here we are, in a shitty country, with a shitty broken car, us with no cell phone or otherwise way of getting help. Well, luckily the car started back up, but would only run solidly for about 3 minutes then would start chugging, like it was missing. He would shift down to 1st gear, we'd chug along at about 10 miles an hour for a few minutes, then it would clear up. He'd upshift, we'd get up to speed, then the fucking thing would do it again. And again. And again. And the shitty thing was that there was no communication between him and us because he couldn't speak English. Eventually we gathered (through broken Spanish) that he said there was water in the diesel and that's what was causing the problem. So eventually (after about 2 hours of that) we stopped in some shitty village so he could find us another shitty cab to take us the rest of the way, cause lord knows we wanted the hell out of his cab. So he found us another shitty taxi. He paid that taxi driver out of what we gave him to get us the rest of the way to Casablanca. This time, our taxi driver had a buddy who rode with us the whole time. He could speak very little English, but it was better than nothing. So, we get into Casablanca (6 loooong hours from Tangier total) and the driver's buddy asked for the hotel address. Fair enough. He then stops in the middle of the street, flags down a petit taxi and dumps us with him. So then we had to pay this guy to get us the rest of the way. 1742 dirhams and 3 taxis later we were at our hotel. I knew those cocksuckers were going to do that, but what can you do. At that point we were too tired to care. All should have went well at this point, but nooooo. As we sat down for breakfast the next day, I asked for a bottled water. She gave me one with mold all over the label. I then asked for another one, which also had mold all over the label but she tried to pull the label off before giving it to me. Too bad, I already saw it and was pissed. I just wanted the hell out of Morocco. So we walked downstairs to leave. Another problem. We were supposed to go with Kareem to the airport, but not for a few more hours. We wanted to call him because I wanted him to pick us up early so we could go to the Harley shop, but the hotel's phones didn't work (I suspect because they didn't pay the bill.) So we had a hotel guy flag down a taxi to take us to the airport. The taxi he stopped had a lady in the front seat but he kicked her out for us. I felt bad that this taxi driver just kicked out one of his fares (and she looked pissed) for us, but at that point I just wanted to go to the airport. So we get to the airport, get checked in and wait. We were 4 hours early, but I didn't care. At least we were at the airport. Welllllll... to add insult to injury, our plane was delayed 4 hours. FOUR HOURS. The good thing is that we had a 7 hour layover in Dubai, so we made our next flight. But it was like the gods didn't want us to leave that fucking country. I will never, ever go back to Morocco.
A sign at the airport in Morocco. Notice how the sign is in French and Arabic only. Almost all of Morocco was like that.
Our room key to the shitty hotel in Casablanca.
Me waiting at the airport. And I don't look (or feel) very happy at this point.
Our airplane. At first they said the delay was from the dock thing that we board the plane on (which never worked). Then they said it was the wind. It was windy, and when we finally took off we went through some serious turbulence--probably the worst I've ever experienced. Mom would have shit her pants:)
And the last reminder of Morocco. The shitty bathrooms at the airport. The wing that we were waiting in was new, but in the bathrooms you would think it was built 50 years ago. Rachel took this picture--notice the lack of seat. And, while she was waiting in line, some African lady pissed with the door open. The men's restrooms weren't any better either.
Moral of the story. Don't visit Morocco. Do visit Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar.
Although I will say I'm glad I saw Morocco first hand, but I will never, ever go there again. Never.
posted by byroninbahrain at 3:45 PM
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