Morocco (Part 1)

A bloody outrage! It still amazes me how a trip was booked over the Halloween weekend. Unfathomable, one of the more enjoyable holiday dates in the UK was to be spent plain-clothed, civilised and sober. The inquest finished and we forlornly prepared ourselves for our four-day trip to North Africa. There would be no fetish-derived ghouls or trick-or-treating but rather an eye-opening experience that would reignite the love for travel.

The adventure begins at 2:30 am on the Friday, 29th October. This, hands down, is the earliest I've had to wake up to travel. A quick bus ride down to Vauxhall and we were soon speeding down the M23 bound for Gatwick Airport. It should come as no surprise that the flight was uncomfortable, sleep was hard to come by but these are usual traits of budget airlines. We had boarded what would appear to be some kind of Venga-plane. People were talking boisterously and joking, smiling and having copious amounts of alcohol. All the while the three of us sat, pinned up in the last row with blood-shot eyes and a longing for sleep. 3 hours into the 3 and half hour flight, it was announced that the plane had run out of beer. It was 8 am and people were getting drunk. It would be a long trip with unbearable, draining transits.

9 am, arriving in Marrakesh, we were picked up at the airport by our Riad owners and taken into the city. The drive itself was an eye-opener, camels, donkeys, motorbikes, dust and authentic North African Architecture greeted us as we entered the Medina of Marrakesh. We met with the riad owner who showed us around the exquisitely kept riad. Unanimously we agreed to get some sleep before exploring the city. Waking a couple of hours later with a mighty appetite we headed to the main Square. Our accommodation, a brisk walk away from the centre stage for all things Moroccan, Djamaa El Fna.

Of the four days, two were spent on a desert tour the with the majority of our time in Marrakesh spent in the main square exploring the Souqs and trying to find our way into the blasted the palace.

The striking thing about Djamaa El Fna is how it changes through out the course of the day. During the day there's the faint smell animal waste, all the while, hash dealers, orange juice vendors and beggars all vying for your attention, or more importantly for your coin. Motorbikes zip through the bustling streets ducking and weaving in between pedestrians. The assortment of henna artists and Snake charmers mashed in with the perpetual dusty haze. Come sunset and the place transforms. All the zaniness of the day remains however this is the time when the locals come out and the food stalls open, smoke from the grills and the steam from tagines fill the air.

It really is a sensory wonderland. The sights, the smells, the animals and the people. The locals will grab you and demand money for anything and everything under the sun. You want a photo of that, you have to pay for it. The thing is you can't brush them off with the usual lie of "I'm just taking a look" or the"I'll be back later" because they remember and they'll confront you about it "You said you would come back".

With help from our Riad owners, we signed up for a 2 day trip into the Moroccan desert for a tidy fee of €72 per person. The details of the tour were unknown to most of the tour group with the idea of camping in the desert the only intel. The drive was testing and our Berber guide aka driver wasn't particularly informative. Every now and the berber would turn to the group

"Do you want to stop and take photos?"
"What is this place?"
* incoherent ramble *
"No, let's keep driving"

This conversation took place countless times and not once did we stop aside from the occasional toilet break or leg stretch. Thankfully we had been lucky enough to have a good group on tour. The three Australians, 1 american and 4 canadians made up the group. Plenty of laughs and banter which kept the 8 hour journey bearable. Our two day drive would take us from Marrakesh to Zagora passing through the Atlas mountains, with stop overs at Quarzazete and the Draa Valley and passing a traffic causing car accident.

This brings us to the actual "desert" experience. Despite not being the Sahara, there were still high expectations of the desert, unluckily for us we arrived at the camel rendezvous point after sunset, the next 1 hour was spent riding a camel. The novelty of riding a camel wore off 2 minutes into the 1 hour camel ride. Camels are such awkward creatures, passive and rhythmic. Three things I've learn about camels, you can't fall asleep while riding a camel, camel riding leads to camel chaffing and camels can defecate while on the move. So we plod into the darkness, the longer we trekked the more remote our surrounding became.

At last we arrived and alighted the camel caravan, it was pitch black and only the faint outlines of the Berber tents could be made out at the camp site. Our epic journey had come to an end, there was sand beneath our feet but we couldn't see anything. This was until one of my friends said "oh shit, I lost my phone riding the camels". So with our berber the two us jumped into the Van (the Van drove into the desert with our luggage) and started to backtrack our way back. Two problems with this plan. 1. The Berber tour guide had no sense of direction. 2. A phone was lost in a desert. A desert! We were looking for a phone in the desert, in the middle of the night. It must have been the fatigue or the lack of food which clouded rational thinking.

For some reason during this period of driving slowly through the desert our berber coincidently forgot all English. The driver went the wrong way and ended up lost in the dessert. Not only were we lost, but the van was blogged down in sand. Lost and stuck, so we got out and started walking, after 20 minutes of walking in darkness with the flashlight of my phone the only light. Seeing this as futile exercise we were sent back to the Van (the lights were left on so we could easily identify it's location). With that our Berber disappeared into the desert night (with my phone) leaving us in the van. Mentally we prepared ourselves for spending the night in the van. Thankfully we had food, water, our possessions and hashish - perhaps why we were so blase about this predicament.

Long story short, an hour later our berber appears out of the darkness with help, a robbed man with a huge shovel. Who in turn, clears the sand from the tires and points us off in the right direction back to camp. Our hero! Enjoyed some Tagine and some singing and chatting around the camp fire.

The experience itself was amazing, no showers, no free running water. It was roughing it out at its very best. Woke up at 5:30 and it was freezing! Sunrise was amazing and it was a pleasant surprise to fling open the tent flap to reveal sand as far as the eye could see. It was spectacular. Breakfast was served as the sun rose over the mountains the dessert started to warm up, soon we were back on the camels making our trek back to the van. The drive back was tough, we were tired, dirty but the drive through the rural villages, a sandstorm and the Atlas Mountains was something else. Arrived back into Marrakesh just after 5 pm and checked into our new riad and immediately booked ourselves into Hammam and massage. So clean, so fresh. Caught up again with the tour gang for a late night meal.

London feels so foreign and regiment since getting back. Definitely one of the few countries I would return to! My camera is on Struggle Street.

Tag it, tag it real good

And with that the 2010 Finsbury Park Tag Rugby Autumn competition draws to an end. The two juggernauts Jugs in Motion and East End Paddies, clearly the best two teams of the season finished first and second, respectively. However, special mention goes to the third place team, Lord of the Wings.

8 weeks ago, 2 Poms and a handful of Australians (mostly from Melbourne, AFL heartland) got together for some social, after-work, sport. For a lot of them rugby was a foreign concept. Calls of "play the ball", "take the tap" and "offside" were met with raised eyebrows and clumsy attempts. Their season opener exposed their lack of fitness as well as lack of game knowledge and with that were soundly defeated 13-0.

The dire conditions coupled with the previous week's flogging was not enough to dampen spirits as they came out with proper boots and posted their first try and more importantly, first win of the season. With the change in result, came a change in name, Lord of the Wings was born and on the back of flat, one in, one out attack, solid rush defense and individual flashes of brilliance saw them finish the regular season 4th on the league table. The first week of the semi finals saw them line up against the competition favourites, Jug in Motion and were simply outclassed.

With a near full strength squad they entered the Bronze medal game against the same team they had drawn against 2 weeks earlier. This game, was no different. Once again, they found themselves down 6-1 at the half, only to come back at 8-8 at half time, winning the game in golden point after a run away try to the team's leading try scorer. Excellent season to the rookie team - congratulations!

Oporto

The consensus with budget airlines was unanimous and simple, "Avoid Ryanair at all costs". Heeding this, I had for over a year, managed to comply with this caveat. It was only until early 2010 that I booked myself into my first Ryanair flight. Pisa, was the destination and I had braced myself for cranky staff, yielding flight times and to be charged for everything under the sun. As with all expectations, I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, they didn't have seat pockets or in flight magazines and that annoying audio-byte at the end of each "on time" flight. Overall, Ryanair is bearable and only marginally pipped by Easyjet. Saturday was slightly different. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 9:20 but had been pushed back to 11:05, normally this wouldn't irk me at all. However, an extra hour of sleep on morning weekend flights makes the world of difference! Excellent way to start the trip, not.

It still amazes me that after being here for almost 2 years I still hadn't set foot in Portugal. It's not that the desire wasn't there, it's just there was always somewhere "more interesting" to be sacrificed at the expense of a weekend. With my penultimate departure on the horizon we rounded up a small group (of 3) and headed over to Porto, Portugal. As previously mentioned, I had low expectations of Portugal, in fact my predetermined criteria for a good trip was as follows: Nice weather, drink Port, try some authentic Portuguese Charcoal Chicken and eat as many egg tarts humanly possible.

I can happily report that it was an excellent trip with all of the above points successfully completed (some checked more than once). The weather was a few degrees shy of being perfect but with 22 degrees blue skies it was always going to be better than the sub-10 degree Autumn currently plaguing London. We visited a couple of Port Cellars on the Vila Nova de Gaig and (for me, the first time) sampled locally produced Port. It was a complete mission to find Chicken with Peri-Peri but we eventually found it, each time we asked "Do you know where you can get Portuguese Chicken?" it was always received by a "you can get chicken from most restaurants in Porto". Another case of lost in translation. I must have consumed at least 5 eggs tarts over the two days, a little short of what I had expected still, they were delicious!

Saw an old man vomit on the street from excessive alcoholism. For some reason unknown, I had an affinity with this (approximately) 80 year old man. He slowly pulled a handkerchief from his tweed pocket and proceeded to wipe his mouth. Two older ladies were at his side rubbing his back while cleaning his face. Magenta waste spilled all over the pavement, the customary carrots also featured and in the middle of the mess were his dentures, just sitting there. You're never too old to get blind drunk.

Since 1982

Celebrating 10 years of legalised hedonism

NRL Grandfinal

Temple Walkabout. 6 am, plenty of Dragons and Rooster's supporters out early morning in London

London Rat Race!

What are you doing tomorrow from 3pm to around 7pm? There’s this challenge race that’s on and my friend is looking for a team member – would you be keen?

So I agreed. Come 2 pm Saturday I found myself surrounded by hundreds of competitors who were about to embark on London's Mean Street Rat Race. The rules are as follows. Each team is a series of challenges that must be completed within a certain amount of time. A map and a list of clues are given to each team one hour before the start of the race where you have to decide which route and which tasks you can complete. Failing to get to the finish line by 19:30 would result in a penalty.

So for the next 2 and half hours we ran around London. We decided to take the route down from Tower Bridge, down to the Bermondsey Tank, Imperial War Museum, up through Waterloo and through the streets of Soho, up to Farringdon, via Monument. We sung, danced, played pool, foozeball, climbed, jumped our way through the challenges. We must have covered at least 15 miles in the 150 minutes. Both my quads cramped up and my legs and body feel absolutely ruined. Don't think I've had quite so much fun in some time and managed to see so much of London. Placed 25th out of 125 teams! Not bad for a last minute call up.

"I'm coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine" - The Killers, Mr Brightside

Oktoberfest: 2010 release

It was billed as the rematch. 12 months ago I had passed out after a gruelling 6 hour drinking session. I had become another statistic of the 16 day event known as Oktoberfest. This time round I was determined, experienced and better prepared and I had grand ambitions to last out an entire day of drinking. Confidence is one thing, being delusional is another.

I, like many, suffer from the common problem of Asian Flush. This enzyme deficiency leads to the embarrassing situation of turning bright red after a handful of drinks. I decided I would attempt to remedy this problem at the world's most famous beer festival. Again, this was unsuccessful.

The Opening Ceremony of the 200th Anniversary of the most famous beer festival was exactly as I remembered - Plenty of drinking, the price of a stein had jumped to €9. Plenty of eating, it still amazes me how they manage to churn out quality food for the masses. Plenty of shenanigans, ass pinching, tobacco snorting, Europeans with yellow fever. Plenty of causalities. Plenty of memories, managed to catch up with my old Dragon Boat coach from Canada. Excellent times! Prost!