World tour of McDonalds Restuarants

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McDonalds on 4 continents now and still going strong. I must say that the purchasing power parity isnt really holding true across the various countries. A Big Mac comes out around 4 AUD regardless of where you get it.

We are currently in Essaouira, Morocco, but first an update.

I last left off in Seville, from where we travelled to Granada to see the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada mountains. Just for kicks we decided it would be a good idea to climb Veleta, at 3398m is the second highest peak in the Sierra Nevada range. Funny enough it turned out that shorts, hiking boots and a packet of chips werent the ideal provisions for such a trip where we ended up crawling through snow and loose shale sucking in deep breaths. We made it though.

We also made it to a bull fight in Granada. It was a bit boring as the bull doesnt get much of a chance. I can say that the bull did get some points on the board for which I think I was the only one cheering.

Next stop was Gibraltar. Still walking like John Wayne after the previous days assault on Veleta, you can imagine the response I got from Lara when I came up with the grand idea to climb the rock instead of coughing up 12 Euro for the Gondola. After an animated discussion we did climb the rock, only to find an Australian Eucalyptus tree growing on top of it.

From Gibraltar we did 3 taxis, a bus, a ferry and a train to finally make it to Fes where we picked up a car to take on Morocco. Our time here has been amazing, if a little challenging at times.

The Medina in Fes is just a crazy labrynth that takes you back about 200 years. Donkeys around every corner, camel heads hanging in the butchers, and the smells of animal skins in the tanneries. Awesome. Just watch out for the meat on the menu as they dont tell you what it is. I went with the chicken as at least it is fresh (they kill it on the spot).

From Fes we drove through some amazing landscape of the Mid Atlas where we saw the Barbary Apes then onto the Sahara. When I imagined going to the Sahara I thought I would be either looking at it from a paved road or riding a camel through it, not driving through (no roads) it in our shoddy hire car with nothing but horizon in every direction with some bloke named Hassan in the back directing us. We eventually made it to a riad at the edge of the Erg Chebbi dunes where we rode camels through the night to our camp in the dunes.

1500km, the high Atlas mountains, 1200 donkeys, 300 camels and a million people standing in the middle of the road trying to stop the car to sell us something (I have only hit one so far) later we are now in Essaouira. A coastal resort town full of tourists. We have done the mandatory camel ride along the beach and I went for a very short lived swim in what the brochures called crystal clear water, which stunk of fish guts and diesel from the fishing port. There was probably some sewerage thrown in there for good measure from the town. I have concluded that coming from Australia it is going to take quite a lot for a beach to impress me.

This afternoon the Tour de Marocco bike race arrives here. Our biggest challenge of the trip has been either trying to stay infront of, of far enough behind the race all trip not to be held up by it. Hopefully they dont hold us up this afternoon in our search for goats in trees. Sounds crazy but the goats like the leaves of a tree that grows in this area and will climb the tree to get to them.

Until next time
Christian

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Comments

[Martin Jensen, Denmark]

Goats in trees
Hi Christian and Lara. It sounds exactly like the Morocco I remember from my surf trip down there two years ago. Getting lost in the Medina in Marrakech and filming the crazy goats ten meters up in the trees were fun moments! Where to next?