You might notice my blogs are a bit garbled.... I was blocked out of Google for about 10 days.... it was concerned I'd been hacked, but it was speaking in Arabic so I couldn't fix it.  Finally today I was able to get in when the language changed to French.  I may not speak it, but I can read enough to figure out what to do.

I've been emailing to most of my followers instead.  If you didn't get the emails, I apologize.

Following are some of them:

9/29/15

Well we made it to Morocco, yesterday was crazy. The queue to get out of Barcelona was chaos... the Turkish couple in line with us couldn't believe how unorganized a EU country could be. We kept our mouth shut on getting out of Turkey .... LOL! Our plane was 2 hours late, and until 10 minutes before boarding we had no clue what gate it was going out of. The taxi ride to the Casablanca hotel was fine, he charged $300 dirham as advertised, but then $200 dirham to get to the... train station, 3 blocks away. We got off a stop too early and by that time we were so tired we took a taxi that took another $300 and should have been $100 -dirhams of course. (drop a zero off the amount and you have it in dollars.)

But the Riad we stayed at in Sala (the Muslim area across the bay from Rabat) was straight out of Arabian nights.... worth all the hassle to get there! We were feted to Chai and cookies and our bags were hauled to our rooms while relaxed and stared in awe at the surroundings. All this and a petite dejeune at 59 Euros.

Today we followed the old wall to the central square ton the way we noticed windows notched in the wall and like the curious cat, had to peek through. We saw a huge cemetery behind it. Ten wandered through the Souk at Sala.... really cool experience. After a cup of chai at a local café, we dragged ourselves to the trolley and are now ensconced at the OAT hotel. Great room, but nothing tops our room last night.

10/7/2015

Back in civilization again.... the Sahara was awesome in a way, but way too hot and way too many flies. From sun up to after sun down flies were everywhere. We went fossil hunting, visited a Bedouin family, rode camels over the dunes, took jeeps four wheel riding and slept in tents.
Today we're in Teneghir. It's at the Todra Valley and like many of the southwest river canyons, crops are grown around the rivers and the rest of the area is built of sand and clay. The houses a...re southwestern in color but with turquoise, green and blue doors and the clothing while still very Moroccan is much more colorful. Bright orange is a favorite for men's turbans.

The food is almost always served in a tagine -clay pots and mostly with a bit of lamb, or a bit of chicken, potatoes onions eggplant, carrots and some variety of other ingredients. Cinnamon and olives are included in every meal.
Being OAT's "Day in the Life" day, we wandered through alfalfa fields and the ruins of old Tineghir, shopped for our own food in the bazaar - I led the vegetable group, we left with 100 dirhams and came back with 20 in change. We think our group did some great shopping and got the best veggies for the price. Larry and the guys were tasked with shopping for chicken and lamb.
Then we headed off to lunch with the local Berbers - great fun! Our host was 6'5" tall wearing - you guessed it a bright orange turban and camel sandals. He never attended school, Tineghar didn't have enough teachers, but he speaks French, Berber, English and Arabic, is the head of his extended family and the president of the local co-op.
I'll try to upload some pictures for you next!
Salaam Aleikem!