On a Safari in South Africa

May 11, 2023 by Nicole Harrison in South Africa

After leaving Cape Town, we started our safari adventure. We flew to Johannesburg to meet Haley and David and, after spending one night there, we started driving out to Hoedspruit, where we would turn in the car and have a driver take us the last hour and a half to the safari lodge. Our drive was about six and a half hours, and we split it into two days.

The first few hours were through fields of crops and power plants, and the drive was pretty calm with the notable exception of a three-truck-accident that happened ahead of us and made for a very exciting half hour. At first, both lanes of traffic going our direction just stopped, with some drivers getting out or standing on their cars to see what had happened. Then, as the drivers started to clear one of the lanes ahead, everyone started moving.

A bunch of cars started driving on the shoulder, and then in the grass median between us and the other direction of the highway. We were in a rental car without the best clearance, so we were worried about driving in the grass without knowing where any holes might be, but we eventually followed a truck and an SUV over to the shoulder of the OTHER side of the highway, where we drove against traffic in a line of cars until the accident, and then cut back over through the grass to the correct side of the road. David, who was driving, did a great job staying calm in six chaotic lines of traffic as we all yelled and filmed the experience.

Luckily, that was the most exciting thing that happened to us while driving, and we were only slightly late to our lodging for the night in Graskop. Graskop is around the start of the Panorama Route, which is a beautiful, rocky area with stunning waterfalls and beautiful views. Unfortunately, the area was very smoky from nearby fires, so we didn’t see much of the views, but the waterfalls were still amazing.

Two tall waterfalls pouring down a rock face with trees growing out of the tops and sides of the rocks. — Mac Mac Falls, with amazing greenery all the way down the rock walls (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two waterfalls pouring into a river below with fields and mountains in the background. — Lisbon Falls (photo/Jason Rafal)

The fading sun over smoky mountains with a river running toward them. — The smoky but beautiful view from Lisbon Falls (photo/Jason Rafal)

Jason and Nicole reaching toward each other from an arm's length away with a waterfall in the background, and Nicole is laughing. — “Leave room for waterfalls!” (photo/Haley Carter)

We stayed in a beautiful Airbnb in Graskop that was basically made for photos. It was very simple but a great one-night stop.

The view of the sunset through a window wall with a bathtub on the floor in front. — The amazing view from inside our little cabin (photo/Jason Rafal)

We also got some great bunny chow at Divine Foods at the View in Graskop - it’s a dish consisting of (usually meat) curry in a bread bowl from the east coast of South Africa, and it’s amazing.

A bread bowl with a cracker and four sauces on a wood board on a table with a gas lamp in the background. — A delicious bunny chow meal (photo/Jason Rafal)

The next morning, we stopped for one more Panorama site at the Bourke’s Luck Potholes, where you can look down into a beautifully eroded rock canyon. We were sorry to miss the epic views part of the Panorama Route, but were still glad we were able to see the other attractions.

A view down steep rock walls into naturally-carved pools of water. — Looking down into the potholes (photo/Jason Rafal)

After dropping off our car at the adorable Hoedspruit airport and being driven to andBeyond Ngala Safari Lodge, our safari experience began with lunch and our first game drive.

A giraffe walking through tall grass toward trees. — We saw our first animals, including this giraffe, on our drive to the lodge (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two bush babies, one asleep and one peering over a wooden beam. — The lodge had a family of adorable bush babies living in one of the beams (photo/Jason Rafal)

The experience of being at a safari lodge is unlike anything I’ve ever done before. We had a 5:30 am wakeup call, headed to the breakfast area for coffee or tea and a snack, and then by 6 we were leaving for a game drive with our guide Amy and our tracker Mishack. They would have talked with the other rangers and trackers about the likely viewing options for the morning, and Amy would make a recommendation for where we could go and what we could try to see (we always followed her recommendation). For the next three and a half hours, we’d drive around the property, stopping to watch animals and changing our plans if Amy heard about a good sighting on the radio.

Around 9:30, we’d arrive back at the lodge and have breakfast, then relax for a bit before a 2 pm lunch. The next game drive started around 3:30 or 4, and we stayed out into twilight, watching animals or having drinks in the brush at sunset. Then we would head back to the lodge, have dinner around 7:30 or 8, go to bed, and then get up early to do it all over again. It was incredibly fun and fulfilling and completely exhausting.

We had a couple of special meals while we were there, including a surprise bush breakfast (Amy tricked us into thinking we might see rhinos in the area) and a boma dinner, where she joined us for our first dinner at the lodge. Both of these special meals were cooked over open fires, which is traditional in the area.

This is a good time to talk about the food at the lodge, which, along with the whole lodge experience, was amazing. We had a butler who was with us the whole time and quickly learned what we liked (sparkling water every meal), and he made sure there were always pescatarian options for Haley and David. We had a few options for each meal, and everything we picked was always delicious.

Our lodge rooms were also beautiful, with a large bed, private patio, and huge bathroom with both indoor and outdoor showers, as well as a large tub. When we returned to our room after dinner, we were escorted by a member of the staff, just in case there was a hyena or honey badger hanging out near our rooms (we didn’t see any, but it apparently happens somewhat frequently). The rest of the lodge included a pool, gym, spa, and eating area, all enclosed by a fence that started at four feet high and was only meant to keep out the elephants and buffalo, the most destructive animals who lived in the area.

The view of our bathroom from the outdoor shower (photo/Nicole Harrison)

Ngala safari lodge has a unique story - it was private land that was donated to WWF, but since they weren’t equipped to run a lodge, they leased the land to andBeyond for tourism operations. The land lease helps to fund the South Africa National Parks Trust and its work across the country. Ngala was also the first private game reserve to be incorporated into Kruger National Park, and it maintains an open boundary with Kruger, so the animals can go in and out of the property as they want (it was kind of a reverse zoo, since we had to stay inside of our property lines). They’re also very conservation-minded and focus on animal comfort, with policies like only allowing two vehicles to be near animals at a time. The prey animals were a little nervous about us, but all of the predators were completely comfortable with the vehicles - they just saw us as a large animal that sometimes hung out nearby and never really did anything.

A man bending over and drawing in the sandy ground with a small stick. — Mishack shows us where a baby rhino crossed the road (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close up of a zebra looking into the camera. — Each zebra has a unique stripe pattern, and I loved this one that was more black than white (photo/Jason Rafal)

A male baboon climbing up a large rock in the late afternoon light. — A large male baboon climbing to the top of a rock (photo/Jason Rafal)

A beautiful lilac-breasted roller, our favorite bird of the trip (photo/Jason Rafal)

A large kudu with spiraled horns looking into the distance. — A greater kudu (photo/Jason Rafal)

An impala that was in an unfortunate fight (photo/Jason Rafal)

We were lucky to hear about a female leopard sighting on our first evening at the lodge, and we got to go see her. She had stashed her cub somewhere and laid down for a nap in the tall grass (she was almost impossible to see at first), and as dusk fell she got up and started walking off and calling to the cub. We left her alone at that point, but it was amazing to spend some time with her.

Leopards are so beautiful (photo/Jason Rafal)

A leopard sitting in tall grass in late afternoon sunlight. — Starting to wake up and look around (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of an elephant's face between leaves. — A little elephant, so young it didn’t have tusks yet (photo/Jason Rafal)

A young elephant walking through tall grass. — Such a cute “little” elephant (photo/Jason Rafal)

A dense herd of impala, one with a red-billed oxpecker on its head. — We usually saw impala in dense herds (spot the red-billed oxpecker on the middle one’s head, eating bugs) (photo/Jason Rafal)

The trackers spend a lot of time sitting at the front of the vehicle looking for animal tracks in the dirt of the road. Once they see a fresh track to follow, they’ll get down and track on foot, and other trackers will often be dropped off by other vehicles to help. On our second day, Mishack went into the brush looking for lions. When he radioed in later to tell us he found them and we picked him up, we tried to get him to tell us how he found them. He just followed the tracks and then a lion walked in front of him, he said. Simple.

One of the lions we saw was one of three white lions that exist in the wild; it’s a recessive gene that was thought to have died out, but has started showing up again. He has very cool pale eyes and a light coat.

A white male lion yawning, with a female lion walking by in the background. — The white lion yawning - he’s not actually mad (photo/Jason Rafal)

The lion’s manes grow longer as they age, so the male lions were somewhat young. That being said, they’re huge.

A close-up of a male lion's head facing the camera. — I liked this guy’s hair tuft (photo/Jason Rafal)

A male lion lying in the grass looks back at the camera. — Another picture of the white lion (photo/Jason Rafal)

A close up of a male lion walking toward the camera and glaring. — The lions moved into the shade as they overheated in the sun, creating some dramatic action shots (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of the white lion's face, with many scars visible across his eyes and nose. — The incredibly dramatic white lion (photo/Jason Rafal)

There was a pride of female lions hanging out not far from the males - they all kept an eye out for an easy hunting opportunity but they were pretty chill overall.

A close up of a female lion looking into the distance, with a head and paw of another female lion in the background. — Two of the female lions hanging out in the sun (photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the fun things about having an open camp is that the smaller animals were able to wander in - we mostly saw birds and lizards, but when we were heading to lunch from the pool this little bushbuck was grazing in the bushes right next to the path. They have absolutely giant, Disney-style eyes.

An adorable bushbuck at the lodge (photo/Jason Rafal)

Jason and Haley were constantly looking for new birds to add to their Merlin app, and we all enjoyed finding birds in between finding the big animals. It kept it interesting and always left us with something to do. South Africa also has a lot of really cool birds.

Two yellow-billed hornbills doing some sort of dance (photo/Jason Rafal)

A large black bird with bright red skin across its eye and under its neck and a long, sharp bill sitting perched in a tree. — The dramatic southern ground hornbill, which we saw in a tree instead of on the ground (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two African fish eagles (photo/Jason Rafal)

A male impala smelling us (photo/Jason Rafal)

We learned that hyenas often hang out near wild dogs. The dogs are very frequent and efficient hunters, but the hyenas are bigger, and they are often able to chase the dogs away from a kill pretty quickly.

A spotted hyena sitting up in the grass, with tearing and scarring on both ears. — Look at the beat up ears on this hyena (photo/Jason Rafal)

African wild dogs were first on my list of animals I wanted to see, but I tried not to get my hopes up because they’re fairly rare. Luckily, they had been hanging out on the property, and we were able to see a pack of them on the second afternoon - lions and wild dogs in one day!

They’re absolutely beautiful with their tan, black, and white coats, round ears, and long tufted tails. It was also so fun to see how much they acted like domestic dogs as they played and interacted with each other. Apparently, they are absurdly effective and impressive hunters, unlike most of our pet dogs.

A wild dog lifting its head out of the grass and looking behind it, away from the camera. — I love the ears! (photo/Jason Rafal)

A pack of wild dogs lying on the ground, with one in the back lifting its head to look into the distance. — Looking around from the pile of dogs in the grass (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two wild dogs standing next to a bush, with one licking the other's ear. — They spent a lot of time grooming each other (photo/Jason Rafal)

A standing wild dog with a cut behind its ear looking at the rest of the pack. — The dogs were covered in small (and sometimes large) cuts (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of a wild dog with ears flopping to the side looking at the camera. — The pack leader, who had adorable floppy ears (photo/Jason Rafal)

A wild dog standing at a diagonal in the tall grass. — They’re such beautiful animals - I love their coat patterns (photo/Jason Rafal)

In the middle of the game drives Amy tried to make sure we were able to stop for drinks and snacks (sometimes she asked if we were okay skipping it because there were animals to go see, and we always opted for that instead). When we did have time, though, we’d stop for coffee in the mornings and drinks in the afternoon, and both came with delicious local snacks, from biltong (dried, cured meat) to cookies to some sort of amazing dried corn mix that was better than Corn Nuts. Amy and Mishack also made us a variety of mixed drinks - the classic was a gin and tonic with fresh lime, but I was partial to Amarula cream liquor over ice.

Amy and Mishack setting up a drink and snack table in a dry riverbed. — Amy and Mishack set up tasty drinks and snacks for us during the drives (photo/Jason Rafal)

The sun setting over the horizon between trees and bushes, with purple mountains in the distance. — Being out for sunrise and sunset every day is tiring but amazing (photo/Jason Rafal)

Mishack is amazing at spotting things we would never have seen from the front of a moving car, especially at night. He shone a flashlight in long sweeps across the road in front of us, turning it off for us to drive by if we saw diurnal prey animals (their night vision takes a while to come back, which makes them vulnerable until it’s restored). On the second night when we were driving back, he had Amy stop for a moment, and then said what he had found was too hard to see and he’d find another one. A minute or two later he had Amy stop again and pointed out a chameleon on a tree branch, which blended in almost exactly with the leaves. When we asked how he possibly could have seen it, he said he just looks for half a lemon in the trees. We watched it change colors to react to the light for a minute, then left it alone.

A chameleon on a tree lit up by a flashlight in the dark. — A little chameleon in a tree (photo/Jason Rafal)

The next thing we were all able to see - a spider had created almost a full web across the road. We felt bad to have to destroy all its hard work, but the vehicles only went offroad for specific animal sightings, and we needed to take back the road.

Looking toward the front of the car in the dark, with Mishack shining a flashlight on a spiderweb across the road. — A surprise spiderweb (photo/Jason Rafal)

An elephant walking through grass with trees in the background. — We saw a ton of elephants, and it never got old (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of a young elephant's face, with its trunk reaching up. — You can tell how old an elephant is by its tusk length - this one was pretty young (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of a young elephant's face, with its trunk wrapped around its tusks. — Some fun trunk contortions (photo/Jason Rafal)

An elephant with its ears out to the side looking at the camera. — Flapping its ears to cool itself down (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two large birds perched in the top of a dead tree, with one bird behind the other. — Two tawny eagles in a tree (photo/Jason Rafal)

An impala walking behind a grazing wildebeest.. — The blue wildebeest and impala were often together for protection (photo/Jason Rafal)

A hippo in the water, with the eyes and nostrils of another hippo visible in front of it. — Two mating hippos (photo/Jason Rafal)

A bright blue, red, and green bird with a long forked tails flying against a blue sky. — A lilac-breasted roller in flight (photo/Jason Rafal)

A warthog walking across the road with a red-billed oxpecker on its back. — A warthog with a red-billed oxpecker hanging out on its back (photo/Jason Rafal)

An elephant walking down a dirt road flanked by dense trees. — An elephant walks down the road in the distance (photo/Jason Rafal)

The animal Jason was most excited to see was a cheetah, and they’re not always on the property. We got very lucky, though, and heard from another group that there was a mother and her half-grown cub on the reserve. The baby was still learning what to expect from the vehicles, and got into a tree to watch us more clearly.

A cheetah stalking through the grass and looking at the camera. — The mother cheetah watching us (photo/Jason Rafal)

A young cheetah standing in a dead tree and chewing on some of the bark. — The young cheetah got into a tree to see further and chew on some bark (photo/Jason Rafal)

A young cheetah standing in a dead tree and looking into the distance. — He watched us for a few minutes (photo/Jason Rafal)

We only watched the cheetahs for a few minutes before heading out to give them some breathing room, but it was so cool just to watch them move - they’re so lanky and elegant.

A large spider in a web, with smaller spiders in the web and a green background. — A large and terrifying spider (we think a golden silk orb-weaver) at our lodge (photo/Jason Rafal)

A zebra looking at the camera, with a baby zebra behind it. — This baby zebra was adorable and I was so happy to see her (photo/Jason Rafal)

The baby zebra hadn’t yet learned that oxpeckers are friends and shook this one off (photo/Jason Rafal)

A zebra that is covered in brown dirt looks into the distance. — Another zebra, this one with wider black stripes (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of a zebra's face looking at the camera. — This one had a bit of ear missing (photo/Jason Rafal)

A bush duiker considering whether it should run away (photo/Jason Rafal)

A large, fluffy bird with a long, thick tail and long talons sitting at the top of a tree. — A grumpy-looking white-browed coucal (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two young elephants walking through the grass, with the back one resting its trunk on top of the front one's back. — Two young elephants (photo/Jason Rafal)

A wildebeest with several birds on its back scratching its jaw with its left back hoof. — Several yellow-billed oxpeckers were hanging out on this wildebeest (photo/Jason Rafal)

We were constantly amazed by how quickly we saw a blanket of stars after sunset - by the time we got back to the lodge around 7:30 pm, we could see the Milky Way. On our last night at the lodge, we asked one of the room escorts to take us out to the pool for a few minutes so Jason could take a couple of pictures. I don’t think it was a common request, as he was surprised but excited to see the pictures. If you look closely you can see the little round bird nests in the tree!

The star-covered night sky with a blue-illuminated tree in the bottom of the frame. — The incredible night sky (the tree was lit up from the pool below) (photo/Jason Rafal)

We spent the last morning before leaving the lodge hanging out with the cheetahs again, and we were the only car there, which was really nice. They were more comfortable with us than the day before, and the baby even started nursing, with the mother occasionally growling to let him know that this wouldn’t happen for very much longer.

Two cheetahs, a mother and half-grown cub, look back at the camera. — Double cheetah (photo/Jason Rafal)

A female cheetah lying in the grass and looking off to her right. — The mother cheetah checking out some sounds (photo/Jason Rafal)

A mother cheetah lying down and her baby laying next to her with its paw on her side. — The baby cheetah looking up from nursing (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two men in tan pants, gray fleeces, and gray fleece hats walking away down the road. — Mishack and Tonight, another tracker, heading off to look for animals (photo/Jason Rafal)

Five impala next to a body of water, with one butting the back of another. — We spent some time at a watering hole with some hippos, a crocodile slinking around, and some playful impalas (photo/Jason Rafal)

A dwarf mongoose popping out of a hole and looking at the camera, with another one behind. — A cute dwarf mongoose next to the road (photo/Jason Rafal)

Our safari was incredible, from seeing all the animals, to Amy and Mishack hanging out with us for 8 hours a day and answering all our questions, to the amazing lodge and food. All four of us want to start planning our next safari adventure - Botswana is looking like the next one.

Close-up of a wild dog yawning. — One more bonus picture - we had a great time watching all the animals yawn (photo/Jason Rafal)

At the Cape of Storms

May 07, 2023 by Nicole Harrison in South Africa

Cape Town

Our South Africa trip was based around a safari that our friends Haley and David had found and invited us to book with them. Jason and I decided to add on some time in Cape Town before going to the lodge as well, and we ended up spending a day and a half in Johannesburg too. Overall, we took almost two weeks for the trip, which is the minimum I think I’d book to justify the 30+ hour travel days to get all the way across the world (South Africa is close to the antipode of Washington state).

I had always heard great things about Cape Town, and we were excited to spend some time there. The city has endless things to do, from outdoor activities to museums, and I was frustrated trying to prioritize what we wanted to do in our four days there.

Our first activity after arriving in Cape Town was to go on a free walking tour, which is always a good way to get some context from a local. Our walking tour was historical, and our guide took us through some of the important points of the city center. We took the tour about an hour after arriving in the city and are very glad we challenged ourselves to explore a bit before jet lag set in.

The area was originally inhabited by a few tribes, including the Khoikoi, San, and Xhosa people. The first western “discovery” of Cape Town was by the Portuguese, who sailed by in the late 1400s but never established a long-term presence in the area. The first colonization began in the mid 1600s, when the Dutch decided to establish a settlement to support ships traveling to the Dutch East Indies. Unable to find enough labor locally, they began to import slaves from other areas of Africa, as well as Indonesia, which began the cultural melting pot of the city, as well as the introduction of the “Cape Colored” racial group. The British eventually also saw the value of the Cape and, through various complicated war efforts, fought for control of the city throughout the 1800s; they eventually unified South Africa in the early 1900s.

In 1948, the National Party won on a platform of institutionalized racial segregation, or apartheid. Previously racially integrated, Cape Town, as well as the other cities in South Africa, subjected Black citizens to forced relocation to townships. While apartheid was finally repealed in 1991, racism and government corruption are still everywhere. South Africa has an unemployment rate of 40%, and there are hundreds of thousands living without electricity, clean water, and proper sanitation. As a tourist, there are large areas of the cities that we were advised not to visit based on high crime rates. The wealthy areas of the city are very white, even though white people make up only 16% of the population, and the inequality is still painfully evident. The history in this area is winding, not always well reported, and generally hard to wrap one’s head around; we had difficulty finding more detailed information to link to, but this article does as well as anything we saw online (we do want to note that the article stops at 1948 and the history most certainly does not). The history of this city, region, and country is complex and learning to understand it a bit more by visiting was rewarding though also often painful.

Okay, stepping away from the history. Cape Town is incredible. It’s gorgeous, with mountains to the south and ocean to the west. Dramatic clouds often pour over Table Mountain like a blanket, inspiring a legend of the devil having a smoking contest with a pirate. The city has incredible food, with influences from Indian, Malaysian, and African cuisine, and there’s also a lot of great coffee. Nearly everyone we met was kind and happy to talk to us about what we were enjoying on our trip, and they’re obviously all so proud of the beautiful city they call home.

A large, ornate government building next to palm trees with mountains in the background. — The Cape Town City Hall (photo/Jason Rafal)

Nine engravings on columns on the side of a stone building facade. — Carved faces representing the nine original tribes of South Africa - the Zulu, Xhosa, Bapedi, Batswana, South Ndebele, Basotho, Venda, Tsonga, and Swazi people (photo/Jason Rafal)

Cape Town buildings in front of Table Mountain, with a mural that says "Just Be Kind" visible on one facade. — The view from our hotel (photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking up a street at a row of brightly painted attached homes. — Painted houses near the waterfront (photo/Jason Rafal)

A wide building mural with three faces. — There were so many amazing murals in Cape Town (photo/Jason Rafal)

A stand selling flowers under a thatched roof that allows in streaks of light. — A flower stand at the Oranjezicht City Farm Market (photo/Jason Rafal)

A sea lion at the end of a dock, with boats and buildings in the background. — A sunning sea lion (photo/Jason Rafal)

One night in Cape Town we had reservations at a speakeasy, which has truly become a major American export. They were serious - we didn’t find out the location until last minute and had to provide a code to a skeptical doorman - but once we were inside we were greeted by a warm, friendly set of employees and a three-piece band singing covers of pop and rock songs. It was really fun, and the decor was pretty great as well.

Black and white photo of two bartenders singing while making drinks in a speakeasy. — Multi-talented bartenders (photo/Jason Rafal)

We took one day to drive out to the Cape of Good Hope, seeing some sights along the way. We first visited Muizenberg, which is a classic surfing town with iconic brightly colored changing shacks on False Bay. It’s very cute, and fun to watch the surfers. From there, we drove south along the water, stopping for lunch in Simon’s Town, where we ate fish and chips with a lovely view of the water. Our next stop, and one of our most anticipated, was Boulders Beach, where we got to see the penguin colony there. These are African Chinstrap penguins, and they only live in South Africa. They’re really adorable, and there were even some fluffy chicks. In addition, Boulders is an absolutely beautiful beach, and we also saw some dassies, which I loved. It was lovely all around.

A beach with large, smooth rocks, low greenery, and clear blue water with small penguins on a rock on the left. — Boulders Beach, aside being a great place to see penguins, is really beautiful (photo/Jason Rafal)

A penguin walks by a rock with a person's legs, shoes, and water bottle in the foreground. — At part of the beach, the penguins can come visit the humans (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two penguins swimming through green-blue water. — Penguins surfing (photo/Jason Rafal)

A penguin burrowed in the sand with a chick draped over its back. — A baby penguin draped over its parent (photo/Jason Rafal)

A penguin laying on a nest with its eyes closed and face turned toward the sun. — They’re kind of ridiculous and I love it (photo/Jason Rafal)

Five adolescent penguins on the beach. — Some adolescent penguins hanging out (photo/Jason Rafal)

An adolescent penguin walking in front of a large rock. — This one looked slightly possessed (photo/Jason Rafal)

A penguin swimming through the water with droplets flying around it. — This one was way too cool for the others (photo/Jason Rafal)

A dassie stretches its legs while staring at the camera. — Dassies are delightfully awkward (photo/Jason Rafal)

A dassie laying stretched out on the sand. — Just look at these things (photo/Jason Rafal)

From Boulders Beach we drove all the way south to the Cape of Good Hope. Along the way, we saw a lot of signs telling us to beware the baboons, which was a bit alarming since we hadn’t realized they lived in the area. We didn’t see any, but there were lots of signs telling us not to feed them.

The cape is a national park, and on our way in we were surprised to see ostriches roaming around - we had both thought they were native to Australia for some reason, but they’re actually from South Africa. It was cool to suddenly see them in the wild. We drove to the most southwest place in Africa and climbed to the top of the hill, where there were great views across False Bay and into the water below.

Two ostriches, one adult and one adolescent, standing on sandy ground. — Skeptical ostriches - don’t worry, this was taken with a telephoto lens and we didn’t actually get close (photo/Jason Rafal)

A black and green lizard suns itself on a rock. — A beautiful southern rock agama (photo/Jason Rafal)

The Cape Point lighthouse perched on a rocky outcropping with ocean and mountains in the background. — The lighthouse at Cape Point, with views across False Bay (photo/Jason Rafal)

We also went to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, which is absolutely amazing. It’s a huge piece of donated property that reaches up the backside of Table Mountain (you can technically hike to the top of Table Mountain from the garden), and it’s been really well cultivated and taken care of. We spent a couple of hours strolling through the gardens and eating lunch at the on-site restaurant, which was surprisingly good. It’s one of our favorite botanical gardens, and we’ve been to a lot.

A view of the top of several giant trees with a mountain in the background. — Some of the very large trees at the botanical garden (photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole on a walkway through the treetops, with mountains in the background. — The tree canopy walkway, which has great views of the mountains (photo/Jason Rafal)

A cobbled path with plants and trees on each side. — These pathways are amazing (photo/Jason Rafal)

A view across the botanical garden, with multiple types of trees visible and Cape Town in the background. — You can see Cape Town in the distance to the top left (photo/Jason Rafal)

The base of a plant with two long leaves branching out from the center. — The bizarre Welwitschia, which has two long, thin leaves that grow for its entire life - which can be over 1,000 years! (photo/Jason Rafal)

We heard from a lot of people that going up Table Mountain while we were in town was a must. You can hike up, which takes a few hours, or there’s a cable car that only takes a few minutes. A lot of people hike up and take the cable car down, but as I was still having trouble sleeping and generally struggling a bit, we decided to just take the cable car both ways.

Aside from the spectacular views in every direction, Table Mountain is special because it’s a biodiversity hotspot for flora, with hundreds of endemic species. The top, which is a large flat area with lots of hiking trails, is rocky and covered in small plants, shrubs, and short trees. It’s beautiful in a very stark way, like many of the more extreme climates we’ve visited.

A map of the world distinguishing the different world floral kingdoms - Boreal, Neotropical, Palaeotropical, Australian, Antarctic and Patagonian, Cape. — We had no idea that the Cape has its own World Floral Kingdom - and that we’ve now been to 5 of 6 (photo/Jason Rafal)

The view looking up from the base cable car station to the top of Table Mountain, with a cable car approaching. — The view up the cables (photo/Jason Rafal)

The cable car is very cool - the bottom spins slowly as it moves, so no matter what side of the car you’re on, you can see the views from every direction during the ride. We’ve never seen that before, but it’s a great idea. As we arrived at the top, the operator welcomed us to the “ice box” and told us the last ride time down.

Generally, all the locals we met in South Africa were very sensitive to the cold, but the real thing that made the top of Table Mountain cold was the intense wind. I wore a sweatshirt plus a windbreaker, with the hood up, for most of the time - it ended up being the perfect layering for the weather.

We took the cable car up in the late afternoon, which was a choice we felt very good about because there was almost no one else up there. When we started hiking around the top, we were often totally alone. As the sun dropped lower in the sky, we also got beautiful glowing views of the city and beaches below us.

View of Lion's Head Rock and Cape Town, with the ocean in the background. — Looking down at the city, Lion’s Head, and Robben Island (photo/Jason Rafal)

A frequent view at the top of Table Mountain - people wearing all the clothes they brought and taking pictures (photo/Jason Rafal)

View looking south from Table Mountain over two manmade bodies of water. — Two reservoirs near the top of the mountain (photo/Jason Rafal)

View looking out over the mountains toward the Cape of Good Hope. — Looking out toward Cape Point (photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking down at Camps Bay (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close up of a small, tall plant with upturned green and red petals. — One of the weird and beautiful plants at the top (photo/Jason Rafal)

On our last day in the area we took a day trip to the wine areas outside of the city - Stellenbosch, Paarl, and Franschhoek.

For the entire trip, we marveled at the absence of other American tourists, and our day tours were no exception. On this one, there were two other people from the United States, but there was also a couple from Finland, another from Switzerland, two sisters from Botswana, and one person from Nigeria. It was interesting to talk to everyone and hear what questions everyone had for each other - we got into a long conversation about the crisis of American healthcare with the Finns.

We also went to three beautiful old wineries - La Bri, where we had a chocolate and wine pairing; Boschendal, where we tried to make everyone tell us what they call the game cornhole in their country (no one else had a local name for it); and Fairview, where we had a wine pairing with cow and goat cheese.

Piece of wood that says "La Bri, Franschhoek, 1694" and has three chocolates on it, with wine glasses in the background. — Our beautiful chocolate pairing at La Bri (photo/Jason Rafal)

An owl looks down from a tree branch surrounded by green leaves. — A skeptical owl outside of the La Bri tasting room (photo/Jason Rafal)

View looking across a rectangular lawn toward a white house, with trees on either side and mountains in the background. — The beautiful Boschendal tasting area (photo/Jason Rafal)

A dark red and green grape leaf, with other leaves and vines in the background. — Fall colors on the vines (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two wine barrels, with more stacked barrels in the background. — Barrels in the cellar (photo/Jason Rafal)

A yellow and black bird perched on a bush. — A curious bird in a rosebush (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two people holding hands and walking down a path with overarching trees over the path. — All three of these wineries were really beautiful properties (photo/Jason Rafal)

A small white goat next to a fence. — I was thrilled to find the goats at Fairview (photo/Jason Rafal)

Our guide, Nelson, was a Cape Town local who taught us a lot about the history of the area. On our way back to the city, he talked about the townships and pointed out where he had grown up. It was a very sobering and important end to a very bougie day of fancy wine and food.

The sunset over the mountains viewed through the windshield of a van. — The last light of sunset over Table Mountain. Can you see the shape of a man laying down? (photo/Jason Rafal)

Cape Town was absolutely wonderful, and we loved our time there. I want to go back for a week and do all the things we didn’t get a chance to do - climbing Lion’s Head, visiting more of the peaks and beaches, and going to the museums that we didn’t have time to visit. There were also so many more restaurants I wanted to try. We were sad to leave but excited for the rest of our trip.

The silhouette of trees on the top of a hill with an orange sky in the background. — Trees along the ridge of Signal Hill (photo/Jason Rafal)

Johannesburg

This blog is a little different because it’s not chronological - I wanted to pair our the first part of our trip in Cape Town with the last part in Johannesburg so that the safari would get its own blog. So, please time travel with me as I tell you more about the city we visited at the end of our trip. We flew into Joburg before heading out to the safari, and then after the safari we flew back to the city for a day before heading back to Seattle.

Johannesburg was difficult for me. It’s massive, with more than 5 million people in the city and 10 million in the metro area, and so much of that population lives in abject poverty. We stayed in one of the fancy tourist areas, which was essentially a completely walled-in outdoor mall with three Marriott hotels, lots of restaurants and high-end shops, a supercar dealership, and an armored car dealership. Access was strictly controlled, especially at night, so that we could feel safe walking between the buildings. It did feel safe, but also incredibly isolated from the rest of the city.

Throughout our time in South Africa we learned about load shedding, which impacts the entire country. Essentially, the power system has collapsed, and there are rotating power outages every day, with the government designating a phase that dictates how many hours a day the power is out. While we were there, the country was in phase 8, which means that the power was turned off for 4 hours in the morning, 4 in the afternoon, and an additional couple of hours overnight. The rest of the time, everyone uses generators or other alternate power if they can afford it, but a lot of people just don’t have power. There’s been a high impact on small businesses, many of which had to shut down, and there are constantly stoplights out all over the city, causing increased traffic. Even our nice hotel in Johannesburg, which was set up on the compound’s generator power, had trouble switching to generator the last night we were there, and we woke up without power or water for a couple of hours. The problem is constantly top of mind for residents, and an enormous percentage of the advertising we saw either referenced, joked about, or promised solutions to the pain of living with load shedding. Unfortunately, with a government-funded power system that sees constant embezzlement of allocated funds, there is no faith of or hope in improvement any time soon.

We were planning both a bike tour in Soweto and a visit to the Apartheid museum on our last day, but because our flight got moved up a couple of hours, we only had time for the bike tour. Despite the amazing things we’ve heard about the museum, we both thought the bike tour was the right option for us. We learned a lot about the history of this important township and I felt a lot more connected to the city after talking to locals.

Soweto - originally South Western Townships - was an area where Black residents of Johannesburg were moved in the 1930s and 40s. It quickly became the largest Black city in South Africa, with a current population of more than 1 million. It was home to Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Trevor Noah (the South Africans would like Trevor Noah back, but say America can keep Elon Musk). It’s also the home of the 1976 student uprising, where students of all ages protested a ruling that Afrikaans, a language developed by the Dutch settlers of the area, should be the language used in schools in Soweto, destroying the educational opportunities of the residents. The protests were violently suppressed, with more than 1,000 killed or injured, but civil unrest grew until the repeal of apartheid in the 1990s. We heard a lot of exasperation with the current government, but there’s a general sense that one of the more successful government efforts of the past 30 years has been free, accessible education for all South Africans. To learn a bit more about the history of Soweto you can read this page or the Wikipedia article - there seems to be a dearth of well written information about Soweto on the internet which is a shame. Please let us know if you find anything else!

Our guide Tebogo, a Soweto local, led us on our bike tour through the West Orlando suburb (We can’t recommend One Day Africa enough - look them up if you’re in Cape Town or Johannesburg). We visited Nelson Mandela’s house and museum, then biked to the decommissioned Orlando Towers, which were previously part of a coal power plant and now home to a complex that features food, beer, and activities like in-tower bungie jumping and paintball. On the way back, we biked next to an improvised “shanty” town, where we saw how some of the township’s poorest residents lived (and waved back to a lot of kids).

Ten dancers in motion, with six clapping and four dancing in front. — Botswanan dancers (when the arbitrary line was drawn between South Africa and Botswana, they happened to be on the South African side) (photo/Jason Rafal)

Seven people on bicycles at a stop sign, with houses behind brick fencing on the left and a green field on the right. — Our group of bikers (photo/Jason Rafal)

A herd of goats eating from a pile of trash at the side of a road, with buildings and power lines in the background. — Some goats eating on the side of the road (photo/Jason Rafal)

View between two brightly painted towers. — The Orlando Towers (photo/Jason Rafal)

A hollowed out half loaf of bread with fries and sauce poking out and a fried egg on top. — A kota sandwich, a local street food designed to be easily portable and carb-heavy (it’s delicious) (photo/Jason Rafal)

Something that struck us throughout our time in the cities was the sense of hope - despite the significant social and governmental issues faced by the South Africans, there’s a general feeling that things can and will get better. I’ll be thrilled to see it. We’d highly recommend visiting South Africa, and please book some tours with Black-owned tour companies while you’re there.

Next, we get to show you some safari animals.

Slightly Younger Tiles

January 12, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in Morocco, Portugal

On Saturday, we ventured out to visit a tannery. The tanneries of Fes are famous for their age and methods — the oldest dates to the 11th century, and they still operate essentially the same as they did then. The tanneries are on everyone’s must-do lists for Fes — they are smelly, but visually fascinating. Men pre-treat goat, sheep, and dromedary leather before moving the pieces into large vats of dye. When the leather has been sufficiently treated, it is taken up to the hillside to dry for a day. When the pieces are dry, they are brought back into the Medina to be cut and sewn into belts, bags, jackets, pillows, and shoes.

Ally walks through our riad (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The tanneries are surrounded by shops, and in order to see one, you essentially have to look like a tourist until someone offers to take you through a shop to see the tannery. We were picked up by someone who belonged to a cooperative, and they started us out at the leather shop.

It was a clear, cool morning, and the smell was surprisingly mild from the terrace at the top of the leather shop. The man who was showing us around handed us all mint to hold under our noses and then explained the details of the tannery to us as we took pictures.

A man works in the dye vats (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Afterward, we were taken through the shop and encouraged to purchase a variety of products. There’s a tension between the tourists who want to see the tanneries without paying anything and the cooperatives who want to make money, but we had already decided to look for some belts. Jason also found a jacket that fit shocking well, so we more than paid for our pictures.

After the tannery, we were swiftly guided to an argan oil shop, where we re-learned about creating argan oil (I hadn’t realized last time that the seeds are toasted to make edible oil and left untoasted for cosmetics). This shop had a few additional scents and products that the last one didn’t, and it also had Moroccan spice mixes and saffron, which we stocked up on. Saffron is expensive anywhere, but it’s much cheaper in Morocco.

Our third stop (I was starting to worry how many stops there would be, as it’s especially difficult to un-entangle yourself once you’re in the co-op circuit) was a weaving shop where men wove blankets, scarves, bags, and pillows from a combination of cactus threads and sheep’s wool. The man who owned the shop called himself Mohammad Couscous, and he was very excited to show us around the shop and tell us about the different products they made. He also taught us how to put on scarves for trips into the desert — we had a lot of people tell us that coming back to Morocco for a few days in the Sahara was essential.

Emilie learns proper headscarf use (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After the weaving shop, we were guided to an embroidery shop, where women were doing some insane double sided embroidery onto table cloths, runners, napkins, and pillows. If you’ve never embroidered, I’m not quite sure how to explain to you how crazy double-sided embroidery is. Usually, you have a pretty side, and an ugly side, and that’s just how it is. The women in the shop in Fes were using a crazy double thread technique that allowed the pretty side to be both sides, so everything they made is reversible. Along with the addition of multiple colors, it was very impressive.

Crazy double-sided embroidery (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In the afternoon, we headed up to the Marinid Tombs, which was supposed to have the best view of the city. It’s the place to go for sunset, but we went up a couple of hours before sunset, which was actually really nice because it wasn’t crowded.

To walk up to the tombs, we exited an outer bab and headed up the hill through the cemetery. The remains of the tombs are at the top of the hill, and they create great frames for the views of the city. Apparently not much is known about the tombs because there hasn’t been a thorough archaeological dig in the area, which is kind of crazy since it is believed to date from the 14th century. It’s a really cool area, and a great way to get a panoramic view of the city.

Hiking up through the cemetery (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Fes, with the Atlas Mountains in the distance

More views of Fes through ancient walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Arriving at the tombs at the top of the hill (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Some of the more adventurous climbers (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunset from a teahouse in the city (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One thing that’s difficult in the old medinas, and especially in Fes, is that only half of the streets/alleys are on any map, even a downloaded Google map, so it’s difficult to figure out how everything connects. This creates some wonderful quiet wandering, but it also leaves obvious tourists susceptible to local teenagers, who will tell you that you’re going toward a dead end, guide you in a different direction, and ask for payment. At one point this happened when we were actually lost and unable to just brush the kid off, and he started yelling at us for not paying him enough. It’s uncomfortable, and difficult to always avoid.

For dinner, we went to a place that served both traditional Moroccan food and what I would call interpretations of other foods. We were constantly amused that the depictions of tacos were clearly pressed burritos. Ally and I both got pastillas, a traditional Moroccan dish consisting of meat and nuts wrapped in phyllo dough and covered with cinnamon and icing. It’s weirdly sweet for a savory dish, but sweet-savory combos seem to be a favorite in Moroccan cuisine.

A pastilla (yes, that’s sugar) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Sunday, we explored some more of the central medinas of Fes before catching our flight to Lisbon.

We first visited Al Attarine Madrasa, which is a 14th-century center of religious learning. The courtyard is incredibly intricate and beautiful, and the student’s quarters above are much more plain, but also provide beautiful views of the surrounding city. The tile work at this madrasa is really insane — there’s a bunch of Arabic calligraphy tiles, which are incredibly beautiful.

Another incredibly ornate room (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Emilie and Ally with some of the calligraphy tile (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Views through a window (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also walked by the nearby Kairaouine Mosque and University, which is considered the oldest university in the world. We were not allowed to go in, but there were a couple of spots where we could look through open doors onto the beautiful courtyards within.

We also wandered to the river, took pictures of one more bab, and had some tea before finding lunch.

The river through Fes (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For lunch, we ended up at the restaurant of one of the bigger riads near ours. It had a really large, beautiful inner courtyard, and it was a lovely, quiet, green escape from the surrounding medina. I immediately made a cat friend, who jumped on my lap, purred, and snuggled before the riad owner came and picked him up, saying that he usually puts the cat in his room for meal times so he won’t harass the patrons.

Nicole’s new cat friend (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunlight through a big tree in the courtyard (have you noticed Jason’s trip-long sunstar obsession?) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The lunch was a perfect goodbye to Fes, and we headed to Portugal full and happy.

Monday was our full day in Lisbon, and we all immediately knew that we wanted more time there. It’s just a very appealing city. The buildings are colorful and interesting to look at, the hills keep things interesting and beautiful, and the food is great.

Nighttime streets in Lisbon (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One thing that we had really missed in Morocco was good coffee, so we visited two coffee shops on Monday morning. Both were delicious. We also dropped by Bertrand, which is the oldest operating bookstore in the world — it dates to 1732.

Emilie in front of Bertrand (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In order to get a feel for the city without stressing ourselves out trying to see all the sights in one day, we signed up for a free walking tour. This was a lot of fun and made us realize how little we knew about Portugese history. The 1755 earthquake, which was one of the most defining events in Lisbon’s history, was the most frequent topic as we walked through some of the central neighborhoods of the city.

Narrow original streets in Lisbon (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The 1755 earthquake happened on November 1 (All Saints Day), which meant that most of the Christians in Lisbon had lit candles in their houses and gone to church for the morning. When the earthquake, which was an estimated 8.5-9.0 in magnitude, hit in Lisbon, the churches and other large buildings collapsed, the candles set the city on fire, and the tsunami killed an enormous number of survivors of the first two catastrophes. While there were more surviving humans and buildings in the Jewish and Muslim communities on the hillsides, the center of the city had to be completely rebuilt. It’s really interesting to see the differences between the old surviving architecture and the much newer template of the rest of the city — the buildings are all colorful, and have similar architecture, but the grid, including streets and buildings, is much wider in the rebuilt part of the city.

One of the churches that lost its roof in the earthquake (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also learned about the 1974 revolution, which felt surprisingly recent. A military coup marched into Lisbon to overthrow the authoritarian regime, and an unexpected civil resistance joined in. Impressively, the government stepped down with almost no violence, and when the public took to the streets to celebrate, someone put a red carnation into a soldier’s gun. The symbol spread through the streets, and became the namesake of the peaceful Carnation Revolution.

Our guide also walked us through Alfama, one of the original remaining neighborhoods in Lisbon. It features tiny, narrow apartments inhabited by mostly older residents, and it feels like stepping back in time.

A view over the Praça do Comércio (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking up toward the Alfama neighborhood (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The residents of Alfama still use by-hand communal laundry (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A resident of Alfama looks out over the street (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After our walking tour, we went to the Time Out Market, which is a very cool (and quite crowded) indoor market with a bunch of shops and places to eat.

Tasting an egg tart in Time Out Market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A Santa driving a streetcar (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After lunch, we went to a wine tasting shop, where we could use a pre-loaded card to purchase small pours of different Portugese wines. Green wines, or wines created with young grapes, were one of our focuses — we think they might become trendy after rose.

After sampling a considerable amount of wine, we got a ride down to LX Factory, which Emilie aptly described as “Hipster Disneyland, in the best possible way.” It’s a collection of shops and restaurants in old factories and containers, and there are different kinds of visual art everywhere. We walked through some shops and had a craft beer at some tiny old school tables, which were cute but problematically small for Jason and I.

An adorable plant shop (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A combination bookshop and artist workshop (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For dinner we went to A Valenciana, which was written up in an Eater guide we found. It was a really nice example of a traditional Portuguese restaurant — the other people in the restaurant were mostly locals, and the dishes were simple and delicious. We ordered a lot of Piri Piri chicken, which we learned was from Portugal, which came with rice and French fries. They actually forgot Emilie’s vegetarian dish (we never actually figured out what it was), but she was a very good sport and ate carbs instead. It felt like a very Portuguese way to end the trip.

That evening, we walked back to our hotel, wandering the streets nearby for a while. Everything was all lit up for the holidays, and we even found a Feliz 2020 sign. We’ve all decided that we’ll try to come back to Portugal soon.

New Year’s lights around the Praça do Marquês de Pombal (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Color-changing lights above a busy street filled with smoke from street food (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In The Land of Derbs and Babs

January 08, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in Morocco

On Thursday, we visited El Badii Palace, which was commissioned and built in the late 16th century. We went in the morning, and it was vast and fairly empty (visiting top attractions before 11:00 am is always a good idea). Visitors are still allowed to climb on a lot of the stone ruins, which was unexpected and fun for us. I also made a pregnant cat friend.

Emilie in front of one of the palace pools (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole with her cat friend (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A cat eyes one of the nesting pigeons (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Walking across one of the empty pools (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the terrace (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The palace walls are lined with massive stork nests, and we spent some time watching the big, gangly birds walk along the walls. They are very odd looking birds, and it’s especially cool to watch them take off and soar around the walls.

A large and precarious-looking stork nest (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We made a joke that this stork was delivering a baby (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Next, we had some mint tea and then went to Cyber Park, which is a large and very well-kept park near the medina walls. It had a ton of olive trees, locals studying, and cats. It was a very enjoyable experience overall.

Ally, our resident expert mint tea pourer (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Waiting to cross the street (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Thursday evening, we joined a food tour to learn more about the local food culture. We started out at one of the shops in the Jemaa el-Fnaa market. The market itself is somewhat of an assault to the senses — there are bright colors everywhere, many strong smells, stalls selling everything from goat heads to 90s TV remotes, and lots of people yelling (at each other, at tourists to buy things, at the crowd to get out of the way). The heckling at tourists has varying levels of creativity — many men just yelled at us to come look at their wares, but one yelled “I want to be on your basketball team!” at me as we walked past.

Most of the buildings around the city are three or four stories, and when people enter them, they usually try to go up as much as possible to get a vantage point off of the street.

This first shop had a simple menu: lamb, beans, and bread. We were warned not to fill up on the bread, which was something we struggled with for the next three hours. The lamb was cooked in a large underground oven, where the whole lambs were hung for several hours to roast. Once the roasting was complete, the lamb was served plain with sides of cumin and salt (it can’t be seasoned before cooking because the oven is too hot). They also served the lamb as tanjia, which is a stew cooked in an urn-shaped clay pot.

One of the men in our group, who felt the need to assert himself as an adventurous eater, asked if he could eat the eyeball. Our guide obligingly brought him half a lamb’s head and taught him how to extract the eyeball, and to his credit, he did not have a strong reaction — he said it mostly tasted very intensely of lamb. I was also impressed that none of the other 8 people on the food tour freaked out.

The market from the shop rooftop (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We had a few snack stops over the next hour, including delicious filled flatbread, soup, olives, snails, and very large and delicious doughnuts that were dipped in honey. We also sat down to try some meatballs made with sardines, which are a local favorite.

Our guide explains different colors of olives in front of an olive shop (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Making delicious filled crepes (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Doughnuts in progress (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our last savory stop, when we were all feeling quite full already, was at a woman’s cooperative that made couscous. The kitchen was tucked away behind a traditional women’s market, which had closed for the day, and it was a welcome respite from the busy medina streets. Our guide talked us through the proper way to prepare couscous (it’s far more intensive than the brief steaming that we’re used to in the United States), and we enjoyed some fresh couscous with vegetables that the cooperative made. It was served with buttermilk, which was an interesting touch. If you get a chance, ask Emilie what she thought of the couscous-buttermilk experience.

We finished out the food tour at a shop that served pastries and smoothies. Smoothies aren’t traditional in Morocco, but they’ve become popular over the past couple of decades. The general method of ordering is to pick a base, either orange juice or milk, and then add a couple of fruits and nuts, if desired. We got an assortment of pastries, which was great because it allowed us to try things we probably wouldn’t have. Morocco is big into a few flavors, including rose, orange blossom, and almond. Marzipan is a very common flavor in cookies, which I’m not a big fan of, but sometimes the other elements balanced it out well for me. Some of the cookies were deep fried, which is always delicious, and honey never hurts either.

On Friday, we had to get up far too early to catch the first flight to Fes. I asked our riad to arrange a car for us at 4:00 am, and they went back and forth with us a few times to confirm that the time wasn’t getting lost in translation. I think I finally managed to convince them that I knew which time I was conveying by apologizing that they’d have to be up so early. This made them laugh.

Fes has the oldest medinas in the country, and they are surrounded by a wall and often ornate gates, or Babs. The narrow medina streets and derbs (roughly, alleys in neighborhoods) are often not on any maps, which makes it difficult to know when you’re going to hit a dead end.

Fes also quite hilly, unlike Marrakech. The difficulties of the hills ensure that there are fewer mopeds and motorcycles on the narrow interior streets, which makes the air quality much more enjoyable. We had all been struggling with breathing in the exhaust from the two-stroke engines in Marrakech.

After dropping off our bags at the riad, we went to visit the Royal Palace. Tourists cannot actually go into the palace, but the main attraction is the incredibly ornate and massive set of gates. The gates are huge — the smallest set was probably close to 10 feet tall. It’s a quick stop, but definitely impressive.

Sunlight through one of the old walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Some unique architecture (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The other side of the famous Blue Gate, which we think might be even prettier (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Lounging cats (if you thought the communal cats were unique to Marrakech, you were wrong) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the beautiful gardens we found (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The absurdly large palace gates (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Another beautiful bab (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We next walked through a large park before visiting the huge Cimetière Israélite. With the stark white tombs and deep blue painted accents, it reminded me of all the pictures I’ve seen of Santorini.

In the afternoon, we took a baking class at Cafe Clock, which has a few locations across Morocco. Our teacher, who knew French and Arabic but not much English, took us up five sets of twisting tiled stairs to the baking room, where she started teaching us how to make dough.

Morocco has a lot of traditional breads, but the one most often served with meals is made with wheat and semolina flour and allowed one short rise, so when it’s baked it rises an inch or two. It’s then cut into quarters for serving, so it can be torn up to pick up food or used as a pocket to make a sandwich. We made this one first, then moved on to a stretchier dough that we used to make stuffed flatbread, which we filled with sauteed vegetables and baked.

We also made several sweet cookies — fekkas, which are very similar to biscotti; ghriba, which are a kind of macaroon that tastes like a scone rolled in powdered sugar; and Moroccan snowball cookies, which are dipped in a fruit glaze and rolled in shredded coconut. Our teacher showed us how to form each one, invited us to take over, and then often fixed what we had done to make it closer to the actual thing. She was very sweet about it, though we all dissolved into giggles several times when someone thought they had been doing well and their bread had to be fixed a lot.

Looking down the stairwell from our kitchen (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The fekkas and snowball cookies were baked in the small wall oven in our kitchen, but the other items were taken to the communal bread oven to bake. And thus began our completely unexpected adventure across the medina.

Because it was Friday, the holy day, the closest bread oven was closed, so we took the breads to the next oven over. I have no idea how far it was, but we carried the breads through the medina for several minutes, much to the amusement of the locals, who called out to our teacher and laughed at us in our aprons. We later decided that we were glad it was Friday, because the medina was so much less busy — on a normal day, the crowd of people trying to get through the narrower areas of the alleys can be pretty intense, and we were all trying very hard not to drop any cookies or breads on the ground.

When we arrived at the oven, our teacher explained that many people brought their breads and cookies here to bake. The oven is huge, and the men who work there are constantly putting breads in, rotating them into the cooler areas of the oven, and taking them out. They gave our teacher a time to return, and we headed back to finish up some other cookies.

Crossing the medina (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

Half an hour later, we ventured back across the medina to get our bread and cookies, which were impressively perfectly baked. When we got back, we did some final preparations before sitting down to our feast. Everything was really delicious, even some of the cookies that we weren’t sure we’d like. We did well, and/or we had a good teacher who fixed everything for us.

Our delicious filled breads (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Real Tajine

January 06, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in Morocco

Tuesday was our day trip into the Atlas Mountains. One other couple was supposed to go with us, but one of them got sick, so it ended up just being the four of us in a small van with our 22-year-old guide, Abdullah.

Abdullah first drove us to the Ourika Valley, where we stopped at an argan oil cooperative so that we could learn about the process of making the oil. There’s a seed that’s removed from the fruit of the argan tree, cracked open, ground to make a paste, and then squeezed to create oil. They walked us through all of the uses of argan oil, from putting it on food and in sauces to hair and skin treatments. It tastes a little like olive oil, but with a nutty undertone.

Ally learning to make argan oil (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The different stages of argan oil production (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From the argan oil cooperative we headed to Setti Fadma, which is a riverside town that caters to tourists looking to escape the heat and bustle of Marrakech. Setti Fadma is named after the ubiquitous female hand symbol that defends against the evil eye, also known as a hamsa. On the way, we stopped to take pictures on one of the many bridges that crosses the Ourika river. They were all rather rickety, and Emilie was not feeling it, but it was a pretty good view.

Emilie walking out to the bridge (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our group on the bridge (Photo/Abdullah)

Abdullah explained that there are some issues with flash flooding in Ourika valley — Japan gifted the valley an alarm system, which has severely cut down on the number of deaths. As we went up the river, it became clear why it was an issue — there were a lot of restaurants and shops built in the riverbed, instead of higher up on the hill.

When we got to Setti Fadma, Abdullah handed us off to a local, who took us on a short hike up to one of the area’s waterfalls. We walked through some of the town first, where we saw shops, cats, and a couple of families of monkeys. We were the first group up there, which made it quiet and quite peaceful. We also saw some goats perched on the rocks nearby, which made me happy.

Walking through the riverside restaurants to get to the hike (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Monkeys on the way to the waterfall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The waterfall at the top (Photo/Jason Rafal)

How many goats can you spot? (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We took some pictures at the waterfall, then headed back down the rocks to enjoy some mint tea at the river. The Ourika river has a ton of restaurants along and even in the river — chairs and mats are set up along the water and on rocky outcroppings in the river, and everything is bright and contrasting colors. Sitting there and watching the locals prepare for the afternoon tours, I realized that even with all my time in mountain towns, this was a wholly unique experience for me. It was a wonderful place to enjoy a glass of hot mint tea.

After enjoying our tea, we drove through the other three valleys while Abdullah taught us about the area. The valleys are primarily agricultural, and we saw a lot of orchards and terraced wheat and vegetable farming. Originally, the towns were built on hillsides to make them more defensible against warring clans, and now the combination of villages and farmed terraces makes for an incredibly photogenic area. The terraces are also still farmed manually, with donkeys and wooden plows. When we stopped to take pictures on one hillside, a farmer joked with Abdullah that we could come help out. It’s always uncomfortable being part of such an enormous and obvious wealth disparity, but everyone we interacted with was very kind to us.

One of the hillside Berber villages (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A beautiful view of the Atlas mountains (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Layers of houses and farmed terraces (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Another hillside village (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In the last valley, we stopped in one of the Berber villages for lunch. We later found out from Abdullah that the three-person company that he worked for had gone door to door, asking if families in the village would be willing to cook for small groups of tourists. It’s a lot of work, but I imagine the financial benefit for the family must be huge. For us, it created a really special lunch experience that we were incredibly grateful for.

When we arrived at the house, we were greeted by the family, which included the farmer, his wife, their children, and his brother’s wife and her child. It’s pretty normal in Morocco for an entire extended family to live together. The children, who were between one and three years old, were adorable and came up to us for high fives. After the family showed us the tajine cooking and the bread oven next to their shed, the kids helped us wash our hands, then led us down into the orchard to have a seat. We were then served one of the most delicious meals we had in Morocco while we enjoyed the sun and fresh air. There was soup with argan oil, a salad similar to pico de gallo (but differently spiced), fresh bread, couscous, tajine, and fruit. The family was incredibly gracious and kind, and Abdullah stopped by occasionally to tell us about the food, but otherwise left us to soak everything in. While he was sitting with us at the end of the meal, we spent an amusing several minutes trying to explain to him what a manatee looked like, which is surprisingly challenging without a frame of reference.

The tajines finishing the cooking process (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Ally’s new friend helps her down the hill in the orchard (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our very attentive dog friend (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On the way out of the mountains, we stopped at a part of the winding road where a motorcycle chase from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation was filmed. Abdullah explained that the road was in great shape because they had re-paved for the movie. I have to agree with whoever scoped out that location, it’s a good place for a chase scene.

More farming and mountains (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our last stop before heading back into Marrakech was a traditional market outside of town, which is open twice a week. There were as many donkeys and mules in the parking area as there were cars, which was pretty typical for our experiences in Morocco.

In the market in Marrakech, the shopkeepers were so used to western tourists that we were constantly yelled at to buy things. In this market outside of town, there were very few tourists, and we were seen as more novel than as a potential form of income. Many people just stared, and some practiced random strings of English words on us. We also walked through the butcher section of the market, which I regretted as soon as I realized how many whole goat heads were on display. It was generally a bit uncomfortable, but walking through open air markets is always a great way to contextualize things.

The view approaching the market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Christmas, we ended up having a very European-feeling day. We went outside the medina to the newer part of town (newer here meaning very old, but not as old as the medina). We started the day at the Bacha museum, which was a beautiful museum that housed some important fashion and a photography collection. In Marrakech, I’ve found that I’m consistently more captivated by the museum buildings than the art inside of them — everything is so ornate, and the colors are fantastic.

Pomegranates in the courtyard (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole in one of the courtyards (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We sought out the museum in the first place because we wanted to stop at Bacha Coffee, which is one of the famous coffee spots in the city. We missed it the first time because we didn’t expect it to be actually in the museum, so we spent a few minutes wandering around alleys that weren’t on the map of the medina before completing a full circle and entering the museum. Bacha is incredibly ornate and European feeling — it reminded us strongly of the famous old coffee houses in Italy and France, as well as Cafe Tortoni in Buenos Aires. They had a huge coffee selection, and we enjoyed a couple of desserts as well.

Side note: we almost didn’t get seated at Bacha Coffee because we didn’t have reservations. This happened to us several times in Morocco, which we were really not expecting at random restaurants during the low season. So generally, if you want to eat at specific places, it’s a good idea to make reservations.

After coffee, we headed toward the Jardin Majorelle, which was nearer to the newer part of the city. We made the mistake of arriving in the early afternoon, which is the busiest part of the day. The garden is stunning, but I’d recommend visiting as early as possible, just so you won’t have to wade through tourists. It has a huge variety of plants, from a large selection of cacti to a bamboo forest. There’s also a Berber museum on one side, which is a brilliant blue building. The juxtaposition and the colors are all pretty remarkable.

The welcoming cat (you knew there would be one) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Cactus spines in the light (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After the garden we headed to the Gueliz area, where we found a Thai restaurant for lunch. We really didn’t know what to expect, but it was pretty good, and we still needed a break from tajine.

After lunch we spent some time at a wine bar, which was an interesting experience. Moroccans are not allowed to drink alcohol publicly in Morocco, so this bar had sheets hanging between the terrace and the sidewalk to obscure the drinkers from the street. The bar had a nice selection of Moroccan, French, and Italian wines. Interestingly, tourists are allowed to drink in public, but for the most part we were drinking on upper terraces while at other restaurants.

For dinner we headed to a hip Australian-style restaurant that is a joint effort by three restaurateurs. It was a very classy, delicious, and surprisingly affordable Christmas dinner.

The Intricacies of the Old World

January 04, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in Morocco

Predictably, everyone was exhausted when we arrived in Morocco.

Jason and I met up with Emilie and Ally in the Lisbon airport for our flight to Marrakech. When we got to Marrakech, we had several challenges and misunderstandings, which were made more difficult by our exhaustion. First, we were staying in the medina, where cars couldn’t actually drive. So, our driver hired a porter to take our luggage and bring it into the medina, while he led us through on foot. When explained, this makes perfect sense, but none of it was conveyed in English, and we spent an alarmed couple of seconds trying to figure out if we would ever see our stuff again. Then, there was a booking error with our riad, and as they spoke very little English, we had a lot of translation difficulties in resolving everything. Finally, we tried about five ATMs before we found one that worked. It was all a bit stressful.

Silhouette of a Moroccan sunset (Photo/Jason Rafal)

I go into this detail because I think it’s important to acknowledge that sometimes travel is challenging or downright unpleasant. It’s usually temporary, and doesn’t usually detract from the overall amazing experience of getting out of your comfort zone, but it can suck. Once everything was all resolved, we treated ourselves to a nice restaurant and a bottle of wine, which helped everyone feel better.

Walking through the narrow streets (Photo/Jason Rafal)

This was our first introduction to tajine, which is a traditional dish in which meat and vegetables are cooked for about three hours in a covered clay pot over a fire. It’s very good, and when it’s done well, incredibly delicious. We ordered a Moroccan wine as well — we’ve heard alcohol is pushed on tourists, but we didn’t need any encouragement. The wine was very drinkable, but not overly complex, which was our experience throughout the trip.

Moroccan riads are primarily old houses with beautiful interior courtyards that have been transformed into bed and breakfasts. They vary in size, and since Moroccans often don’t eat out for dinner, they tend to be where meals are available to tourists in the older parts of town. The restaurants are often in the courtyards or the roof terraces of the riads, so that diners can experience some respite from the hustle and engine smell of the medina.

The riads all serve breakfast, which is a feast of breads, dips, and fruits, in the beautiful inner courtyards. Depending on the riad, there was also bird chatter and/or music. At our second riad, the man serving breakfast told us that he loves listening to Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, and Louis Armstrong. Much to our amusement, this riad also had a track of American pop songs played on pan flutes, including Evanescence and Avril Lavigne.

The stairway of our first riad (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Circular staircases were very common (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A typical breakfast spread (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Monday was our first full day in Marrakech, and we set out to do some exploring.

The 19th-century Bahia Palace was our first introduction to the insane amount of detailed extravagance featured in Moroccan palaces and tombs. The name “Bahia” means “brilliance,” and it’s not an exaggeration. The palace features beautiful gardens and courtyards with colorful tile work, detailed carvings, and gleaming stained glass. Maybe it’s just because we went there first, but Bahia Palace was my favorite.

Along the medina wall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Group self portrait in a very old mirror (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Shadows against the carvings in the Bahia Palace (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Emilie in one of the extraordinary rooms (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Stained glass on a light fixture (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole, Emilie, and Ally through some of the carved doorways (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Carvings under a doorway arch (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the courtyards (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The ceiling in one of the rooms (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Irrigation in one of the courtyard gardens (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Views through the courtyard rooms (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Next, we went to Saadien’s Tombs, which are considerably older (16th century). The tombs were apparently abandoned for centuries and then rediscovered in the early 1900s. The compound, which houses around 60 members of the royal family, consists of a courtyard and three large rooms. The most famous room, which is usually simply referred to as “the room with the twelve columns,” is a beautiful combination of tile, stucco, and cedar work. You can’t actually go into this room, and the viewing area only holds about 4 people, so there’s usually a line to look in. We stood in line for 20 minutes without actually knowing what we were waiting for, but the view was worth it. That being said, as with all of the sites we visited in Morocco, morning is usually better if you don’t want to wait in line for a long time.

One of the city’s mosques (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the tomb cats (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Inside the room with twelve columns (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the tomb walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After lunch, we headed over to Le Jardin Secret, which is actually two gardens in the heart of the medina. The gardens are wonderfully lush and beautiful, and there’s a cafe that overlooks them. We stopped there for mint tea before heading back to our riad.

The roads were full of vans, cars, motorcycles, mopeds, horse-drawn carriages, and hand carts. I’ve never been somewhere that had such an equal distribution of several centuries of transportation. Unfortunately, because the city walls are so high and the inner roads are so narrow, the two-stroke engine exhaust gets trapped, making fresh air hard to come by. This makes the inner courtyards of the gardens, palaces, and riads even more welcoming.

Horses and carriages on the street (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Flowers in the garden (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view over Le Jardin Secret (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A subtle self portrait in a pot of mint tea (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the beautiful walkways in Le Jardin Secret (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The calls to prayer were something that I both expected and didn’t fully understand before we heard them. There are five each day, and you’ll hear each one at multiple times — there’s an initial call to come and pray, and then another when the prayer actually starts a few minutes later. The initial call blasts through mosque speakers, sounding almost like an upset sheep or a single human yell. Then, the other speakers crackle and catch up, producing a somewhat tinny melding of voices for the next few minutes. It’s loud, and different, and mesmerizing. For the first few days, I woke up for the pre-dawn call to prayer, which soothed my frustration at jet lag.

Another thing I didn’t fully expect about Morocco were the communal cats everywhere. I started seeing cats on the street immediately, but was surprised that most of them weren’t actually feral. We saw a lot of eye infections, but most of the cats were a healthy weight and had fur that was in great shape. As we continued our trip, we started seeing a lot of shopkeepers feeding and interacting with the cats, and one of our guides later said that they were the bosses of the medina. Some of them were kind of obnoxiously friendly, especially when you had food.

An adorable kitten lounging (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A fluffy kitten next to one of the walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Rugs hanging out to dry (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunset at the Koutoubia Mosque (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunset at a park near the Koutoubia Mosque (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Appetizers at dinner (Photo/Jason Rafal)