Hello Friends!
Long time, no see. I hope you’ve all had a wonderful winter, stayed warm, gotten out for some cool adventures and are looking forward to the coming spring and summer. I am writing to you today from home in Washington D.C. after an amazing couple of months in Europe and North Africa. I’ll be here for a few more weeks and then I’ll return to California early next month. I have a couple of trips to the Rocky Mountains scheduled for late May/early June and I’m really looking forward to getting back up to Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and Glacier National Parks. Who knows where the summer will lead from there.
When last I wrote, I was getting ready to fly out to Ireland. I arrived in Dublin with no problems and enjoyed a few days of catching up with old friends, knocking back a few pints of Guinness and hearing some great live music. I’ve been to Dublin before, but many years ago and it feels like such a distant memory at this point. It was nice to get out and do some exploring while my internal clock adjusted and I got used to sleeping in dorm rooms again. I was in Dublin for a few days and then caught a flight on to Porto in Portugal.
I spent about two weeks in Portugal in total. I was in Portugal way back in 2000, but really only spent a few days in Lisbon. My friend Julie has been raving about Portugal all year, so I thought I’d go see some more of it for myself. I spent my first day there out in the Douro Valley, the main wine region in the country, and had a lovely time. The next day it started raining and raining hard and it didn’t really let up for almost a week. I did my best to explore Porto, Aveiro (“The Venice of Portugal”) and the University Town of Coimbra, but the rain really brought me down. After a couple of days in Lisbon which included a trip to the incredible fairy tale town of Sintra and a quick visit to Europe’s Westernmost Point, I flew off to the beautiful island of Madeira. Madeira is still in Portugal, but it’s about 600 miles off the coast of Morocco and a world away from the rainy gloom of the mainland. It was beautiful and sunny out there and I had a blast exploring a little corner of the island and soaking up some rays.
After a few days on island time, I headed back to Lisbon and then swung south through Lagos and Faro before cruising on to Seville in Spain. Seville is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been to in Europe and I really had a wonderful few days there. It’s vibrant and clean and churning with history and culture. The central cathedral there is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and also houses Christopher Columbus’ tomb. I also enjoyed plenty of tapas and wine and music and just wandering through the narrow alleyways of the city. In Seville I started to explore the history of the region in depth as my next six weeks would delve into the Muslim culture which ruled that part of Spain for more than 800 years.
Happily knowing I would return to Seville in a few weeks, I set off on a bus for Tarifa, where I boarded a ferry and bound for Morocco. The ride across the Mediterranean at that point is just a little over an hour long and we soon arrived at Tangier where I stepped off into Africa for the very first time. I’m sad that it took me so long to finally get to Africa, seeing as I had been to the other 5 inhabited continents before my 30th birthday. But better late than never I guess. It was in Tangier that I got my first taste of a Moroccan Medina or old neighborhood with its winding and confusing street layout. It’s definitely easy to get lost, but I eventually found my hostel and then set out to do some exploring. I watched the sunset that night from the Kasbah (fortress) at the top of the hill looking out over the sea towards Europe.
I spent the next three weeks exploring Morocco and really enjoyed myself. Morocco is a beautiful country with wonderful people, extraordinary craftsmanship and architecture and a fascinating history. I spent two nights in Tangier and took a day trip out to the “Blue City” of Chefchaouen, both of which were a nice introduction to Moroccan culture. From Tangier, I took the train on to Casablanca which had some cool parts to it, but was essentially a big, modern city. I definitely enjoyed touring the Hassan II Mosque during my stay, which is the third largest mosque in the world and the only one in Morocco open to non-Muslims. I enjoyed wandering around the Medina and even sipped a few martinis in Rick’s Place, a replica of the bar in the movie Casablanca. After a couple of days on my own in Casablanca, I met up with my tour group, who I would spend the next two weeks with. I decided that after 16 years of guiding multi-week group tours, it was high time that I joined one for myself. The tour I chose was called the Best of Morocco and was run through Intrepid Tours, one of the brands I represent for work. We were a diverse group of 14 people, and our guide, Mohammed, took excellent care of us on our tour.
From Casablanca we headed north to Rabat and then east to Meknes, two of Morocco’s ancient capital cities. I thought that both were beautiful and I would have loved to have spent more time in them. The next day we explored an ancient Roman town called Volubilis and then continued on to Fes where we were greeted by a sprawling Medina with more than 9.000 streets creating the maze of all mazes. The Muslims believed in these maze-like cities as a huge defensive advantage, something which served them well. From Fes we moved into the Middle Atlas Mountains and then on into the Sahara Desert where we rode camels and spent the night in an Amazigh tent camp (the Amazigh are more commonly referred to as the “Berbers” and were in Morocco long before the Muslims arrived). Watching the sun set over the Sahara from high on a sand dune was definitely a highlight of the tour and since our guide was of Amazigh descent, he was really good at introducing us to their culture.
The second half of our tour began with two nights in the beautiful Todra Gorge, which included an excellent hike and a visit to a nomadic family who lived in hand-dug caves up in the hills. Then we moved on to the High Atlas Mountains and Mount Toubkal National Park, home of the highest mountain in North Africa. After some mountain trekking, we descended to the relaxed beach town of Essaouria before continuing on to our final destination of Marrakesh. Marrakesh is a fascinating and lively place and quickly became one of my favorite cities of all of my travels and one I hope to return to in the future.
From Marrakesh, I flew back to Seville and was really happy to be back after such a wonderful tour through Morocco. I spent the next week or so exploring more of the Muslim history of that part of Spain, spending time in Malaga, Cordoba and Grenada. The Alhambra in Granada, which was the last stronghold of that Muslim reign to fall, was definitely a highlight. I also spent a few days in Madrid, where I was able to catch up with an old friend from when I lived in Japan. The last time I saw her, her daughter was a 2 year-old toddler and she’s now a sweet and intelligent 11 year-old.
From there I spent about 5 days on the beautiful Mediterranean island of Mallorca which had some wonderful beaches, coves and small towns, and then took the ferry on to Barcelona, the final stop of my tour through Spain. I had been to Barcelona before, and actually spent my Christmas there back in 2000. It was nice to return and explore some of the modernist architecture and to see the progress they’ve made on Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia (which they told me would be finished by now, but they’re now saying 2050).
From Barcelona, I flew back to Dublin and travelled with my friend, Gillian, out to Galway for a night. We had some fabulous meals and then hit a few places on the drive back to Dublin. We visited Sean’s Bar in Athlone, which opened in 900AD and may be the oldest bar in the world. We also went to Clonmacnoise, a 6th century monastery with some beautiful old ruins on the River Shannon. The following day I caught the train to Belfast where I spent my morning at the Titanic Museum (the great ship was built in Belfast) and my afternoon wandering around town. I enjoyed a fine lunch at Belfast’s oldest pub before hopping the train back to Dublin. I caught up with a few more friends in Dublin, had a couple of pints, heard some great music and then got on a plane for home.
I’ve been home in D.C. for almost a month now. My uncle came home from the hospital the day after I arrived, having been diagnosed with some pretty nasty cancer and then breaking his leg on top of that (the cancer metastasized into his bones). The best option was to bring him home to my mother’s house where we could look after him and try and help him recover and get his treatments. It’s been a challenging month, but I’m glad to have been here and to have been able to help not just him, but also my mom with cooking and other things around the house. I had hoped to be back on the West Coast by now, but I couldn’t bring myself to go and leave them in a bind. Over the last month I’ve seen a lot of kindness towards my uncle from a lot of different doctors and support personnel. Most of the people we’ve encountered have been nothing short of amazing. It hasn’t been without challenges though, and watching my mother advocate for my uncle, using the decades she spent in the medical field to back her up, has made me very proud. As for me, I’ve learned a lot about transfers and wheelchairs and all kinds of other things this month. There have been things that have come up, as they do when you’re working so closely with people who can’t take care of themselves, where I’ve surprised myself with some of the roles I have had to fill. When there is no other way, you simply have to do what has to be done. This month has also reinforced my commitment to watching my health, getting my regular check-ups and staying as active as I can for as long as I can. If nothing else, I’ve been to the gym pretty much every day since I’ve been home.
Beyond this medical care odyssey, I have been able to get some things accomplished since I’ve been home. I have finally completed an index of this website, which you can access at the Navigation tab above (or by clicking Here). You will find all of my posts from each state in both alphabetical and chronological order. That way if you want to find out where I went when I was in your state, see photo essays, listen to podcast episodes or browse my state photo galleries, you can find everything neatly laid out for you. In addition, I’ve completed the most recent three photo galleries from my travels, which can also be accessed at the links listed here:
I do still have some work to get to and some photos to edit, and it looks like I will have some time to do that in the coming weeks.
Beyond all of that, I have been getting out on occasion and catching up with some friends around the area. My old pal, Peter, came up from Florida for St. Patrick’s Day and we had a merry time running around to some of our local Irish pubs and hoisting a few pints of Guinness. I’ve gotten to spend some time with my little buddy Mason who is going to turn six next month, and my littler buddy Zsofi who has grown into a sassy little four year old. Nick, the young man who I tutored in math during the pandemic, is a Junior in high school this year. I went to watch him and his brother Mathew play in a lacrosse game last week against my alma mater, and found he has aced all of his math tests since I saw him last. I’ve had a couple of nights out with my friends, sorted through some things that needed sorting, read a lot of books, caught up on some sleep, cooked some delicious meals and tried my hardest to make the most of my time here. Taking care of family is certainly one of the important responsibilities in life in my opinion, and I’m grateful for the timing of this which has made the decision to stay an easy one.
I will keep working on this site in the coming weeks and hopefully check back in with y’all a few more times before heading west for the summer tour season. I do plan on being back in Shadow Catcher and back on the road for an extended period of time in just a few months, and I’m really looking forward to it. I still have lots of places to see, lots of promises to keep and lots of miles left to go. I hope you’re all doing well out there, wherever you are, and I hope to be back with you soon. Thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike