The Cruise

Dear Family and Friends,

On October 30th, Clarke, Brenda, Audrey, Jim, Chuck and myself boarded our Royal Carribean cruise ship. Our two week cruise took us from Palma Mallorca, Spain to Colon, Panama.   Most of our days were at sea, but we did stop in the Canary Islands, St Marteen, Antigua and Barbados on the way to Colon.

Below is a picture of our cruise ship the Grandeur of the Sea.

One of the swimming pools aboard.

Looking down into the main lobby.

Chuck saying goodbye to Palma Mallorca, Spain as we head out to sea.

 

We had many beautiful sunsets as we crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

Here is a picture as we approached the city of Tenerife in the Canary Islands.  A big disappointment was to learn that there are no canaries in the Canary Islands.  I guess it would be the same disappointment if we had stopped in the Virgin Islands.

With so many days at sea, we enjoyed a lot of time on the balcony of our room.

 Here we are in the card room playing dominoes. 
 

 All gussied up for one of the formal nights.

 

At every stop we had to share the port with other ships.  The most were in the small island of St. Marteen.

We saw beautiful beaches,

and lovely scenery at each port.

 After docking in Colon, Panama we rented a van and drove to Panama City.

Chuck and I spent a couple of days in Panama City before returning to Cuenca.  The city reminds you of Singapore or Hong Kong with all the high rises.

We went shopping and, of course, to see the canal locks.

We arrived in Cuenca on Wednesday night....dead tired.  We have spent the last couple of days resting up and readjusting to the altitude.

It was a great six weeks adventure and now we are happy to be back home!

Love,
Nancy & Chuck

Mallorca, Spain - Taking the slow way home!

We are traveling with our friends, Clarke and Brenda.  To read their version of this trip click here.

We are meeting up with Audrey and Jim in Palma de Malorca before we embark the cruise ship.  You can read about their adventures in Spain by clicking here.


Dear Family and Friends,

We arrived in Mallorca, Spain on Friday.  Not long after we got checked into our hotel, Audrey and Jim arrived. Finally, all six of us are gathered in the same place!  

Yesterday was my birthday and five out of six of us enjoyed the beautiful city.  The one left behind was still suffering some of the Moroccan revenge.  That happened to be me!  In order to see pictures of this city you will need to click on links at the top of this blog.

By late afternoon, I was doing much better.  The troops gathered and decided that we should go out to dinner.  We went to a great restaurant and had paella.  A very nice birthday celebration for this old biddy!!

Later today we will board the cruise ship.  We depart tonight and arrive in Panama on November 13th.   

I will post about our cruise adventures after we get back home to Cuenca.


Love,
Nancy

Important - When we board the cruse ship today we will be without internet.  This means we will not be posting to the blog.  Actually, there is internet on the ship, but it is slow and the cost is astronomical, so we will only check our email once every day or so.
In case of emergency we could be contacted through the cruise line. We are on Royal Caribbean and the name of the boat is Grandeur Of The Seas.

Marrakesh, Morocco

We are traveling with our friends, Clarke and Brenda.  To read their version of this trip click here.

We are meeting up with Audrey and Jim in Palma de Malorca before we embark the cruise ship.  You can read about their adventures in Spain by clicking here.

Dear Family and Friends,

We are winding down our visit to Marrakesh. Morocco has been fun and very educational.  I am so glad we came here. I can only speak for me, but I think we are all ready to get back to a familiar culture.

 Here are some pictures I took in Marrakesh.  Enjoy!

Sunrise light on the main mosque.

Getting ready for another day.

Acrobats entertaining for money (sound familiar?)

A high end hotel in the modern part of Marrakesh.

We found Clyde the camel.

Antiques....

Colorful spices.

If you click on this 20 second video, turn up your volume.  The purpose is to give you a little flavor of the main plaza.  The tin horn sounds are the snake charmers playing for the cobras.  The drums, if you can hear them, remind me of the scene in King Kong when the natives are offering a sacrifice to Kong. (Faye Ray)

Except for Clarke, we have all had varying degrees of Moroccan revenge the last couple of days. We will be glad to get back to the land of drinkable tap water. 

Tomorrow we fly back to Madrid.  Time to start thinking about cruising.

Love,
Nancy 

Fez, Morocco

We are traveling with our friends, Clarke and Brenda.  To read their version of this trip click here.

We are meeting up with Audrey and Jim in Palma de Malorca before we embark the cruise ship.  You can read about their adventures in Spain by clicking here.


Dear Family and Friends,

Here it is Saturday and we are in the city of Fez. We arrived yesterday by train from Tangiers. 

Today the four of us toured the Medina which is the ancient walled city of Fez.  The locals refer to the city outside the walls as the "new city."  Like in Tangiers, people still live inside the walls and like in historic Cuenca, the real estate values inside the Medina are sky rocketing.

This is one of many gates that lead into the Medina.  This gate is known as the blue green gate because it has blue tile on one side and green tile on the other.

For anyone in Cuenca that has their propane gas delivered by truck, take a look at how it is delivered here.

The markets inside are interesting.  Here is a picture of prunes, raisins, figs and other dried fruit.

 
Here are some interesting fish.

We were able to look down on the vats of dye that are used to color the leather after tanning it.

The finished products are so colorful.  They use natural dyes to color all kinds of leather, goat, sheep, cow, and camel skins.

Have a look at some of the other items sold in stalls.

These pots remind me of some of the pre-Colombian pottery displayed in museums in Cuenca.

This is a plaza of metal workers.

Other scenes from our tour....

And a good one to finish up with is a sweet picture of Brenda petting a donkey.

On Monday we take a train to Marrakesh.


More later.


Love,
Nancy

Snake Adventure in Tangiers - Part 2 of 2

Dear Family and Friends,

While we were in the Kasbah, we met a nice old man.  He had a surprise for us in his bag.

Yep, you got it.  The surprise was a snake.  A cobra to be exact.

He put it down on the ground.  The first thing it did was head away from the man toward Chuck.  I knew Chuck would get in trouble one day wearing that bright red Cuenca football shirt.

The orange arrow in the picture is pointed at the snake's head.  Chuck is just to the right of the snake.  The man quickly got the snake oriented towards himself and away from Chuck.

He then started talking to the cobra.  

Things were going fine until he decided to bring out another one.

He said for us to not worry, this snake is not a Cobra.  Ha! Like that made it good.

He wanted one of us to hold it.  I quickly announced that I was the photographer and I didn't have enough hands to hold the snake.  Chuck finally agreed to touch it so the man would be happy.

 

Then the old man went back and picked up the cobra.  Nope, no way!!  No touching that one....not even brave Chuck.  The old man just laughed and put took the snake away.

In the end, all was well.  What a fun guy.  I thought it was all fun after the snakes were put away.

Love,
Nancy