Ending in Miami finally offered Vivian an opportunity to practice her Spanish. (You didn’t think the dumb jokes would stop, did you?)

Our only mission here was to have dinner. The Spain leg was so long and worth so many points that it became winner take all given Teams Lily and Bob, Zoe and Rainey, and Order and Chaos were all close together after Morocco. A quick word about Morocco – Team Lily and Bob destroyed the rest of us by hustling from 6am (or earlier) to after 10 at night. It was awesome to see them get the GSH bug.

And they didn’t stop for Spain! They crushed it. Congratulations to them!

We had a wonderful group. We met Pete and Elizabeth and Lily and Bob as new friends and global adventurers and got to spend a lot of time with our friends, Zoe and Rainey.

As for Vi and I, we are already planning future trips: Dino digs, Madagascar lemurs, Gorillas, and the grocery store later today.

Fossil update:

I’ve offered a lot of advice over the past few weeks, so by now you should all feel comfortable riding the subways in big Asian cities, eating gelato for breakfast and live squid for dinner, and wearing throwaway clothes until they stink. You are now ready to take on the world. My final bit of advice: have fun!

Through a little pleading, I got the GSH scavenge boss to add Dali’s museum in Figueres to the list. If you’ve heard the saying about random chance and a million monkeys hammering away on a million typewriters for a million years and one of them will put out Romeo and Juliet…then you understand Dali. He put out great hits with more frequency yet it seemed he’d go through bursts in which he would create hundreds of sketches, etchings, and paintings without much to show. He clearly suffered a rare disorder in which his every thought left his brain through whatever art implement he was holding in his hand. It’s fecundity, productivity, curiosity, creativity, and virtuosity all wrapped into one eccentric artist. I’m jealous.

We trusted Waze to help us get to Barcelona and it sent us to the curviest “bike lane” in Europe. We had to dodge cyclists and one oncoming van was one too many! But it was beautiful. City tourists are missing out.

In Barcelona, we went to the Picasso Museum. And for the parents, a great lesson in why your kids shouldn’t have social media until they are 20. Here’s one of the most famous artists in the world, the star of his own museum, and they put up a lewd cartoon he drew of a friend when he was a teenager.

We’ve previously covered that the Catalans have a strange fascination with pooping so maybe this is de rigueur…in a way. Either way, this strange, even foreign, sense of maturity popped up in my brain, why would they put that up when 10 feet away is a painting he made at age 16 that exemplifies he was not your average 💩 drawing teenager? It’s the age old saying: You don’t remake Citizen Kane to put in fart jokes.

Whew! That sick, fleeting wave of adulthood has passed.

We went to a museum specializing in Romanesque church art.

These museums inspire me to make my own audio guides.

La Sagrada Família is the tallest church in Europe and Gaudi’s greatest achievement.

We learned some travel tips for Spain. First, the ice dilemma. If you ask for ice in your water, good luck. But rather than a “no” they tell you they will get it. They bring you water, no ice. Dinner comes, no ice. You plead “My kingdom for a cube of ice!” And get “No, Señor.” But if you order a mocktail….

Likewise, if you find yourself sitting in a restaurant left unattended like you were a biblical leper there is a quiet, polite solution. Just pull out a foil wrapped sandwich from your backpack and start eating it. Before you get the first bite down you will have full attention. You’re welcome.

Last tip: Any day you have gelato before lunch is a good day! With our new and improved Food Pyramid, it is recommended to have three servings per day, so if you haven’t started by noon you risk malnourishment. Good news for vegans, you can substitute sorbet one for one.

That’s it. We find out who wins back in the USA (not us). As a goodbye from Spain I got pulled out for extra screening in the airport. I went to a semi-private area where they swabbed my bags and then had me pull up my pant legs to swab my calves. And it’s moments like that I realize how lucky I am. For years I coated my legs with LSD to smuggle hits across the Atlantic. Then, I’d sell licks of my calf to wannabe hallucinators in order to pay for my college rent.

On that note…adios!

Hola, Miami.

Not Andor…sorry, Star Wars nerds.

It’s great to add another country to the list. Even if it reminds me of what we used to say about where I grew up: “if you blink you might miss it.”

Andorra is a tax haven for the rich, a summer destination for mountain bikers, and a winter destination for skiers. We learned that Influencers around the world have rented apartments so that they can declare residency (only requires you give up your other citizenship, invest 400k – like buy a condo, and be there 90 days a year) to have a flat 10% income tax.

We met our former neighbors now French ex-pats, Carol and David, there for dinner. I know what you’re thinking, it is a bit uncanny that we have friends.

Equally uncanny, we bumped into Team Pete and Elizabeth at this little bridge after not seeing them for three days. It’s a small world…but I wouldn’t want to paint it.

One of the recurring lessons of the Global Scavenger Hunt is that you never know what you are going to get. This is particularly true if you: 1. Haven’t been there, 2. Don’t spend any time researching it on your phone, 3. Get lost.

The ancient town of Guadelest sits on a mountainous cliff edge overlooking an aquamarine reservoir that looks like a glacial lake. We did no real research, but put it on the list because we had never been there. We were rewarded with a beautiful view and a great place for a star crossed lovers to throw themselves off a ledge.

We took a break from our scavenging to meet with the previous GSH leadership, now ex-pats living near Valencia. Bill and Pamela made us feel like kids coming home from college for a quick visit- good food, laundry service (gratis!), lemon pie with graham cracker crust. Wow. Even more impressive once we heard that graham crackers have to be imported from the US, that’s one luxury the Spaniards lack. Pobrecitos.

The next morning we set off for lakeside town of Albufera – a small town living off the factoid that it is where paella was invented. Bus loads of tourists were being shuttled through restaurants and onto wood boats for a 45 minute tour of a lake that had exotic mallards. Yes, I’m using exotic sarcastically.

I might be a little down on the day because I ended up not feeling well and in a bathroom without toilet paper. On the plus side, my scavenge notebook is now a few pages lighter. Always looking on the bright side of life.

Speaking of bright sides, the folks in Catalan adorn their Nativity scenes with a little statue of a squatting man pooping. I don’t know how to say spin doctor in español, but they’ve insist it isn’t sacrilegious, it’s a symbol of hope for an upcoming fertile year. Yet they take umbrage at me fertilizing in public. Seems hypocritical.

Next stop Andorra.

Our first mission upon landing in Algeciras was to get a rental car as scavenges were scattered up the East Coast of Spain and a bit to the west with Sevilla and Madrid on the docket.

The first car we could find was about an hour north in Marbella, totally bypassing Gibraltar. A few minutes from our rental office was Port Banús- an enclave for mega yachts, Ferrari’s, and herds of gawkers taking selfies against the backdrop of riches. A real Vomitville.

The drive into the coastal mountains looked remarkably similar to the drive out of LA en route to Phoenix. We headed up to Ronda to see a fantastic old stone bridge that was so picturesque that MC Escher took time to make a few pastels of it after his inspiring trip to the Alhambra (not a scavenge!).

The sun set about 9pm and we rolled into Malaga soon after. Tired, and trusting GPS to get us to our hotel, we found ourselves on narrower and narrower streets until the pavement became cobblestone, a sign we were in the old city. Oddly, there were no other cars on the road but plenty of people walking the streets, festive music, and even diners at outdoor restaurants. And where were the curbs? People looked at us warily as they shifted out of our way. You could even see fear in a few eyes given we live in a world where lunatics ram into crowds. Did Google lead us into a pedestrian only thoroughfare? This was, without a doubt, the most stressful moment in the trip!

At the hotel the guy at front desk answered the question with “It’s no problem. People move.” Not a solid answer to the question but the ordeal was over and it was time to sleep.

After the balloon ride we made our way to Casablanca to stop by Ric’s Cafe from the Humphrey Bogart movie. The cafe was not in the movie, but built to replicate it. No matter, the tourists flock to it. Mostly because Casablanca just isn’t as charming as other spots. Both Rabat and Casablanca have large areas of low income coastal housing being demolished for upscale projects so someday soon it will look like everywhere else.

Rabat was just up the road from Casablanca and its old city had a castle area with a large walled in garden with a cafe that served mint tea and cookies. Northern Morocco has varying amounts of French influence in its architecture and language, but the baked goods are where it counts. Breads and pastries were interrupted by a salad just so that I could justify going back to eating the carbs.

Whereas Chefchaouen has to be one of the cutest cities in the world. The Blue City belongs in a Super Mario video game with its winding passageways decorated with tiles and hues of blues. Your favorite map app fails spectacularly but everyone is happy to tell you where to go, “just wind up the stairs to the left, take the third right after the left fork, and it’s the eleventeenth alleyway from blue wall.”

Absolutely charming.

The next morning we went to Tetouan, a coastal city that gets crowded with beachgoers in summer. The old Medina was the wrong place to start. After walking through a cemetery to enter the labyrinth of shops we immediately came upon the tannery.

Chefchaouen was like hanging out with a nine-year-old girl who wanted to show you her favorites in her puffy sticker collection, whereas, starting off in the tannery in Tetouan was like being at Buffalo Bill’s house in Silence of the Lambs. We cringed at rotting animal corpses, hides with curled up dried flesh, swarms of flies, and suffered a stench thick enough to make Vi dry heave (for real) and run out. Iqt would have been totally redeemed had bodies with rotting flesh risen up out of the vats and chased us around. Where’s the zombie apocalypse when you need it?

After that we headed to Tangier, the final stop in Morocco. We saw a spot that has the vital distinction of being the very spot where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea – a must for territorial pirates and instagrammers.

We took second this leg and are now in first overall by one point going into the final giant scavenge – a cross county roadtrip through Spain! Stay tuned.

We started the day at 4:10am because that’s what it takes to see the sunrise in a hot air balloon.

A few observations about driving in Marrakech. The streets have no real rules: pedestrians walk where and whenever they want, scooters squeeze between any gaps between cars, and every driver races like their passenger was a pregnant woman with an arm already hanging out (with hand in classic hitchhiker thumb position). The city planners knew this so they said to the hell with it and made only traffic circles without stoplights letting natural selection take its course. Add all these variables plus no helmet law, and you get the sense the transplant waiting list is very short. Need a liver? Just wait at this intersection for about 45 minutes.

Our balloon pilot was a Spaniard who grew up learning the trade from his father. He showed us pics to prove it. He approached the ride with giddiness and taught us everything should he accidentally fall out – something that has happened often enough that the pilots are now required to be clipped in (whereas passengers are so easily replaceable they have no safety equipment). The serenity of calmly floating 2000 feet in the air without any safety backups was only interrupted by the nonstop talking of our pilot who likely believed it was his own hot air keeping us afloat rather than the propane flame jets blasting hot air into the balloon like an angry dragon breathing fire. The scene reminded me of the motto of a Plastic Surgeon I knew. Dr Meatpaws (not real name) always said “Everything looks perfect from far away” to his unhappy patients. It sure does.

The pilot showed off his landing skills by skimming the field of grass for a half mile before setting us down in the parking lot near where we started. The rest of the balloons landed in farm fields scattered over the surrounding mile or two.

Afterwards I deciphered the Five Honks Passing System. Honk 1- one quick beep- I’m going to pass you. Honk 2 – twice as long- move over. I’m passing you like it or not. Honk 3 a little longer – are you deaf? why don’t you move over when I am passing you? Honk 4- Hey Jerky, coming thru watch your rear view mirror. Honk 5 – short, quick honk that means adios amigo.

PS- Vi is knocking it out of the park with these photos!

Our primary goal for Morocco was to visit sites we haven’t seen. That meant getting out of the cities and into the wild. We lucked out finding Samir, a driver who loved Dire Straits, laughing, and speeding. I’m lucky Vi didn’t meet him first.

There’s a montage scene waiting to be in movies of an SUV speeding across the barren red rock desert of Morocco, kicking up dust at 150 km/hr, bugs smacking the windshield at 110 bpm, and Dire Straits singing “Money for Nothing” so loud it isn’t worth trying to talk.

We got to the Imlil, last city in the Atlas Mountains before the road turns to a gravel donkey path. It thrives as a base camp for 100-150 daily hikers about to embark on the four day summit of Toubkal, the highest mountain in Northern Africa. The southern part of this mountain range is Mecca for fossil collectors – fossils ranging from 400 million to 65 million years old are found in abundance: trilobites, crinoids, ammonites, shark teeth, and our friends, the dinosaurs.

For the simpletons, there’s beautiful vistas and waterfalls.

We made it to the sea port of Essaouira for some seaside calamari.

Samir admits that the women in Morocco work harder than the men as many manage the family, food, and a job. We stopped by a women’s collective that processes argan seeds to make the oil used for both cooking and facial cosmetics. It’s nicknamed liquid gold because the high premium cosmetic companies will pay for this vitamin E rich moisturizer that doesn’t clog pores. That’s just enough dermatological info for me to write off the whole trip as medical education.

Update on Team Zoe and Rainey. The seagulls we sent to slow them down have succeeded.

Our scavenge is just today! We leave tomorrow for the next country as part of the adjustments that were made to avoid anything close to the Middle East.

The good news is that Vi and I won the last leg and are in second overall. And, this is my first time to Milan so I’m happy to explore it for 12 hours. The unusual news is that this is a no-tech leg. No cellphone. No tablet. We were handed tiny Kodak “Charmera’s” that look like colorful spy cameras that have SD cards large enough to take 10k low res (1.2 megapixels) pics. This is perhaps the hardest leg – Vi gets twitchy if she is more than three feet away from her phone.

We set off on foot from the hotel to get Vi a coffee and it almost works, except we have no money and no one does a one euro credit card transaction, by sheer luck going down the street a little further we find an bookstore that has a used Milan travel guide in English! This little antiquity is a lifesaver. We pick up some gelato for breakfast and head to the next real restaurant for lunch. Homemade pastels with cacio e pepe – I love Italy!

Milan is the home to The Last Supper, but tickets have to be booked 2 weeks in advance, so we go to their amazing Duomo instead. We slogged up the five million steps to the top with great appreciation for what people were able to build without modern machinery.

Each leg has its own challenges. Our little camera’s battery died a few hours into the day so that at every bar and restaurant we went to we asked the staff to charge it. Surprisingly, they were all willing! But also, we got some strange looks as we sat at the tables pouring over maps and books.

One thing was obvious- without your “smart” phone you are far more social and must talk to people to ask directions. It was terrible. At the end of the day I took a few minutes just to bask in the warm, quiet glow of my iPhone.

We ended the evening getting a pizza the size of a manhole cover and a look of surprise and dismay from the waitress when we didn’t want to order secondi.

30,000 steps again! Thank goodness we spent the day carbo loading or we would have withered away.

The next morning we found out we won the leg by five points! We are now in first place overall. Now we are off to Morocco!

We have 1.5 days in Bangkok, which is plenty given our other adventures here. As such, the Order and Chaos fan club only gets one post for this leg.

Vi and I still have to figure out our plan. We took fourth place in Singapore and are now in second overall. We are sticking true to going to places we haven’t been, regardless of points. Check out this awesome temple.

We went to another fancy restaurant. This trip is full of contrasts, an hour ago we were paying to use the bathroom in an alleyway that the rats are afraid to go into and the next we are in a restaurant where the English-speaking maitre’d cannot believe such ruffians have a reservation…to the degree that we had to use the translation app and even after reading and trying to turn us away, she got another colleague to confirm what we were saying was accurate. Only then did she bother to check our names on the reservation list. Albeit, we were wearing smelly t-shirts and I was holding a flimsy green plastic bag with banana roti in it – but it looked more like a full dog poop bag.

They clearly under-appreciated the fact that we rubbed lemongrass oil on clothes at the incense store down the way. Oh well, can’t please everyone.

After the first course, I saw the waitstaff exchanging money, one had lost a bet that I’d eat like a piggy cuz I don’t know how to use a fork. I don’t.

Back on the streets we found roasted worms and grasshoppers to nibble on. A few subtleties became apparent. Bangkok air was smoggier, but better than when we were last here. Thai cabs are quiet, whereas, most of the Singaporean cab drivers listen to 80’s and 90’s love songs,some listen to pop from the same period, sneaking in a Brittany Spears when no one is looking. Second, the young people in far away places used to have on American sports team shirts and other U.S. pop culture references. Now it’s all Asian cartoon monsters, K-pop and high-end European fashion tee-shirts. If global dominance is measured by Asian street market inventory then Labubu is kicking America’s butt.

Vi and I went to the 78th floor observation deck of one of the skyscrapers and for the first time I saw Vi scared! Who knew that a glass floor suspended out from the building’s edge would unnerve her? She’ll trust ropes on cliffs, parachutes and bungies, but extra thick glass doesn’t make the grade.

Vi also declined the “Squid Shot”. This is a live squid, about three inches long, put into a shot glass along with some lime juice and spices and eaten alive! Most people pull it out and bite it in half first. For the record, I also declined, but I was never in the running, much like how I declined a spot on the Chicago Bulls roster.

We ran around some more, ending up at the giant reclining Buddha as time and money ran out. They only accepted cash for the entrance fee and I was 7 baht short (about 22 cents). To Vi’s horror, I asked another tourist couple and the guy was about to give it to me until his girlfriend scowled No. “In front of Buddha?” I asked and then muttered something about karma running over her dogma. Fortunately, I had two Singaporean dollars in my bag and their money changer was more than happy to do accommodate changing such a fortune.

The temperature topped out at 96 degrees, our brains were fried, but we squeezed in some final challenges in the last hour before heading to…

Milan! Milan? This giant jump west after four stops in the Far East was part of the reshuffling of countries to avoid the Middle East once Trump started a war against Iran.

Vi and I are excited, it will be cooler, the food will be incredible, we’ve never been to Milan, and we hear there is no tech allowed. Interessante.