We woke up in the Blue City at dawn and headed up to Tangier. Tilda Swinton was in a vampire movie filmed there last year. Unfortunately we didn’t see any vampires, or Tilda’s. We had to split from Lawyers Without Borders. It was a sad moment because no one else will call me idiot with the frequency of Rainey…I loved it.

We got a tea by the seaside for points before hopping onto a ferry for Spain. Our Ringmaster made Gibraltar a mandatory stop so we head to the rock. It is an impressive stony protrusion and I can understand how wanderlust travelers could come upon it and feel a compulsion to climb it. I have no such desire, so a six minute cable car ride to the top is fine for Vi and me. We have a quite tasty fish and chips at the diner on the top and I realize that only America takes pride in serving the lousiest food at tourist destinations.

Oh, did I mention that The Rock is inhabited by rhesus monkeys? Vi could watch them all day long, she says it helps her understand me. That upset me so I refused to pick the nits out of her hair.

The monkey pressed his face against the window of the restaurant like a starving homeless man. But rather than pretend he didn’t exist, the tourist snapped photos like crazy. This disturbed me. I realized I should do more to help the poor. I’m going to donate ape suits to the homeless so they’ll get the attention they deserve.

If my spot in Hell wasn’t secured, it is now.

We get down from the top of Gibraltar and it strikes me this tax shelter pseudo-country is a gimmick. No matter, we only have another half hour before the bus leaves to Seville. We walk to a taxi stand and there are no taxis. We start walking to the entrance of the island 1.5 miles away. And no taxis! How can this tourist trap suddenly dry up of taxis? Did I mention we have all of our luggage? I am now jogging with 25 pounds on my back and Vi is dragging her roller bag over brick paved sidewalks. The clacking of the wheels sounds like a machine gun.

This is a three week trip that continually comes down to minutes. Missing a museum because it closed a few minutes earlier, or running like mad across Gibraltar because your bus is about to leave. If we miss it we are screwed. This is our ride to Seville, no taxis allowed on this leg, and Vi won’t hitchhike because no one will stop to pick her up if she’s with a mutant like me.

Shove old lady out of the way at border crossing (15 points).

Sweat is pouring off me. Vi even glistens. We race up to the bus and get on. The driver closes the door on my butt and away we go. About a half hour into the trip I realize that we are back in the Western world. The radio is playing classic rock. This is the first time we’ve heard American music since Canada. It must be the bus driver’s mix because no one besides me would follow Stevie Wonder with Muse.

In Seville we grab our first gelato of the trip. About time! I put some in my pocket for later and then we attend a flamenco show put on for suckers…err, tourists.

Flamenco is a lot more fun if you imagine that when the man is dancing alone he is showing off fight moves before a brawl. We are all used to the beefy meathead who cracks his knuckles or flexes his biceps but how about the guy who struts back and forth like a rooster while slamming his heels into the ground? He stops to pose like Daniel-san’s crane kick and then transitions to Michael Jackson with his invisible butterfly knife in”Beat it.” The only problem is that the guy goes on a little too long. He’s giving away his best moves. Like don’t get entranced by that spastic finger-snapping-over-the-head move because next thing you know he’ll be tap dancing on your nose.

The women in the front row of the crowd are swooning. The only way I could make a woman drool like that is if I paralyzed her lower lip with Botox. A woman whistles at him when he pauses during his high-stepping toe-tapping solo. At the end women are throwing bras and panties on stage. I take note, some of the lingerie looks cleaner than the granny panties Vi’s been sporting the last few days.

I get where she’s coming from, we are at that point of the trip where we are so close to home that no one wants to do laundry. Sticking a dryer sheet in a bag of dirty clothes makes them fresh enough. After all, the last hotel we did laundry at charged us more than the items are worth. Wash a T-shirt for $7? I could buy two on the street for that. Needless to say, we exited late to score a bunch of slightly used undergarments. Vi gave me the ones too big for her. Reuse Renew Recycle.

Vi has a better ear than I and thought the guitarist had sloppy technique. All those years of flamenco guitar lessons worked (no joke). Maybe this adventure will get the six string back into her hands.

We had a wonderful dinner of grilled fish and eggplant “fries” along the river running through the city. They charged us 2 Euro for “cutlery” on the bill. Had I known I would have eaten with my hands. We managed to make it to bed by midnight.

Tomorrow morning we leave Seville for Portugal. Too bad, I was hoping to visit the barber.

This multi day scavenge has some land mines. There is a boatload of scavenges in Morocco and in Portugal. We can’t do everything but we must hit Fes, Gibraltar, Seville, and Porto in the next 72 hours. When we return to work it is going to seem so slow paced that we will likely die of ennui.

At the same time, we want to see Morocco minus the minarets. I think our Ringmaster puts in these easy scavenges just to see when we will break. I’d rather look at a decapitated camel head in a narrow alley than see another minaret. (For the budding author, that is some heavy handed foreshadowing).

We are in the car by 6am (if you get more than 6 hours of sleep a night you are just being selfish) and leave Rabat for Meknès, just over halfway to Fes. There we see a mausoleum and a meat market way grosser than Athens. Hunchbacked men buckle under dinosaur sized slabs of meat bringing in the day’s catch. The air is thick with flies and odors. Cats creep in and out of shadows. I am talking about the meat market and not the mausoleum. Better cats than rats…right?

We leave Meknès for Volubilis but realize it is a trap. It will add and hour and a half we don’t have to an already hectic day. Had the city taken my recommendation and changed its name from Volubilis to Voluptuous I’m sure they would be overrun with tourists despite their off the beaten path location.

We get to Fes by 11:30 am and meet a city guide. Without Abdul Malek we would still be wandering the city center. By now you are sick of hearing about labyrinthine old souks, so just imagine how we feel traipsing through them. I do appreciate that many of the goods there are for locals; silk thread shops, honey alley (sampled a bunch from giant vats, given to us in a way that tests the antibacterial properties of honey), stone chiselers, wood workers, embroiderers, etc. The leather worker district gave us a glimpse into the process of creating leather from a hide. Men sloshed skins in vats of liquid. Fun fact: Pigeon poop is used for making white leather. Remember Myanmar? Pigeon blood was used to make rubies…I’m sure of it.

I was assured that nothing but the most natural products were being used in the safest of ways. Assuredly, the men standing in pools of chemicals were fine, yes those chemicals can strip the hair off a cowhide in minutes, and yes, those men standing in it are totally healthy…they all just choose to not have kids and they glow in the dark from the thighs down by choice.

We see some other goods and then…wait for it…a butcher selling camel meat with a freshly decapitated camel head to advertise his shop hanging from a hook in the alley. The modern advertising world must look at this sort of thing to justify their existence and stoke their egos.

We “head” to a nice restaurant for a cooking class. This is how the Chaos half of the team works: Vi was supposed to book a reservation at a fancy restaurant but somehow accidentally booked a cooking class despite not even knowing they offer classes. This scores us a wad of points. To add to it, the class wasn’t supposed to be offered but someone messed up removing the option from the website. Blind squirrels finding nuts.

Vi subjects herself to a Hammam scrub down despite my cries of warning. Apparently she will sell the outer six layers of her skin for next to nothing (just points).

We exit the city via streets along the edge of the souk. They are so narrow that shop owners have to guide us through so we don’t knock over their wares. Our drive through northern Morocco to the Blue City shows us a lush farming land that makes us wonder why anyone lives in the rocky desert. It’s like the Sahara Desert was slapped down next to Napa Valley and the majority of people said “I hate cutting grass, but I love building sand castles.” And then stuck with it.

The Blue City comes off sounding like one of those drive by Midwest attractions like Wall Drug or The Corn Palace. All they did was take an old city center and paint everything different colors of blue. But they pulled it off. I’ll let the pics speak for themselves. That said, they could have just handed out blue tinted glasses on the way into town and saved on a fortune in paint.

We crash into bed at 11:30pm with the alarm set for 5:15am.

Rise and shine! No shine, the sun won’t be up for over an hour.

We started the day with a drive north of Marrakech to do a hot air balloon ride. Vi and I had never done one so it was exciting just to watch them inflate the balloons with giant fans and a flamethrower only otherwise used in first-person-shooter video games. Being novices, we didn’t know if it was normal for a balloon to inflate 3/4 of the way and then drag the basket and all the men holding it across the stony field while we all stood by and watched. Men raced around, pulling on cables, and gave us a quick primer on Moroccan expletives to add to our experience but not our confidence.

The four of us hopped into the basket of the first ready balloon and took off. The ascent is as smooth as an elevator even as the wind sweeps us southbound at a good clip. I’m impressed by our pilot – this is the first time I’ve seen a young woman with a job other than selling goods or food or henna in the marketplace. For the most part, women are markedly absent. I’m used to them hiding from me, but a whole country?

We watch the other two balloons below inflate and deflate like they are taking giant breaths. Neither manage to fill. Our pilot tells us that the winds are complex today so she will be the only pilot. She will take the next group up in this one.

When it comes time to land the wind has really picked up. She spins the balloon into position and throws a large rope over the edge. It is attached to the metal cage above our basket. At the other end is a large ring. It drags across the ground 30 feet below. A Jeep comes bouncing across the rocky fields kicking up dirt and its passenger is ready with a rope of his own attached to a tow ring on the front bumper.

Our pilot has us get into the crash, err, landing position with knees bent into a squat, facing windward, and holding rope rings attached to our basket wall. She blasts the burners and jets of flame blast out of them with the ferocity of an angry dragon. The heat feels good on my skull but barely slows our descent.

The Jeep’s passenger, a tiny spry man with a reasonable vertical jump, leaps off the moving vehicle and grabs the dangling rope. He clips his end on and we are now attached to the Jeep. Our basket skids into the ground and the strong wind wants to keep carrying the balloon somewhere far away. Our basket starts to tip over. The Jeep’s tether is our only hope. Its brakes are locked yet our momentum drags it across the field with ease, the balloon is moving the Jeep like it is a plastic toy and our basket is still leaning! Tipping. We are now all leaning towards the Jeep and the best moment of the day (so far) happens.

The catcher of ropes, a little man about 90 pounds soaking wet, races up to the side of our basket to tip the scale in our favor. Never mind that the Jeep is still dragging, this powerhouse of a twig, digs in his heels to stop us like Superman stopping a speeding train with the same jaw-clenching, eye-wincing determination. It was one of those glimpses into the human spirit that would inspire most people, but I just found it hilarious.

We actually stop and the basket settles into the ground and off we go to the next scavenge.

We drive up to Casablanca for a wholly different experience. Casablanca is an ugly old woman who used to be something in her heyday and now just bears the pretty name as a reminder. Paint peels, balconies sag, feet drag, and the colors faded. The buildings are sad, the bartenders dilapidated, but the mosque reaches the sky.

The second largest mosque in the world! It really is proof that their God is bigger than your God. You will be intimidated if you ever visit.

Then we ran around through its central market only to return to our car to find a yellow metal boot on it. I thought that thing was only for college kids.

We shared that sinking feeling, a sick mix of hours lost, serpentine, maddening bureaucracy, and outlandish bribes. The locals on the street laughed at our expense. A man came out of the neighboring shop with a grin like he just sat on his little brother and ripped one.

He told us to call the number on the yellow sticker on our car. Before Vi could dial the number (and her phone was surgically implanted onto her hand months ago) the guy turns up the street and gives a whistle. I started to get that There’s A Hustle Coming On feeling.

A lanky young man with his face lit up like there was never a better day in his life strolled up to us. He wore a loose T-shirt and jeans, not really the Meter Police uniform I expected.

We asked, “How much?” A dreaded question.

“30 dirham,” he said.

30 dirham! Three dollars. Just like Dr Evil asking for only 1 million dollars when he held the world for ransom, this was a joke. This was the best parking fine ever. We high-fived each other in celebration, paid the man, and hightailed it out of there for Rabat.

Get boot off your car in less than ten minutes (25 points).

Rabat is the young beautiful woman with a name that makes her sound like a toad. But she’s going places and she’s got the brain to get her there. You have to wonder how two cities, right next to each other, could be so different. It might help that the King lives there. The streets are clean, the buildings crisp and proud. The art museum has an Impressionism show, whereas Casablanca had an impressive display of cobwebs.

I felt underdressed in Rabat, a chronic condition those around me are forced to suffer through. Now you know why Vi makes me walk ten feet away from her.

We visited a necropolis. I was disappointed that there wasn’t a single zombie there. But maybe that was my fault, we were there before the sun went down. The place was overrun by giant white storks. Then we went to the old city, a charming little maze of sidewalks (no mopeds even), and enjoyed a mint tea (a glass of mint leaves with some tea filling the spaces between) while overlooking the coast.

Final review: 4 thumbs up.

Bam!

After being allowed to sleep in and eat breakfast we were hit with the biggest scavenge our Ringmaster has ever created. It started Sunday 11am in Marrakech and doesn’t end until Friday 11am in Porto, Portugal. We must visit Gibraltar and Spain on the way, no flights, and can only rent and use a car in one country (no borders crossed). The booklet has 150 scavenges going all different directions. We were tempted to drive an hour west to see some goats that live/climb/eat in trees because seeing bad-ass tree-climbing goats would be a fantasy come true for me.

We were allowed to team up for one country so we chose (a synonym for begged) to join Lawyers Without Borders in an attempt to drag down the current leaders. The second place team is to deliver a suitcase of unmarked bills to us in NYC if the plan works. Vi and I are usually as successful as Boris and Natasha when it comes to nefarious plots. Stay tuned.

Morocco has always been on our Go-To list and it did not disappoint. I’m not a shopper but I love winding through the narrow maze-like souk with all the strange wares. The ancient Moroccans clearly planned for the influx of future tourists and labored tirelessly to create items to be sold as antiques.

Vi couldn’t resist photographing colorful displays of spices. And I couldn’t resist buying a trilobite. Morocco is known for their fossils, both from the Cambrian period (ended 250 million years ago) and dinosaurs from the Cretaceous (died 65mya). Okay, I’ll stop nerding out now.

I love a country that only serves fresh squeezed orange juice. Orange trees sagged with fruit were wedged between buildings as if it were the city’s solution to feed the homeless. A Moroccan urban planning fact: to save time designing the street layout a plate of spaghetti and sauce was flung onto a wall and whatever stuck became the city map. The cellphone map feature is mostly worthless as you magically teleport from one street to another in the app. But don’t worry, for a few dollars any local will show you where you want to go, and what luck, his brother’s shop is along the way! What divine coincidence, you were just checking eBay for a pair of fuzzy slippers that make your feet look like Chewbacca’s and here they are.

Our Ringmaster jinxed us that morning when he mentioned it hadn’t rained our whole time overseas. Dark clouds blotted out the sky and tried their best. The strong sun evaporated all the little drops before they hit the ground so only the plumpest managed to splat onto us at infrequent random times. The first one that hit me scared me because I thought a bird had bullseyed me.

We ducked into a scavenge restaurant and ate four things off our list. Vis food of the day was a roasted chicken in a jus seasoned with garlic, turmeric, and some secret green stuff. My favorite was a mellow yellow curry and a grilled naan. General rule: Chances are it isn’t good food if you can’t eat it with your hands.

That evening we attended a belly dancer show. Strange to see a half naked woman gyrating like she is suffering a seizure in a religious world that otherwise keeps women wrapped up like mummies. I’m suspecting ageism and sexism when it comes to hiring belly dancers.

We walked out through the market and it struck me that Marrakech is a roller coaster of odors. Cumin, grilled meat, fresh mint bring you higher and higher until you plunge into raw fish, body sweat, and cat urine. Sandalwood, roasted vegetables, and the sharp smoke of a fresh weld fill their niches in the souk and every few feet offers a surprise.

Vi had a slight cold so she took in the colors more than the smells. The souk had a dyers district for cloth makers, a vegetable market, and trinkets galore. Plenty of photo fodder for the budding photographer.

Overall, we were charmed by old Marrakech. So glad we came!

April 27

We woke up at 7am after a late night and rushed out of the hotel to get to the Acropolis before it got too crowded and hot. Vi has never been here and I was here 25 years ago. Sorry to say, things are still in ruins.

I promise that won’t be my worst pun during this adventure.

The ancient Greeks were amazing. They built giant temples to a panoply of gods. They invented philosophy, coins, cranes, cement, and the octopus. Well, the word, which is why the plural is octopuses and not octopi (it isn’t a Latin word).

They weren’t perfect, but they were productive. A day stomping through the stone streets of Athens on passages barely wide enough for a car and crammed with tourists wore us out. Vi had over 11 miles on her pedometer. Our lunchtime souvlaki was hard earned. One restaurant made this lightly grilled, thick cut, homemade bread with olive oil and seasonings (salt, garlic, oregano) on it. So tasty!

Our Ringmaster likes us to do scavenges in central markets so we headed to the Agora to price out some olives and herbs. I was slightly disturbed by the whole skinless lambs in the meat market. Mary had a little lamb, Dimitri had some dinner.

The unexpected scavenge of the day involved finding three different Olympic venues from three different centuries. The Greeks started the Olympics in 1896 because they were all gaining weight and needed a way to promote exercise. The 2004 Games were in Athens and I did not recall that Santiago Calatrava had been the architect for the buildings. His giant sweeping arcs and suspension cables all in bright white create something that is both science fiction in a clean Gattaca way and at the same time organic, like an exotic bird or insect. If you aren’t familiar with his “Eye” building in Valencia, here’s a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Arts_and_Sciences

Some of the Olympic sites are abandoned and decaying. Others have been repurposed. I wonder what the Greek government got back out of the 12 billion they poured into the project.

The we went on to see the Temple of Haephestus, Hadrian’s arch, the Temple to Zeus (just a bunch of giant columns reaching pointlessly towards the clouds), and the Tower of the Winds. The ruins are one thing, but I like that parts of the ancient city are still alive, sticking out of the ground in random places along walkways or even incorporated into the walls or floors of restaurants. Vi got that glazed eye templed-out look but I dragged her to Aristotle’s lyceum anyway. Aristotle’s School of Philosophy had a gymnasium. Who knew that the word gymnasium meant ‘naked’ and that men did all of those events in the nude? And why would a philosopher want a gymnasium on the school grounds? That wasn’t usual. But then I saw Vi in dreamy reverie while looking at the little piles of stone ruins and realized that just the idea of buff naked men could put someone deep into thought. I wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth and we moved on.

We had to go to the airport at 7pm. So long, Greece and see you in Marrakech, Morocco! Time to cue up Crosby, Stills, and Nash on your playlist for the few people who know the song.

April 25 – sorry, thought this posted days ago

How can any day follow Petra and the Dead Sea?

When we woke up and looked out the hotel window we could see Jericho across the Dead Sea. Vi started the day with a memorable quote, “I’ll be ready as soon as I’m done blow drying my socks.” Vi also picked up a tip on drying clothes from another traveler. After wringing it dry, wrap it in a towel and roll it up and stomp on it.

I’ve discovered a new medical ailment I call Hypertravel Disorientation, HD for short. This is the phenomenon of waking up in the morning and having no idea where you are, which side of the bed to get out of, whether the bathroom is to the left or right or straight ahead. This must happen to rock stars on tour, and maybe those hard-working folks who make a living off of their promiscuity. HD isn’t a joke, one traveler got a good shin bruise from forgetting there was a bench at the foot of the bed, another walked into a wall and whacked his forehead.

Part of this high speed travel is that my circadian rhythm is as broken as my sense of musical rhythm. My pineal gland has thrown in the towel. Sleep is when there is a bed around, my body has given up on any sense of actually trying to overlap fatigue and sleep. Finally, I understand what it is like to be Vi, who has the amazing ability to sleep on command and never once has suffered jet lag.

We traveled up to Mt. Nebo, where Moses was buried. We snapped photos of highly detailed mosaics in a church up there. Nowadays people spend years clacking away at computers, but don’t have anything to show for it, whereas centuries ago people worked their fingers to the bone and created art that lasted for the ages. I’m thinking this blog might spark a neo-Luddite revolution…

We went up to Jerash, the site of a large Roman ruin. Jordan is rich in history and the fact that the country and its antiquities survive while surrounded by countries hellbent on destruction is impressive.

Just when we started to figure this place out we learn we are leaving the next morning at 7:15am. Athens – switching from Roman ruins to Greek ones. And thank Zeus that we’re going from shawarmas to gyros. Globetrotting carnivores rejoice!

April 23

We woke up early for a 6:30am bus to Petra and find many of our group on the same bus. We are allowed to use Uber on this leg, but just not for the 3.5 hour drive to Petra. The bus leaves an hour late and we arrive around 11 am only to find more of our group arriving too. Petra is Jordan’s big attraction.

Indiana Jones fans eat your heart out – a secret city carved into stone walls along slot canyons. It’s almost as if the ancient Nabataeans knew the future would need a backdrop for a swashbuckling archeologist in search of the Holy Grail. A walk through a narrow sandstone canyon, like those in Utah, only heightens the sense of mystery and magic in a way that would fill JK Rowling with envy. Small horse carts pulling tourist couples at $50 a pop fly down the rocky path, leaving sightseers plastered to the wall. Their breakneck speed makes me wonder if a giant round boulder (not Golden) is rumbling down the canyon after them.

Not five minutes after we enter do we see a pair of bus mates leaving on such a cart. They raced in and snapped the iconic photo for a buttload of points and are now on to the next mission. Vi and I share our disbelief. This is one of the modern wonders of the world, and a dream come true to see. We aren’t going to squander our opportunity to soak it in for a higher score. The beauty of this adventure is that it is loaded with things to do, many of them things you might never otherwise do. But the competition also means time is points. I can tell our Ringmaster has struggled with how to control the balance between rushing and enjoying. It doesn’t help that this sort of trip might select for people that get a satisfaction, even true enjoyment, from checking off boxes on a list. Not that Vi would know anyone like that.

Back to Petra. We wish we could see it in all its grandeur when the carvings were crisp and the corners sharp. I’d love to experience the awe a horseback traveler must have felt when coming across an entire city carved into the sandstone. How long did it take to make these houses?

An American woman walked by wearing a tight blue tank top and shorts and a local worker dressed in the typical Muslim garb muttered something that I was able to interpret to mean “Holy Cannelloni, that’s a lot more skin than the eyeballs and ankles I’m use to.” I speak fluent catcall.

I will say this, if you are a woman and you are single, or divorced, or don’t feel as sexy as you used to, or maybe just don’t want to put any effort in finding a man, then Jordan is for you. Vi wasn’t wearing a wedding ring – her bare hand was essentially a flag-waving, trumpets blaring proclamation that hunting season was open. If she got a dollar for every proposition flung her way we wouldn’t need to win the global scavenger hunt, much less work again. She turned around and smacked me when she realized half the whistles were coming from me.

After Petra we hired a taxi to the Dead Sea. The only thing I knew about the Dead Sea was what I read in a Ripley’s Believe it or Not book when I was a kid: the water is so dense people don’t sink in it. That is the main reason the Italians gave it up. What would they want with a Sea where a body won’t sink? There aren’t any fishes to sleep with either.

Floating in the Dead Sea gives you the same buoyancy as balancing in the water with a kickboard under your butt (PG version for Emory) except no worry of falling off it. You can lay back with your head, both hands, and both feet out of the water and not sink. This is because the Dead Sea is so dense with salt that the water weighs more than humans per cubic meter. The high salinity also means that anywhere raw will sting, you are literally pouring salt in your wounds or your diaper rash.

Back to the density of water…if there was a place where Jesus walked on water this must be it.

“Hey, Jesus, what are you doing with those snowshoes on? You loco.”

Moments later.

“Whoa, dude, you are like walking on water.”

Getting out of the water leaves the slightly slick, somewhat slimy feeling of mineral oil on your skin. The water evaporates and you are left with a gummy salt caked to your swimsuit.

The beach comes equipped with a shower for immediate desalinization.

I feel sorry for the poor saps of history that journeyed across the barren land to finally find water and took that first gulp of this nearly poisonous brackish water.

One last bonus, the Dead Sea resides at the lowest place in Earth, over 400m below sea level. Hopefully the lowest point in our lives.

More adventuring tomorrow!

April 22

Our flight to Jordan from Abu Dhabi was uneventful. The rest of the evening, however…

Our first impression of the people of Jordan came from a taxi driver who said he accepted credit cards. His mission was to drive us to a local coffee shop/ bookstore so we could knock off a scavenge and get info. He started driving without knowing where we were going and handed me a phone to speak to someone who speaks English. We got about four blocks before we realized this relationship just wasn’t going to work out. It was him, not us. He started yelling at us and tried to say the taxi ride was $20 (should have been $2, at the most) and then refused to take credit card. We negotiated a lower price and then I figured karma would take care of the rest. I’m sure his toes turned green and fell off by now.

It was nice of our Ringmaster to take us from the upper crust Middle East to the blue collar workers – the latter seem far more real and relatable. This trip shows all sides of life in rapid succession like an alien anthropologist made a flip book of Earth culture for the Martian kindergarteners back home.

At the coffee shop we shared a lemon mint hookah. The smoke was so smooth it didn’t make either of us cough. It didn’t make us high either so we went back out to the streets to smoke some crack for 50 points. (I’m joking,mom. Relax.)

Then we went by a mosque and walked through a shopping district. How so many stores stay in business selling the same black burqas is a mystery.

What do you think women want to wear this year?

Let’s go with black, it’s timeless.

For more points we had to eat some falafel. Twist my arm. This country knows how to make hummus more addictive than the aforementioned crack.

Lastly we had to go to a Turkish bath. I offered to sit this one out still scared from Olga the Killer Masseuse back in Vietnam. I am uneducated when it comes to the dark web of sadism, but appropriately fearful. When we arrived we learned that women aren’t allowed after sunset. Vi would have to wait outside while I go in, alone.

The main room was a domed cavelike structure with arches of brick and concrete. In the center was a large green hot tub, bubbling, but no one in it to cook. It appeared I was their only guest. It was hard to confirm as every side of the room had little alcoves or doors and the lighting emanating from hanging bronze lamps threw more shadows than photons. It didn’t escape me that the lamps were stellated dodecahedrons. If I were going to choose a religion based on geometry then it would be Muslim hands down. I’ll take a hexagonal tessellation mosaic over a bleeding Jesus painting every time.

They handed me a fruit flavored slushy in a plastic cup and sent me into a room so thick with steam I couldn’t see two feet. I sat down and closed my eyes because my contacts were melting. After a few minutes I learned that perspective is everything and I had World’s best Slurpee in my hand to prove it. I savored every shard of ice, sweating them out faster than I was drinking them.

Then came a quick shower before I was brought into another alcove with a single stone slab like the top of a sarcophagus. A young shirtless man instructed me to sit on it. He removed a new white cloth from a bag and slipped his hand into it and dunked it into a stone tub of soapy water. Remember the car washing mitt fad?

The mitt was not a sponge but rather a low grade sandpaper, not even 60. If God wanted to wipe the Rocky Mountains off Earth in one swipe, this would have been the sandpaper of choice. He scrubbed at my arms while I screamed “No, Olga, no.”

He assured me he was only going to take off the outer 1/8 inch. After my arms came my legs, back, and belly. Silver lining: at least I didn’t have an outie belly button.

Then into the hot tub to soothe my raw, freshly-peeled-blister skin.

Last stop, massage. This guy was into massaging muscles and not bones so it was a lot more tolerable. I was relaxed enough that when he massaged my forearms my fingers danced like I was playing an invisible piano.

A final shower and I exited to find Vivian has made friends with the owner of the establishment. We sat with him for snacks and asked him questions about Jordan. His generosity and friendliness erased our rough start. He even insisted on driving us back to the hotel and invited us to his house for dinner later in the week. His kindness didn’t earn us any scavenge points but we felt like we scored.

April 22

This chocolate nest was waiting for us when we checked into our room. The opulent confection represented Abu Dhabi in general, unbeknownst to us at the time.

We meet at 9:30am with all the other teams. Our Ringleader announces that one of the teams yesterday got a photo of an elephant at Safari World…the very place we were turned away from! I learn they went in the park anyway and to where the elephant is supposed to be and then bribed their way in to see the elephant. Vi and I admit we aren’t that savvy.

We set out on our mission at 10am. Unfortunately, Vi is suffering the same “Food Poisoning” that I am recovering from. Let’s just say our day will be paced at a fast trots.

Abu Dhabi is one of the grandest cities in the world and such a strange place to visit after being in Myanmar. Look how clean this fish market is – if a single fly is found guys in Hazmat suits rush in with flamethrowers to torch the place. If there is any city to be recovering from the Rangoon Runs this is it. Every public bathroom is immaculate, at least before Vi used it.

In some ways, the cleanliness makes the whole place ring false, like we’re in a Disney theme park. Why else would there be patches of green grass in the desert? It’s 100 degrees out, not exactly topiary garden weather.

The city is arranged in a strip of architectural marvels that come off nearly as absurd as Las Vegas. The presidential palace is an impressive sterile beauty (insert sexy eunuch reference before posting) but lacks the charm of the well-worn grandiose structures of Rome or Cairo the way The Luxor Casino could never pass for an ancient temple by the Nile. We slip over to the “old” Emirates Palace, now an upscale hotel to fulfill a scavenge of a “golden cappuccino.” You guessed it, 23K gold flakes are speckled on the cappuccino foam. Perhaps no other scavenge drives home how this global scavenger hunt puts you in positions to question who you really are. We just left a country where a donation of $25 would feed a family for a week, and now we are asked to drop that to drink down a cup of golden absurdity. It seems like a little thing, but both Vi and I feel spending money we wouldn’t normally spend just to get points violates the principle of who we are. Vi would have much rather donated the money to a Save the Bats Foundation for points. She agrees wholeheartedly when I suggest she hold a strainer under herself for her next few trips to the toilet. We’re going to reclaim that gold…and that from a few strangers I saw imbibing the precious drink if I can swing it.

We head to the city’s north end and after finding a dates market (the dried fruit, not a singles hook-up spot). When we try to move on to the carpet souk and are thwarted by a car accident blocking the road. There is some irony in being gridlocked on a four lane road paved road because of an accident after traveling across Myanmar where racing cars share the road with dilapidated tractors. The ultimate Missed Photo Of The Day was seeing a red Ferrari on the side of the road with the engine cover open and the car pulled over to offer help was a blue Lamborghini with what I guess was both drivers looking at the cars innards in confusion.

Our pace doesn’t pick up. Vi and I consider changing our team name from Order and Chaos to The Tortoise and the Hairless. Due to another accident, we aren’t able to get onto the bridge that led us to the Louvre of Abu Dhabi. Vi makes a frown so big that the corners of her mouth wrap down around her chin and onto her neck. The photo cracks me up. She looks a bit like a monkey. Haven’t you always wanted a monkey? (Barenaked Ladies reference for those of you with one eyebrow up).

Forget it. We head to kayak in the mangroves. Vi and I break their rules and head to the outskirts of the mangroves rather than the path between them so that I can jump into the Persian Gulf (a proper noun that before today just mean “war” to me). Because Vi really doesn’t want to be with me anymore and the easiest way out of the relationship is to have me arrested and spend my life in a rocky hole in the ground prison in the UAE, she suggests I skinny dip. No thanks, these are one-and-done underwear for this trip, they might as well earn me some points for their last hurrah. Score!

We then go to a massive mosque modeled after the much smaller Taj Mahal before going to Ferrari World. We ride world’s fastest roller coaster twice in a row. Zero to 150mph in less than five seconds. Should’ve kept those undies, if you catch my drift.

Our taxi driver back to the hotel discusses what we’ve already observed – immigrants do all the work. Abu Dhabi has only 400,000 real citizens, funded by oil, untouchable by the rules, and never do any work alongside any immigrants. Our driver admits that the UAE offers more opportunities than his own country of Nepal. In some ways, the situation fulfills that oft discussed hypothetical question (by me to me) of what will people do once robots do all the basic work of society? The immigrants are playing the role of robots, but we never got to see behind the curtain holding the answer. Well, maybe we got a glimpse, we did see two guys in supercars scratching their baffled heads. The gas goes where?

Like all preceding nights we return to the hotel exhausted. This night set apart by a quick stop at the grocery store to buy some camel milk…something else we normally wouldn’t spend money on as I prefer it straight from the udder.

Over and out of here. Tomorrow we go to Jordan! The country, not Michael.   

April 21

It only hits me now that Vi and I did spend “One night in Bangkok” a few days ago. Now we are back for an eight hour scavenge.

We hit the ground running by leaving our bags in the airport and jumping into a taxi for the Grand Palace. The 50min drive gives us time to plot our route and discover half of the restaurants on the list aren’t open.

We see the palace, eat lunch, cross a river in a boat, see a Wat, ask locals questions while we wait for a return boat, and Vi does a You-break-it-you-buy-it when her backpack takes out a clay elephant at a vendor stall. (-4 dollars). A ill omen we fail to recognize. She somehow gets rewarded with a foot massage for this bad behavior.

Our Forced to Talk to Strangers scavenge has us learn how Thai people have many nicknames (their formal names look like someone fell asleep on a keyboard and woke up 250 keystrokes later). One guy we met was nicknamed “oops” because his father almost dropped him right after he was born. At least the nickname wasn’t earned when his father learned his wife was pregnant.

From the flower market we have 4 hours until our flight takes off. Plenty of time to race an hour out of the way to snap a photo of an elephant. The tighter time gets the more vivid my fantasies of teleporting become.

It takes an hour to get there and Vi and I run up to the entrance. The woman at the counter tries to sell us the Safari package but we tell her we only want to see an elephant.

“Sorry, no elephant.”

What! No elephant at Safari World? They sometimes have one to see, but not this afternoon. I offer a bribe to snap a photo of the elephant and she laughs in response. We’re feeling somewhere between “WallyWorld is closed” and “there’s no basement in the Alamo.” We trudge back to the taxi in defeat.

The world is so unfair!

All I want is a captive elephant sitting miserably in a cage waiting for me to photograph him. Is that too much to ask? Work with me people.

Off to the airport! We are going to Abu Dhabi. Vi has no idea where in the world that is but as long as they have coffee and elephants she’ll be sound as a pound.