Mintastic

The older I get, the more grateful I am to have the kind of family that loves to explore, to tell ridiculous self-deprecating stories (and do the things required to have such stories), and - a prerequisite for the others - to spend time together. I can't recall which family trip was most recent, but it might have been the few days we spent at the ice hotel in Canada 5-10 years ago. Since most of that trip was spent imitating ice sculptures, hot tubbing until we were wrinkly, and endlessly teasing my mother, I suspected that my sister and I would spend the next two weeks cracking up while my mother grumbled good-naturedly. Our first 24 hours have confirmed my suspicions.

We arrived in Casablanca, where we all lamented not rewatching the eponymous movie before our trip. My father was disappointed to find out Rick's Cafe didn't open until noon, though I doubt we would appreciate the full effect of a piano bar at 9 am off a red-eye. Instead, we piled into our van with Ahmed and Mohamed, our drive and guide, respectively, and drove to Rabat. The countryside we passed was a lush green, and crop fields spread out around us. That area of the country grows the majority of the cereal grains for the surrounding regions, and we appreciated the view after a night of airports, tarmac, and monochrome airplane interiors.

We soon reached Rabat, the capital of Morocco. Multiple authors have called Morocco an "assault on the senses", and it was - in the best way possible. Modern arteries wind through the city with traffic and jaywalking and nonsensical intersections. Small alleys are bursting with entrepreneurial enthusiasm, with each salesman vying for your gaze, your ear, and your foot traffic. With each shop measuring only 8-10 feet wide, there's a lot of competition for the attention and dirhams of locals and tourists alike.

As we adjusted to our surroundings, we started somewhere far more peaceful: the mausoleum of King Mohammed V.

The mausoleum of Mohammed V in the background, with the pillars of the former mosque and an octagonal star fountain in the foreground.

The mausoleum is located at the site of the former Hasan Mosque, now reduced to a field of pillars and the square Hasan Tower. The mosque was built in the 1100s to be the second-largest mosque in the Muslim world (after one in Iraq) and fit 16,000-17,000 people in its heyday. In the 1700s, it crumbled, leaving only its ribs reaching skyward. Over the years, the floor of the mosque was built up, leaving only stubby pillar protrusions and making the Hasan Tower relatively squat compared to the graceful rise of other minarets. But when you stop and realize that all of this was built nearly a millenium ago, without our modern tools, as a place where tens of thousands could gather and share their faith five times a day, it feels a little bit magical. Its one of those think-of-the-feet-that-trod-here moments.

A few other things we learned about Islamic architecture:
- Minarets are the tallest buildings in the city, largely so they can fulfill their function. Before speaker systems, the call to prayer was an unaided human voice from the minarets and had to carry long distances. As a result, these slender pillars punctuate the skyline in every direction. They're a pretty good landmark if you get lost (and can tell them apart). We also learned that minarets in Morocco are typically square rather than round; round minarets are built in places that were part of the Ottoman Empire, but Morocco never was and therefore retains architectural influences from the Romans. Those squares.
- The old city and mosque walls are made out of pizzi (?), a mixture of earth, clay, bricks, and stones. Like other cultures that used earthen walls, the walls absorb heat during the hot parts of the day and radiate the heat back out as the weather cools, providing a weather in the often sweltering Moroccan summer.
- Many architectural elements, including pillars and fountains, are built in octagonal shapes. The eight points represent the eight entrances to paradise according to Islam.
- Pretty sure I mentioned this in my blogging about Istanbul, but Islamic art doesn't contain representations of figures. Instead, it relies on gorgeous geometric patterns (either painted tiles or intricate mosaic-work) and Arabic script. In Istanbul, the words were often gilded, while in Morocco thus far the words have been more subtly incorporated into the patterns.

After our exploring, we headed to our hotel, where we enjoyed hot mint tea with a tooth-decaying amount of sugar. Our hotel is fancy Moroccan house called a a riad, which means "paradise" and is a very fitting name. Riads are distinguished by the presence of a central garden and fountain, which provides evaporative cooling that makes the riad an oasis from the hot, dry, dusty streets. We sat drinking tea while learning about our guide and driver, both of whom are Berbers. They also taught us important tips, like how to drink the hot Moroccan tea from the handle-less glass cups. You have to pinch the cup between two fingers placed on the top rim and the thick bottom glass, bypassing the expansive of third-degree burn-inducing glass in the middle.

Proper tea-drinking technique

Why would you want to drink your tea while it's that hot?, you might ask. Apparently Moroccans have heat-resistant throats. We had to be a bit more cautious.

When all of our tea had been consumed, we ventured out to lunch at a local dar.

Washing our hands on entering the dar for lunch

Dars, in contrast to riads, are more typical houses. This restaurant appeared to be two dars that had been combined and dedicated to use as a restaurant, including a large, shaded top deck where we sat. We enjoyed tagines, the traditional Moroccan entrees served in the iconic dishes consisting of a bottom platter covered with a sort of ceramic traffic cone-type lid.

My sister and I have been thrilled by the prospect of prunes in our meals (rather than relegated to dietary supplements for the elderly, as in the United States). Sadly, there were few prunes in this meal, but we hold out hope for the future.

While Rabat quieted for its siesta, we spent the afternoon wandering, particularly along the waterfront. Rabat has both a riverfront and an oceanfront, which made for seemingly endless views. We first walked through the Oudaya, a fortified section of Rabat with tiny streets meant for wandering.

The Oudaya has distinctive blue and white walls; the blue is apparently thought to repel mosquitoes.

(Maybe the Blue Man Group is on to something!) The Oudaya had gorgeous gardens where locals lounged and read books, and where we learned that he inside of a banana peel is like the Moroccan Windex cure-all - rub it on bug bites or pretty much anything. We stopped for more tea as well as a variety of nut-based cookies (almond paste, pistachio flavor, etc), beating the post-3rd-prayer rush.

Then it was off to mosey, stopping to admire the hand of Fatima on doorways (Fatima was the daughter of the Prophet and is seen as a protector against evil; Fatima is a popular girl's name here as a result) or watch young children shriek with glee as their soccer ball ricocheted off the alley walls.

We ended with a walk along the oceanfront, where I learned that Rabat has a surfing culture and also where young couples seemed to escape for (relative) privacy.

I also met this excited pup!

In the final hours of daylight and before dinner, I wandered through the street markets, sidestepping around locals haggling with vendors over kaftans and abayas as well as the latest Spanx-type underwear. Since there's no place to try things on, grandmothers stretched shirts across daughters' backs, checking the shoulder width, or held up a cloth to someone's face to check if the color would flatter their complexion. Besides some soda for my sister, who has been battling stomach upset, I managed to restrict myself to window(less) shopping. Just getting a sense of the merchandise for now.

Our family ended the day with dinner at the riad, enjoying fresh fish, tagines, vegetables roasted into a bread-scoopable pulp, and a fruit salad that could feed a village. Of course, after lingering for dinner for 3-4 hours, we finished nearly everything.

Spotted:
Amazing street art!

Some other assorted photos:

A view from inside of the mausoleum

With a mausoleum guard, looking very much like we had just gotten off a red-eye flight

An old woman buying mint from a merchant

Did I mention they like mint?

Moonrise

Up and at ‘em early for more diving! 

We entered the water as the sun rose on one side of the boat and the moon lingered on the other. Our dawn dive at a spot called “360” was worth every bit of lost sleep: we saw a sea turtle! As our dive guide had said beforehand, the turtles are sleepy in the morning, just like you! We saw one turtle just beneath the surface, gliding effortlessly as its legs waved back and forth through the water. The second was much deeper, weaving through the reef.

Diving once more with Joey, we went around and through the reef, oohing and aahing internally at the gorgeous colors of the lively reef. Josh and I were more and more comfortable with each dive that we did. By the end, we were able to do a flip to enter the water, even in our heavy gear, and follow Joey without issue (or ear damage). We snorkeled and dove again later that morning, this time at a portion of the reef called “5 ways” because the reef is transected in 5 places, such that a scuba diver can swim all the way through the reef multiple ways. We tried this with Joey, and while it was challenging to avoid the reef in the narrower bits, it definitely felt like an adventure. Afterward, Josh and I agreed that it felt kind of like exploring a sunken ship, because sometimes the rock closed above your head and you were momentarily in its shadow. We saw many of the same characters during our dive: sea cucumbers, schools of fish, little fish near the surface, giant fish nearer the floor, long tendrils of an unknown plant or animal stretching out into the open water (to me it looked like a tapeworm, but that’s because everything looks like a disease to a white coat).

Soon enough, it was time to return to shore. 

We retraced our bubbles (boatwaves? waveprints?) to Cairns and were suddenly on land. It was the first time in 36 hours that the ground didn’t rock beneath our feet. We trekked back to our rented room and basked in the AC and the cold luxury of the shower. On the boat, we had been permitted one 3-minute shower per day, so we were constantly salty. Refreshed, we ventured back out for dinner on the Esplanade and a moonlit walk. Cairns, like the other Australian cities we’ve visited, has some pretty great public spaces along the waterfront. It had a boardwalk as well as paved walking and bike paths. A large, gradually-deepening salt water pool (the Esplanade Lagoon) is well-used and well-loved by locals, who go for an evening dip and use the public barbecues along its perimeter. Outdoor fitness equipment dots the bike paths and signs broadcast public fitness classes held in these public spaces every day of the week. As we walked, the moon rose from behind the mountains and up into the sky, full and luminescent. I don’t think I’d ever really watched a moon rise before. Though the sky doesn’t change and the world doesn’t wake, a moonrise has its own beauty because you can look at it head-on.

Spotted: Didgeridoo. The sound of this Aboriginal instrument is really growing on me, now that we’ve heard it a few times in a few cities. If you want to listen to the didgeridoo until it grows on you, here’s10 hours of music.

Tip: Grill'd is a local burger chain that can accommodate almost any dietary restrictions (vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, dairy free, etc). Plus, they have great salads! After a couple of weeks on the road, we'll take a salad any chance we can get.

SaltKist

G’day! We arose early to make it to our boat, the SunKist, which would take us to a larger boat, the Kangaroo Explorer, where we would be staying for a night. The Kangaroo Explorer would also be our home base for two days as we snorkeled and went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef.­ As we walked to the marina, we learned a few things about Cairns, which we hadn’t yet really explored:

(1) They have massive bats by the hundreds here, too. They might be nocturnal but they were jabbering away at 7 am and still making their rounds of the city square.

(2) They have some great street art.

(3) Many of the tourists are still wandering around drunk at 7 am.

(4) Cairns is really hot. Even at sunrise. It’s like in central Vietnam where you would wake up at 5 am sweating and feeling like it had to be midday already.

We reached the marina a bit early, so we dropped off our bags on the boat and took a stroll around. The sun was still rising over the mountains, casting everything in that beautiful dawn glow. 

We meandered, laughing at silly boat names, only to discover a boat from Wilmington, DE! Geez, I can’t imagine going halfway around the world on a boat. Clearly, though, that boat was up to the challenge.

At last, it was time to leave and the SunKist scooted out of the harbor. Bouncing gently on the waves, we made our way past islands and out into the open water. Josh thought the whole thing looked like a scene out of Moana.

After a couple of hours and a stop, we finally reached the Kangaroo Explorer, which stays further out by the sections of reef. The view was incredible.

Thus began our snorkeling/scuba adventure. Just after lunch, we went out to snorkel on a section of the reef. The whole thing was so colorful! While I had expected color, I think I had more jewel tones in mind, not the neon rave that greeted us. There were colors I didn’t realize could be neon until I had seen them, like light purples. And that was just the coral. The fish were a riot of color, as well, often with dozens of colors of scales on a single little swimmer. I’m pretty sure most of the crazy colorful ones were wrasses, but I can’t be sure. We also saw some Dorys and some Nemos; the clownfish were rolling in the anemone fronds, just as you’d expect. Later in the afternoon, we got a chance to scuba dive on the reef. The boat moves periodically throughout the day, so this was at a different site. We were led by Joey, a dive instructor on the Kangaroo Explorer. Given that I’d only gone diving once before, I was surprised how quickly I settled into it again, isolating my breathing to my mouth and understanding that I didn’t have a snorkel that would fill with water if I turned my head too far. It was incredible how much more we could see when we scuba dived… or, at least, how much more we could see of the things that we had identified. We swam by sea stars languorously draped over rocks, pulsating giant clams with their snaggle-tooth mouths, and timid brown-and-white-speckled fish retreating into crevices before inching to again. The boat staff had said that the fish were used to divers, but I was still struck by how close they would get. Schools of fish swam by and around us, their synchronous darting somewhat hypnotizing. We were sad when Joey told us to return to the surface. The time had flown by; I was glad someone else was monitoring our oxygen tank levels.

We had hoped to do a night dive, but we learned that was only for certified scuba divers. Still, the day had worn us out and we fell asleep within minutes of lying down in our cabin.

Spotted: Apparently, to people who live in Australia, kangaroos are just "roos". As in, "We passed a whole lot of roos on the way over here."

Overheard: Our hilarious foul-mouthed Australian ship companions parenting their children.

Mom (tripping over something): S***

Daughter: Mom!

Mom: I said "Shivers", I swear!

Daughter: I want to be a marine biologist!

Mom: And to think, at her age, I wanted to be a firetruck. Not a fireman, but a firetruck.

If You Build It, They Will Buy

Saturday morning, we swapped Surfer's Paradise for another destination with an idyllic name: Dream World. I'm not sure whose dream includes a rollercoaster named the Buzz Saw, but Josh was eager to see Dream World's latest attraction: the first Australian Lego Store. So, off we drove. On the way out of Surfer's Paradise, it felt like we were going the wrong way; Cape Cod-level traffic stretched as far as the eye could see in the other direction, likely Brizzies heading out for a weekend in Paradise.

We arrived at Dream World without issue and strode up to the giant, yellow, rectangular building. Five-year-olds posed in front of the doors as their parents snapped pictures (the cheapest memento they would leave with that day). Josh declined to have his photo taken in front of the doors, although he's usually game for most other activities favored by five year olds (not limited to: snack time, nap time, aquariums in the middle of the week, and candy at every meal). The Lego Store doors slid open and... it wasn't very big. Josh quickly scoured the merchandise for country-specific items but found nothing. So, we took a stroll around the store perimeter and enjoyed the Lego sculptures that decorate every store. There weren't any wrap-around-the-entire-store designs like in the NYC Lego Store, but there were some pretty cute Australian designs and a very impressive tiger.

As we continued to the airport, we already felt nostalgia washing over us. Parks were filled with scurrying children playing cricket and soccer. A mile-long wall mural bordering the highway depicted Australian animals jumping, diving, and climbing. We were definitely going to miss Brisbane and Surfer's Paradise.

A few short hours later, we had reached our final Australian destination: Cairns.

Though the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) stretches for over 1,400 miles, Cairns is the spot to go for reef trips. Since we're not sure how much longer the GBR will survive, we made it a priority to get up here and see it. So, late in the evening, we touched down in Cairns. It looked and felt like Hawaii: water over one shoulder, densely forest mountains over the other, wet heat hugging your skin. Vending machines at the airport sold artistic flip flops ("It's art for your feet!").

After dropping off our bags, we headed out to dinner at C'est Bon. The air conditioning was a relief after our walk in the humidity. Our appetizers were incredible but the entrees left something to be desired. It seemed like the wait staff were a bit overwhelmed by the Saturday night crush, though, so perhaps the kitchen was, too. Or maybe we're just spoiled after our trip to France. Fine dining might never be the same.

Spotted: "Until late". Businesses here give opening times (which in Surfer's Paradise were often 11 am or later), but many do not give specific closing times. Instead, they just say "until late". I'm not sure if this has some specific meaning (e.g. midnight) for locals, but it seems awfully inconvenient to only know that a restaurant or store might still be open at a particular hour.

Get Your Glow On

We had ended our day Thursday with a drive from Brisbane down to Surfer’s Paradise on Australia’s Gold Coast. As Surfer’s Paradise is only an hour south of Brizzie, it is the perfect getaway for urban dwellers. I’m guessing that 30 or 40 years ago, Surfer’s Paradise was exactly what it’s name describes: a beach bum hangout where sunburned surfers napped in bungalows before paddling out to the waves at dawn. Today, Surfer’s Paradise shows its growing pains as its laid-back vibe has begun to attract type A urbanites who need a bit of R&R. Backpackers hangouts have been pushed to the periphery, while the downtown is a mishmash of highrises and clothing stores with storewide $10 clearance sales. As we walked around in athleisure wear, club promoters vied for our business, only to be one-upped by fit young men selling tickets to club crawls. That’s right, pub crawls have officially been replaced as the kings of Friday night debauchery.

Tourist grunge aside, though, we actually really loved Surfer’s Paradise. We walked along the beach, waves crashing like clockwork to our side, for over an hour before seeking refuge in the shade of the city buildings. 

The beach was fairly empty, likely because it was a weekday, but we saw enough walkers with 30 years of sun damage to their skin to know that some locals had joined our ranks. It was easy to see why people would come here to relax and vacation – or even to retire. It had an easy pace with enough life injected by the tourists to keep businesses fresh and stores bustling. Plus, if you ever got wanderlust, Brisbane and its international airport were only an hour away. But still, the beach would always draw you home. I’m not even a beach person, and I was really enjoying myself. To be fair, though, I was envisioning jogs at dawn along the hard-packed sand, the beach to myself and the colors of the sky reflected on the water. I wonder if it would be like Barcelona, where my morning jogs coincided with the clubs closing for the night and disgorging their hard-partying dregs onto the beach to sober up. Anyway, Josh has more of a soft spot for beaches than I do and he thought it was one of the most beautiful beaches he had ever seen.

Though we had liberally applied sunscreen, our exposed skin was beginning to crisp. We retreated to the stores that lined the winding main tourist street. It seemed as though every third store was named Ugg World, Ugg Universe, Ugg King, or something similar. They know what the tourists want: a shearling vacation for their feet. At least, that’s what I presumed. As we had seen in Sydney, Ugg offers a much broader array of merchandise than we knew, including a lot of furs. We kept up our search for a Finn-colored sheepskin (Josh has a dream of our dog having carpet camouflage), but we were unsuccessful.

[A quick note to any would-be Surfer’s Paradise shoppers: price comparison is key! Out of curiosity, we compared the price of some items across stores and found up to 40% differences in the ticket price of the same item – as in, same brand, same color, same size.]

When late afternoon arrived, it was time to escape the city. We drove about an hour into the woods to the Natural Bridge, a part of a local park that has a glowworm cave. We arrived early, planning to hike other paths in the area until it got dark, only to discover that there was exactly one 1 km path to the glow worms and nothing else in the area. Plus, going off the beaten path was strictly forbidden because they’re trying to preserve that ecosystem and the land is home to the Yugambeh Aboriginals. Still, we hiked the loop to appreciate the dense, lush forest in the daylight.

The glowworms are actually the larvae of a species of fly found only in Australia and New Zealand. They luminesce to attract pretty, which get stuck in the long sticky threads that they produce. Their bioluminescence apparently peaks during the warm, wet months (December through March). As a bonus, a certain species of fungus that grows during those months is also bioluminescent. When the sun had finally set, we ventured down the path again to the glow worm cave. The walls were pitch black and the waterfall gurgled in the background. As our eyes adjusted, we saw the glow. Deep in the corners of the cave, small green dots huddled in groups and then spread across rock veins, creating green constellations overhead. It was beautiful and felt a little magical.

We ended the evening with a return to downtown Surfer’s Paradise to wander the pop-up market along the beach. I can’t say the wares were particularly tempting, but it’s a pretty great place to take an evening walk.

Spotted: Vomatron, a rollercoaster for the brave of heart and steel of stomach. We spotted it as we drove back to Surfer's Paradise and did not mourn the fact that we'd missed out on this local experience.

Spotted 2: A more stomach-friendly one: Hugh Chocman, a local gelato flavor to celebrate that hunky Australian-bred man-wolverine.

Hall of Famers

Did you know there's a TripAdvisor Hall of Fame? We discovered its existence today when we went to a Hall of Fame member site and were absolutely blown away by its sheer amazingness. The Lone Pine Koala Preserve has been around for almost a century now and still wows tiny children and jaded world travelers alike with its cuddly creatures and amazing demonstrations of animal prowess.

In addition to koalas, the preserve has kangaroos, raptors, platypus, sheep (and sheepdogs!), local birds, wombats, and more. We started off our day with the sheepdog show, starring Hunter (the border collie) and Dusty (the rambunctious 2-year-old Kelpie).

Our host was a lifelong sheep farmer and former professional shearer who adored the two dogs and boasted about them like a proud father. We watched the dogs round up the sheep, lead them through an agility course, and then round them up into a pen. We learned that Kelpies are trained to "back" the sheep in addition to herding them. This involves actually running along the backs of the sheep while they are in the pen.

After the sheepdog show, we went to hear about the koalas. These fuzzy little creatures, whose slow movements, long naps, and hilarious sleep poses have caused many a comparison to town drunks, are really so slow and silly because of their food offer little nutrition and, as a result, they have to have slow metabolisms. Lucky for us, this meant it was easy to stand and stare at them and take pictures to our hearts' content.

Some other fun koala facts:
- They have 5 digits on their hands, just like us, except that TWO of those forepaw digits are thumbs.

- After a 35-day gestation, a 0.5 gram joey the size of a jelly bean crawls up into its mother's pouch
- Koalas look different in the south and north of Australia, though they're the same species. In the colder south, the koalas are bigger, fuzzier, and darker-furred.
- A ton of koalas are currently dying of chlamydia (but don't worry - the Lone Pine koalas are clean).
Since this was probably Josh's most highly anticipated day of our trip, I had to get pictures of him with the little guys.

Post-koala fest, we fed kangaroos and wallabies, which I didn't know you were allowed to do...

... but they sell packets of kangaroo food pellets in the gift shop and the roos definitely knew what was up when we stepped into their enclosure.

We also watched a falconry show, which included the usual flying to and fro but also a peregrine falcon diving to catch a swinging lure (and the trainers definitely didn't make it easy). Then there was a park guide talk about platypus. Platypus are so tiny! Who knew? Finally, we saw the various other park creatures - including some beautiful birds and some truly enormous bats (1.4 meter wingspan!) and, at last, it was time to call it a day.

Haven't had enough cute koala and kangaroo pictures? Scroll to the end of this post for more.

Tips for visiting the Lone Pine Koala Preserve:
- Bring sunscreen and a hat
- Bring a camera!
- Buy kangaroo food from the General Store ($2/bag - 1 bag is plenty)
- Try to see the koalas when the employees are changing the eucalyptus branches. This wakes all the koalas up so you get to see them be active.
- You can fill water bottles from the tap in the baby changing room in the General Store.

Spotted: Free wifi! Everywhere we go, from restaurants to koala preserves, it is not only offered but aggressively advertised. Certainly makes planning easy.


More koala pics: