Aaron Paul Vogel

Well the weather today was about as good as I felt inside: miserable. I got another case of traveler's gut, but this one hit me pretty hard. It started off last night with a fever and the shivers. I hoped that I might be able to burn it off so I put on pretty much every piece of warm clothing I had. I don't know if it worked or not but the fever was pretty much gone by this morning. Now I'm just all achy and my insides are tied in knots. It hurts to put my head on the pill but I'm too tired to sit up. I'm staying at Pension La Castallena which is basically a hostel without the dorm-style rooms. My room is equal parts twin-size bed and floor. Really the only thing this place is good for is meeting nice people who are likely to speak your language. So far I've met a Brit named Paul and two women from Seattle named Jill and Catherine. There's also a couple of Canadians, a Dutchman, and some Lithuanians. Very interesting crowd. The girls from Seattle have been really kind in helping me out; getting me bottled water, giving me some Peptobismal and Advil. They've been sick with colds as well.

Yesterday's weather was not great but at least agreeable. There was a light over-cast that merely diffused the sun and put a slight chill in the air. Last night and then this morning things turned cold, dark and wet with a heavy fog and drenching rain. It might not have been so bad if there was any kind of heat in this place (not even a space heater like at the Continental) or if the building had a full roof. I didn't realize until this morning but the center area of the building around which all the rooms are placed is actually open-air. So the whole place is wet and damp as well. Not really that fun.

I did manage to get a good 20 minutes of tape yesterday but again I've run into issues with people being very camera shy. Still not sure what to do about it other than move on to the next shot.

Sorry, no GE links for you today. I'll post up something when I'm feeling better.

Never did I think I'd be so happy to see a pile of over-processed food products. I'm at the Ibis Hotel in Meknes, en route to... eh... somewhere warmer, and there's a McDonalds pretty much right next door. And based on my current intestinal situation I figured the more processed my food is the better. Of course I'd kill for a Nature Valley granola bar, or some peanut butter.

I have to head south to Ourzazate, Taroudannt, and Essouira before I head back up to Casablanca. Hopefully I'll have better luck with shooting there than I've had in the north. The weather is improving already even though I'm still in the Rif mountains.

Here's the GE file I promised: Chefchaouen. When you open it up just go ahead and click yes if it asks you to reload the file, you won't loose anything and the new stuff will show up.

I'm in Ourzazate tonight; got here this afternoon after leaving Tinghir at lunchtime. I spent the morning in Todra Gorge under the false impression that there were waterfalls just a little ways up it. Wrong. I'd met some very nice Welsh girls at the Hotel Les Gorges where I stayed last night and we got up early to hit the gorge for some hiking. They were pleased enough even though we quickly found out from a couple in a 4x4 that there were in fact no waterfalls, but I was pretty disappointed as I was hoping to get some film of it. It is, in fact, about two hours outside of Marrakesh, so there's probably not going to be any waterfall footage when I return.

But, we forged on and did some nice hiking. I found that the gorge and the river that was in it reminded me of the Colorado river near Moab, Utah. The rocks were all red/orange stone that chipped and flaked away the same as the red rock in Moab. And the the river, well the river was MUCH less dirty from sediment; it was actually incredibly clear and pristine, which is an amazing accomplishment in a country with garbage everywhere.

The girls were going to take the bus to Marrakesh - one of them flying from there, the other continuing on to Essouiria, but a little sick of traveling alone and really enjoying their company I offered to drive them instead. It was a funny little back and forth, with neither of them being very good at making decisions that day, but eventually they both agreed that it'd be yet another random diversion on a trip that'd been nothing but already. So off we headed to Ourzazate.

Tomorrow I'll be trying to shoot some footage of the movie studios - Atlas Studios - just outside of town, then we'll be headed on to Marrakesh and Essouiria. No Google Earth right now. I'll post it another time. it's nothing too exciting.

The updates have been slowing down because I haven't been doing much but a lot of driving. I finally found the sunshine - it's in Essouria - but it took me a good number of days getting from Chefchaouen to Tinghir to Ourzazate then finally to here. I stopped in Tinghir on the way thinking the Todra gorge has waterfalls; it doesn't. Then I stopped a day in Ourzazate to get the Atlas Studios there; which I did no thanks to some early morning rain. And finally I spent a REALLY long day - some 10 hours - getting from there to Essouria with a stop in Marrakech on the way for dinner and to drop of one of the Welsh girls that joined me in the drive. Here's the GE tracks I made across the country in one folder: The Atlas Trekk

But I'm here now, and staying at a wonderful hotel called the Residence Vent des Dunes (in the Essouria GE folder I have here). The room is quite large and even has 2 "couches" that are more like twin beds against the wall with pillows. It could very comfortably sleep 4. It has a wonderful en suite bathroom with a hot water shower (amazing what simple items become necessities) and it's quiet! It's 300dh a night, but well worth it. Besides, I've been staying in 50-70dh a night places the last week anyway, so I've scrounged enough to put myself up in a decent place for a few nights. It's 8.5dh = 1usd if you didn't know. So 600dh for two nights works out to $70, or $35 a night, including a small breakfast of coffee, juice, and breads. I've come to love crepes for breakfast and found a place in town that will do all of the above plus a crepe for 25dh ($3). There was a place in Chef that did the same for 15dh!

Food fun out of the way I did a good deal of walking around and thinking of the story of Essouria. There's a great deal here even though it really is a summer locale. The port is always busy and is the third major fishing port next to Agadir and Casablanca. There are some interesting ruins of old Portugese defensive fortes, though you're not really allowed to get very close to all but one as they're on islands just off-shore, one of which is a bird sanctuary. There's camel rides along the beach and the whole hippie, surfer, beach bum culture, though that's not in full swing right now. So I have a whole shot list of things to shoot. I took a few photos this evening though with my 50mm I'm very limited on my angles. I'm really missing the 16-35mm and I'll be sure to replace it as soon as I'm back state-side. Makes one think of buying overlapping lenses (like a nice 24mm L) to keep the loss of one from ruining a trip. Actually the best picture I took was for my father who is a Citroen junky. There is a 2CV - a particularly iconic Citroen - parked in front of the hotel, and in the evening light it looked really nice against the colorful buildings. So, here is to the right.

Well I've officially decided that I came at the wrong time of year to be doing this shooting. It was cloudy again for all but 1 hour today and I'm really sick of the ugly, flat, crappy scenery. The weekend has come and with it the weekend tourists. Mostly surfers I've seen so far, but a fair amount of caravaners and other miscellaneous characters. I did manage to get some of my shots from the shot list out of the way, but only a few in the short time I had.

Olives, olives, everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Okay so that's a horrible bastardization of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's line, but I thought it last night at dinner when the waiter brought out - as always - two small dishes of olives. The only olives I like are the ones drowning in a martini. Otherwise I can't stand them. In Morocco, however, they're considered standard appetizers and present at pretty much every meal. They go untouched at my table.

Finished up in Essouria. Well, as finished as I find I can get. I want to get sun bathers and surfers and hippies since that's the scene here. But all of the above are few and far between right now as it's the dead of winter. It's cold by beach standards and the surf is down pretty low. So, the surfers, beach bunnies and rasta's will have to come another time. I'm off to Casablanca again right after I post this, hoping for good weather the next two days.

I returned to Casablanca last night. I was disappointed to see nothing but flat grey this morning, but found the sky clearing towards noon, so I got out and did some of the clean-up shooting. I did some writing afterwards, at dinner:

Casablanca is the NYC of Morocco: it's dirty, bustling and everyone has an angle, especially on tourists. Besides the bustling part, I guess that could describe most of the country but Casablanca has it ten-fold. You can see it in people's eyes, in the way they look at each other. They don't even trust others, so I don't trust them either. The men look at women the way hyaenas look at the gazelle a lion just killed: showing obvious animalistic interest but knowing that without the proper distraction for the lion they'll never get more than scraps.

This is a place where the smoke of a cigarette and the steam of a cafe au lait mingle freely and frequently. It's ironic that this French influence is soon to be a French icon no more. I think that the time period between now and when Morocco forbids smoking in cafes will gauge fairly accurately how far behind their European influences this country is. My guess is a generation or two. Greater literacy, employment and a more prominent political place on the world stage are necessary before small social changes like banning smoking in public places will occur. So, for a while at least, smoke and coffee will share tabletops freely.

Alright... So, I'm home, if you hadn't surmised, and I've been very busy relaxing! My friend Aaron Post, shown here at Presidio Winery in Solvang, California, flew in from Chicago the same night that I got back from Morocco and he's been hanging out with me pretty much ever since. He planned the trip around a 2-day bicycle workshop outside of Santa Clarita, but extended it for a full 12 days of California fun. Without going into too much history we both grew up in Barrington and met at Barrington High School when I was a sophmore and he was a junior there. We're both avid bicyclists, though he's followed his enthusiasm much farther than I did and is currently an amateur triathlete and soon to be an owner of the Mission Bay Cycles shops in the Chicago area.

We've been on 6 rides - road and mountain - in 7 days and yesterday we went up to Solvang to watch stage 5 of the Tour of California. the race was incredible, especially Levi Leipheimer's finish. Afterwards we decided to enjoy some of the wine country's offerings. We found out that there are 14 wine shops in Solvang, and while we only hit 2, we were amazed at that number.

I snapped this shot of Aaron while at Presidio Winery during a tasting of their reds. I'm really happy with my new camera setup: a Caon 5D, here with a 28mm Canon lens. I'll go more into why/how I picked up the 5D later, I just thought this was a really nice portrait and wanted to get it up. I think the 28mm will be on the camera oftern.

I'm just going to let these two videos speak for themselves. I think these are the two lessons that I need to learn and take to heart right now. Found these on YouTube via SportsShooter.com though they're originally from the How-To section of Current.tv