Day 119 - Morocco 🇲🇦

Tonight we’re taking a quick trip to Morocco, the only African country I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.

Morocco is a country of searing dry heat, aromatic dishes, kasbahs and as it turns out lots of goats. I heard that Morocco is somewhat known for its tree-climbing goats. We mostly saw goats teaming up with cows to raid rubbish bins though.

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This is the first (and only) time I’ve ever seen a goat raiding a bin

We visited the lesser-known coastal city of Essaouira, a place known for its year-round winds and cool micro-climate. We stayed in the wonderful guest house of Dar Sahil. Dar Sahil is possibly one of the most wonderful places I’ve ever stayed. Run by a lovely warm French couple (who referred to us as “elegance British”), Dar Sahil is an old Berber building surrounded by an organ orchard. 

Anyway, enjoy a few pictures from our trip, and happy Friday! 

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Joe taking in the view

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Elegance British taking a dip

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Essaouira, Morocco

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Day 118 - Montenegro 🇲🇪

Like many people, I thought Montenegro was a glamorous country, filled with casinos and the super-rich. An Adriatic Monaco if you will. Today I found out why I had this preconception of Montenegro.

Apparently my opulent image of Montenegro stems from Ian Fleming’s 1953 James Bond novel, Casino Royale. Many of the novels Vodka Martini’s were shaken and served in the fictional casino, Casino Royale Montenegro. The twist is that this fictional casino wasn’t even supposed to be in Montenegro, but the South of France. However, in the 2006 film adaptation (you know the one where Daniel Craig slowly emerges from the sea in his speedos), the Casino was set in Montenegro. I had no idea James Bond had such an effect on my subconscious. Coincidentally, 2006 was also the year Montenegro voted to become an independent country and split from Serbia.

Anyway, as I found out in 2018 when Joe and I visited Montenegro, it’s not as opulent as I was lead to believe. However Montenegro is far more atmospheric and beautiful than I could have imagined.

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Looking across the bay of Kotor, Montenegro

We crossed into Montenegro after visting some of Croatia’s quieter islands. We spent a few days just outside of Kotor, a small walled medieval town wedged between the mountains and the Bay of Kotor. It’s a wonderful tangle of small shops, restaurants, bars and the occasional museum.

The thing I enjoyed most about Montenegro though were the days hiking up in the mountains above Kotor and looking down and enjoying the fjord-like scenery. In the afternoons we depended for a swim before enjoying slow meals by the water.

Today from what I’ve read, Montenegro is at a difficult crossroads torn between embracing its European identity, or more closely aligning with eastern powers such as China and Russia. Most recently Montenegro has controversially mortgaged itself to China building an expensive highway through the mountains that it scarcely needs and almost certainly can’t afford.

Personally, I hope Montenegro chooses to integrate more closely with its European neighbours, but regardless, I certainly plan on returning one day.

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Leaving Montenegro for Bosnia

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Hiking above the Bay of Kotor

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Day 117 - Mongolia 🇲🇳

When I think of Mongolia, I immediately think fo Ghengis Khan, mountains, open planes and endless blue skies. I know almost nothing else about Mongolia. Other than it comes incredibly close to having a border with Kazakhstan, but doesn’t quite make it.

Apparently Mongolia’s native horses (or Przewalski's horses) are the last truly wild horses. They have more chromosomes than domesticated horses. I’ve heard the fermented mare’s milk is especially tasty. Feel free to try it and report back in the comments…

Like Kazakhstan, Mongolia still has a large nomadic population with around a quarter of Mongolians still living Nomadic lives. This however is changing rapidly due to increased urbanisation, and loss of livestock due to climate change. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital is growing at a frenzied pace with over 600,000 people migrating there and largely living in unplanned ‘ger’ districts.

Ghengis Khan statue, Ulaanbaatar

This increased urbanisation is creating problems for Ulaanbaatar. I had no idea, but Ulaanbaatar is the world’s coldest capital with an annual average temperature of −0.4 °C. It also lacks basic infrastructure, and with a rapidly growing population, people switched to coal burning boilers to keep warm. A bitterly cold climate, unplanned urban growth and burning coal is the perfect recipe for dangerously high levels of air pollution. Recently Ulaanbaatar has banned burning coal, although it’s unclear if this will have the desired effects.

I really didn’t expect urbanisation and pollution to be huge problems in the world’s least densely populated country. Sigh, humans!

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Day 116 - Monaco 🇲🇨

I vividly remember visiting Monaco. It was 2008 and Emma and Sam and I were reaching the end of our Interrail trip. Our clothes were definitely not freshly laundered, our shoes disintegrating and our finances critical.

I was incredibly psyched to take a day trip to Monaco though. As a cash-strapped student getting a glimpse into the world-renowned playground of the rich and famous was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

My friend Sam however was not so keen on Monaco. I get it. Also as a student, voluntarily having the lavish excesses of billionaires rubbed in your face doesn’t sound massively appealing. Over 30% of Monaco’s 38,000 resident population are millionaires and it’s estimated that there will be over 16,000 millionaires in Monaco by 2026. All, obviously, paying no income tax.

Sam did perk up though when we started to trace out the Formula One circuit. Oh and he got told off by the Monaco police for taking his t-shirt off. Apparently Monaco has a nationwide dress code.

One thing that surprised me most about Monaco was despite having almost zero funds, we were still able to buy some very cheap supermarket lunch. We also managed to walk around all day and take in the sights without spending anything.

Monaco is a ridiculous spectacle, but you should absolutely visit for a day, even if you’ve got no money.

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Day 115 - Moldova 🇲🇩

Moldova is notable for being a European country that almost no one knows anything about. Obviously I’m joking, but I’m also kind of not joking. The claim that no one knows about Moldova is backed up by cold hard data (and by challenging anyone to point to it on an unmarked map). Moldova is Europe’s third-least visited nation. Monaco even receives almost three times more visitors annually than Moldova, and it’s only two square kilometres in size.

If Moldova isn’t well known, then the breakaway region of Transnistria is off the unknown-scale. I’d never heard of Transnistria before today, but it’s a small breakaway state that is internationally recognised as part of Moldova. It was formed in 1992 after a brief civil war and still uses Soviet symbols like the hammer and sickle to this day. 

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Today’s map is more useful than normal. Unless you’re trying to find Transnistria.

Wine is Moldova’s largest export and apparently Moldova is home to the world’s largest wine cellar. Mileștii Mici’s wine cellar is a converted limestone mine and it stretches for a staggering 240 km and holds around two million bottles of wine. You won’t be surprised to learn then that Moldovan’s consume more alcohol per capita than any other nation in the world except for Belarus.

Weird, I can still remember writing the Belarus post, and I was suitably hungover.

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Day 114 - Federated States of Micronesia 🇫🇲

Today we head to another tiny island nation, the Federated States of Micronesia (or simply Micronesia as I’ll refer to it in this post). Micronesia consists of 607 islands yet has a land area smaller than Singapore.

Despite having such a small landmass, Micronesia has 2,600,000 km of territorial waters in the Pacific Ocean giving it the 14th-largest exclusive economic zone of any country.

Micronesia has a small population of only 104k, and is also one of the world’s least-visited countries, only receiving approximately 30,000 visitors a year. I can understand why. I just looked at flights to Chuuk and we’re looking at 40+ hours and €4,000 in financial damage. In economy.

Micronesia was colonised by Spain in 1886 who shortly after sold the islands to Germany in 1899. During World War One, Japan then invaded and occupied the islands from 1914 until 1944 at which point they were administered by the United States. Micronesia was a colony of the US until 1986.

There are still quite a few signs of Micronesia’s 20th-century turmoil underwater. Truk Lagoon is home to over 60 sunken Japanese warships destroyed by American forces in 1944. It’s a diving spot like no other, provided you’re okay with a 40-hour flight.

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Day 113 - Mexico 🇲🇽

I absolutely love Mexico. It’s one of my favourite places to visit, especially for a winter holiday. It’s also a country where I feel I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what Mexico has to offer.

Today I’m going quickly to share some of my most favourite things about Mexico.

A Beetle in Oaxaca City

Oaxaca City

I absolutely loved my time in Oaxaca. It’s a city that has everything you could want from a visit to a Mexican city.

From Ancient Zapotec ruins such as Monte Albán to incredible markets, all with an abundance of delicious street food. Oaxaca is also packed full of wonderful bars serving hundreds of varieties of mezcal. We spent a week in Oaxaca city, but it really wasn’t long enough.

BBQ in Mercado 20 de Noviembre

Monte Albán, just outside of Oaxaca City

Carnaval de San Martín Tilcajete

I’ve already written about this spectacular fiesta just outside of Oaxaca city. Superlatives simply don’t do it justice. It’s impossible not to love the costumes, music, food and wonderful party atmosphere. For more information, check out my previous post on Carnaval de San Martín Tilcajete.

Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos in Mexico city

Now for Mexico’s more well-known festival. Day of the Dead was the most stirring introduction to Mexico City I could have imagined.

Chilaquiles for breakfast

Chilaquiles is the breakfast of kings. There is honestly nothing else on this planet I would rather eat for breakfast. How can you go wrong with a delicious mix of corn tortillas, covered in vibrant spicy salsa with a little Mexican cheese and possibly beans or possibly even eggs.

Anyway - here’s a pretty decent looking recipe for Chilaquiles 

Chilaquiles

Mexican beach snacks

I appreciate I’m being very positive in this blog post - but honestly, who can say no to a delicious taco, freshly made guacamole, or even some grilled shrimp under a parasol on a sandy beach? Don’t forget to wash it down with a margarita. For me, Mexican beaches have the best beach-side eats in the world.

Mexican beach eats

La Casa de las Flores

For my final pick, no travel is required. All you have to do is watch La Casa de las Flores (or The House of Flowers). Go on I dare you - immerse yourself inside the ridiculous and surreal world of La Casa de las Flores. You won’t regret it.

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Day 112 - Mauritius 🇲🇺

Today, we’ve landed in Mauritius, a small island nation (similar size to Luxembourg) located in the Indian Ocean roughly 200 km Northeast of Réunion. 

Mauritius is best known for its beautiful white beaches, lush jungles, sugarcane plantations and being the home of the ill-fated dodo. Today though, we’re skipping the dodo jokes and imaginary beach holiday as I’m going to wade into a thorny geopolitical issue. 

Along this journey, I’ve learned quite a lot about how badly my own country, the UK has behaved in the past. Whether that’s colonising countries, enslaving populations or pillaging resources for profit. Most of these events did however occur hundreds of years ago. Somehow, this (maybe in my mind at least) softens the shock of some of these acts. The UK nowadays portrays itself as a global leader in human rights and democracy and is more often than not now on the right side of history. Well provided we forget about Brexit, anything to do with fishing, or its treatment of the Windrush Generation.

That’s why I find the UK’s nefarious behaviour in the events surrounding Mauritius’s independence utterly shocking.

UK and Mauritius have a long-standing dispute about who owns the Chagos Archipelago. At first, this sounds pretty standard - many countries have territorial disputes. Mauritius was previously a British colony (and a French, and Portuguese colony before that). In this case, shortly before Mauritius became independent the UK sliced off the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius to form British Indian Ocean Territory. It’s not really independence if you decide to carve off a significant part of a countries territory before claiming it is “independent”. Understandably, Mauritius has never been too keen on this arrangement.

If appropriating large swathes of Mauritian territory this wasn’t dastardly enough, the UK forcibly expelled up to 2000 islanders from the Chagos Archipelago in the 1970s. Why would the UK expel the entire population from their own island you might ask. Well so that the island of Diego Garcia, could be leased to the US and be developed into a military base. Right in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Chagos Archipelago is the perfect place for a strategic military base.

Despite losing multiple legal battles in the UN court, the UK is still refusing to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, or allow its former residents to return to their rightful home. I suspect that as long as Diego Garcia remains strategically important to the US, nothing will change.

Day 111 - Mauritania 🇲🇷

Tonight we head to Mauritania, another country I embarrassingly know very little about.

All I know is it’s a dangerous, largely undeveloped country in North-West Africa. It’s also the namesake for Titanic’s most prominent competitor. Or so I thought. The spelling is actually slightly different and the ship was named after Roman province of Mauretania on the northwest African coast, not the country we’ll be talking about today.

Unsurprisingly for Saharan Africa, Mauritania was previously a French colony and gained its independence from France in 1960. Since then it hasn’t been plain sailing. Mauritania has remained poor, had a number of military governments, coups and general instability. 

Mauritania is also an extreme laggard when it comes to abolishing slavery. Despite passing a law to abolish slavery in 1981, Mauritania has the highest proportion of people in slavery of any country in the world. It’s estimated that 90,000 (or 2.1% of the population) are enslaved. This is horrifying, and I genuinely had no idea that slavery still existed to this extent. In 2018 The Guardian published has a fantastic in-depth look at slavery in modern-day Mauritania. 

From a geographic perspective, Mauritania has a few interesting highlights. It’s pretty unsurprising that 90% of the country lies within the Sahara Desert, but what is less known is that Mauritania is the largest country in the world entirely below an altitude of 1000 metres.

Mauritania is also home to The Eye of Africa, or the Richat Structure. The Richat Structure is a vast geological formation of concentric circles with a diameter of 50 kilometres. It’s clearly visible from space and genuinely looks like something left by aliens.

Day 110 - Marshall Islands 🇲🇭

Welcome to the Marshall Islands. It’s almost midnight, I’ve been out for a work event. Actually, the first work event since lockdown began last November. It was a lot of fun!

Anyway, back to the Marshall Islands, a nation living on the edge.  The Marshall Islands is home to a mere 58,000 people, yet at least 30,000 Marshallese people live in the US. Apparently, a third of the population has left the Marshall Islands and moved to the US because of the pressures of climate change and rising sea levels.

The Marshall Islands is also home to an underwater fighter plane graveyard dating from World War Two. Also, the Marshall Islands was a site for US nuclear testing between 1946 and 1958, so regardless of whether you’re familiar with the Marshall Islands, you’ve probably already seen them at some point in a dystopian US military video. 

Anyway, to gain a much better perspective of the Marshall Islands, I recommend you watch the Wendover Video about the Marshall Islands:

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