Seven Sisters

A few more pictures from my walk along the cliffs near Seaford.  Sigh.  I fall behind.

As the day brightened, the colors around me started to pop.  The emerald greens, the glaring white cliff face.  Some shadows appeared, and the fog momentarily cleared.  

One thing that I discovered post-shoot is that I need to get my camera cleaned.  On these Nikon SLRs, the oil they use on the shutter tends to spatter and leave spots on the image sensor.  Ugh.  I had it cleaned about a year ago and it made a huge difference in the image quality.  These images proved that the oil splatters are back- I can see them clearly when I view the images in full-size.  Camera repairmen everywhere swoon as this seems to be an ongoing issue with the latest Nikons as well.

The Brits love walking in the countryside.  There's a website devoted to walks here- http://www.carfreewalks.org/.  There's lots of bus and train connections even in the most rural spots, making it easy to do linear walks in which you don't have to double-back to a car park at the end of the day.

The top of the cliffs is also a sheep pasture!  There were new lambs frolicking all around, and bits of lovely soft crimpy lanolin-infused wool on the ground.  I didn't pocket it.  I was tempted, though.

Alas, after some bright sun, it clouded up again and the fog started rolling in again.  There's a small National Trust gift shop along the cliffs, where you can warm up with a cup of coffee and a scone before continuing.  It's nice to get out of the wind.  Those trees in my previous post were bowled over for a reason- the wind coming off the cliff face was relentless, and the waves are strong enough to kick up pebbles from the cliff face and scatter them along the tops of the cliffs.

There were a few brave souls surfing here- there's no clear access to the beach since the winter, so they were quite athletic just to get down to the water.  There's been a big winter-surf happening going on in the UK and Ireland this year- huge winter storm surf has been attracting pro surfers from all over, but it's still for the brave and the well-equipped.

Surf is Always Up

There's something so poetic about surfing.  

It's such a perfect sport.  Ugh, I can't even really call it a sport with a straight face.  Professional surfers are amazing athletes, but it's so far away from a competitive activity as most people can get from.  It's a zen activity, right up there with yoga.  It's meditative and quiet and rhythmic and  really quite spiritual.  It's also incredibly hard.  I suck at it, but I love doing it.  I'll get out there and get spanked by waves for two hours before hobbling in looking like a prune with my sinuses as clear as they could get and some nice abrasion from the multiple sweeps of the ocean floor that I've felt necessary.   

I know of no other sport that requires so little:  a board.  Some wax.  A rash guard.  Sigh, if you must insist on cold-water surfing, then yes, you need a thick wetsuit and boots and gloves and a hood, but, ugh, who would want to do that.

And also....you need a perfect wave.  Which, the beaches in Costa Rica are full of.

Nosara, where all the lovely yoga retreats are, has some great beaches.  We went from Nosara to Playa Negra and never saw a bad break.  The roads were amusingly poor to get from one beach to the other...they are more like trails and impassible during the rainy season.  Still, we had to cross three or four streams that crossed the road.  As much as I hate the idea of an SUV, it's a good idea to have something with 4 wheel drive and probably one of the very few places on earth where an SUV is actually useful.  

Nosara is a little crowded, but mostly with ultra-wealthy people there for a yoga retreat and a cleanse.  We found places to do walk-in classes and spent an afternoon breathing and stretching in the sea breeze.    

Oddly...I ran up to a beach vendor at Nosara thinking he would have ices or Popsicles or something in his cooler.  Nope.   Ceviche.  As much as I love raw seafood, I just am not craving it while sitting in the hot sun.

The most consistently amazing breaks are at Tamarindo, aka Tamagringo.  While most of the beaches here are secluded with rustic, washed-out roads, the streets were paved over here, leading to a huge influx of tourism and condos and dance clubs and pizza joints, and a nice man on a bicycle offered to sell me pot while he was cruising the beach.  Surf school and adventure camps line the strip, and the crowds that flock there have taken inspiration from the sloth.   Ahem, included lovelies like these:

Ignore the trash on the beach.  Or better yet, throw it out.  Walk down to the far end of the beach where the estuary is, and the thumping bass of the DJ starts to fade and you once again get a perfectly surfable beach.   

It's truly a gorgeous place, but one of the few spots where you will have to fight for a wave.

Add caption

Oh~  I almost forgot.  I found the most perfect beach bar in the world, I swear- Lola's at tiny Playa Avellanas.  It was perfect- comfy solid wooden chairs, hammocks and loungers all angled to take in the sunset while sipping your margarita and eating your ceviche (which is pretty much sashimi!) under the shade of mangrove trees and giant umbrellas.  Aas soon as the first mosquito bites, the bar closes down for the night.  It's one of the most blissful spots I've found.  

Rabat

We were torn on weather or not to spend any time in Rabat. It's the capital city, and we heard mixed reviews. Like nearby Casablanca, it's more of a modern, soul-less city.

I'm so glad we went though. It was more developed and modernized, with a modern new tram, but the medina was charming, and much easier to navigate.

It was right on the ocean. One thing I've never seen anyplace, ever:

Huge cemeteries, right on the beach.

Sadly, the beach was disgusting. Beyond gross. Garbage everywhere, piles of garbage at the high tide lines.

And dead chickens. I have never. Ever. Ever. Seen dead chickens on a beach before.

Yet a few hardy souls were out there.

Most of the guys out there were really quite good. I know that down the coast a bit, they have a well-known huge break. Really though, I can't see this taking off as a surfing destination until they clean their beaches, and who knows what is going into that water.

Also, having to be covered from head to toe makes for some non-existant tan lines.

Rabat was a pirate stronghold for a couple hundred years. Now it is the capital city.

My favorite find was the Kasbah of the Udayas. A tiny, thousand-year old fortress on the sea, all the doors and ground-level walls are painted blue.

Wandering the souks here was downright pleasant. Not one person tried to wrestle us into their shop. They don't have the crafting heritage here as they did in Fes or Marrakech- I'm sure all the goods were imported from elsewhere in Morocco. Still, it was a very relaxing stroll through the carpet-sellers and leather shops.

There were beautiful Palomino horses guarding the Hassan Tower.

The Hassan Tower was a fairly amazing ruin.

It had been meant to be the largest mosque in the world when construction was started in 1195, and abandoned a few years later. It was never finished.

The minaret is about half the height that it was meant to be, and there are over 200 pilars to have supported the mosque that stretch over a huge swarth of ground.

There is also one of the most ridiculously ornate buildings onsite- a Mausoleum where a former king lays buried.

I found the American embassy here! While the other embassies were in small house-like structures with a small plaque and a flag, the American one was a huge compound walled with multiple security checkpoints, cameras everywhere, and signs saying I was absolutely not allowed to take pictures of it.

Another nice find was Chella- now an unusual botanical garden with Roman and Islamic ruins of a former settlement on the banks of the Bou Regreg river.

There were tons of storks and egrets nesting here as well.

So, yes. Rabat was totally enjoyable and worth spending a couple days in. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It was much more relaxed and calm than other cities in Morocco, with less tourist. The locals were actually friendly and tried to help, and they didn't demand payment for it either.