Day 4 of the Morocco Uncovered Tour: Chefchaouen, and then to Fes
Today was our first opportunity to do some exploring on our own. I woke up and got ready and went up to breakfast. I had slept pretty well. I ended up not having good pictures from inside the room because it was too dark and I had accidentally blurred the photos, but I took some right outside the room.
The breakfast at the hotel was pretty good. I ended up sitting with Barb and Graehm and enjoyed a variety of foods plus coffee. I had originally been planning to wander on my own for the morning but Steph and Alicia, two of the younger women on our tour, invited me to join them and suggested they could take pictures of me, and frankly that sounded like fun, so I did. I finished packing up my room and got my luggage out for later pickup, and off we went.
A few words about Chefchaouen as we learned from Aman (our guide), who was from there. He said in the early 2000s one street of houses decided to use blue paint and pictures of that street went viral on the internet. Over time, the whole town ended up painting themselves blue, various shades, in order to increase tourism and look cool on Instagram. So basically, it’s a really popular place, very beautiful, and the main reason is the internet. But it IS beautiful, and we just loved it. (Later he pointed out a town in the distance that he said was trying some green paint for tourism, and it did make me want to go there as well, also watch the socials for that one.)
As you can see, we took a lot of photos! It was hard not to. I have so many more on my camera roll. I didn’t choose my outfit to match or coordinate, but we saw many who did. We had a fun morning wandering around, and then we did some souvenir shopping before deciding to get lunch at Restaurant Aladin, which Aman said was the nicest one overlooking the main square.
We thought we had allowed enough time for lunch, but after waiting over 45 minutes for our food, we asked them if it could actually be to go (We had ordered sandwiches and pizza so this was possible) and then hurried back to the hotel to meet the group.
By then it was pouring rain again, after a decent morning, thankfully! We headed out in the van to Fes, and the driver kept having to slow down for giant puddles and sometimes to divert around standing water and flooding along the route.
At one point there was a stand selling fresh oranges along the road and Aman hopped out and bought some for everybody.
We made it to fez in the late afternoon and checked into the hotel for two nights. (So relaxing, two nights in one place!). Here we stayed at the Across Hotels and Spa which was a disappointment compared to the Riad in Chefchaouen, but was a perfectly serviceable hotel. It was in a nice location and just felt a bit more “corporate” or “chain.” After a little downtime, we all met downstairs to go to dinner together. We went to a restaurant in an old house where they served us a feast of Moroccan salads, chicken pastille, fresh fruit and cookies for dinner. It was New Year’s Eve at this point and one of the woman had brought some decor for us to use.
And then we drove back to the hotel. It felt a bit sad to go to bed early on New Year’s Eve, but yet, what else to do? I think some people might have gone out, but more in their couple groups. I was also feeling a little bit “needing my personal space” so it was nice to go up to bed and relax, even though it felt lame, haha. I ended up giving Louie a call on Facetime, which was great, and felt so crazy: talking on facetime from another continent is always crazy, isn’t it?
Practical things: you could pay to have laundry done at this hotel. I took advantage of the time to sink wash some clothes which would have two days to dry. The heat was really effective in the rooms and it was nice and cozy, which I figured would also help with air drying.
Happy New Year to us! It was always sad spending New Year away from Louie–we’ve done it quite a few times–I would say this was one of the times I started to feel most home sick, but the next day was so much fun that I was again so grateful to be where I was. And you’ll have to wait to read about that until later. Day 5 of Morocco Uncovered, coming soon.
(If you are reading this, please give a comment! I love comments!)