Hotel Parador Chefchaouen

... I sent you all postcards today so hopefully you'll get them before I get home. LOL, at first I merely asked for stamps and waved my postcards - he sold me 7.8 Dh stamps for each and I went on my merry way. Had a lovely lunch in the Plaza and wrote you all a bit, and when I returned to mail them - I happened to mention that they're headed for "America" and he kindly replied that I needed *2* stamps for each. Apparently 1 stamp would have only gotten them to ...

Chefchaouen is a gorgeous city situated in the mountain along a natural spring that trickles down through the village through from a cave in the mountains.  Its color palette is breathtaking in every shade of blue on could imagine.  Although it rained for most of the morning we were ...

... great for us as our combined Spanish is vastly superior to Jeff's minimalist French capabilities. Actually, just about everyone in town was very friendly especially if you wanted to smoke things that are illegal in the US! So far, the food here had been a bit of a disappointment. The single most obvious exception to this is the Harira soup, a tangy vegetable broth with unknown noodlish things floating in it which was excellent. We found ourselves ...

Yay first sleep in. Up at 8.45. Took down tent, organised ourselves then headed into town with Kelvin and Ania. Walked the lanes painted white and blue which were really pretty. Apparently blue keeps the mozzies away. Boys got their heads shaved so girls went on internet. Still not meant to be traveling through Mauritania so not sure what we're doing ...

... or Fes. The lady at the riad in Meknes though brewed us some lavender, rosemary, mint and something else tea which really eased our suffering and bums. In Fes we lashed out 85euros a night for a nice place ran by these two Americans who have been living away for ages and done up their dar (a flash riad). She made us soup and suggested a pharmacy to buy some over-the-counter antibiotics which cleared us up. Now we are in a ...

... I passed the washer woman by the river cleaning rugs, carpets and clothes then walked up the path for the 2km trek to see the ruined mosque. There was ************e around and I had the track to myself and made it up there in about 20 mins -- the views over Chefchaouen were excellent and I highly recommend checking it out. Lots of blues, whites and terracottas - it reminded me a little of Jodhpur in India - except 100 times cleaner ...

... the most probable shape of our particular universe. Without a comprehensive dataset available, the evolutionary pattern of Sfenj remains speculative, however if one were to employ convergent evolutionary theory within the anthropological framework pertaining to evolutionary success as a function of human preference for dough-based ideologies, one could confidently accept Sfenj as a representative of the doughnut family ...

... and luckily had managed to get car insurance. After all that we didn't feel like driving far, so we stopped at a campsite in Martil. It is a small town on the coast that looks like it would cater for the tourists in peak season, but is deserted now. When we arrived at the campsite Dad went to check-in, but found the man behind the desk kneeling on the floor praying, so had to wait a little while, so as not to disturb him. The facilities are very basic ...

... years ago; the big thing to buy there is a hammock, and in the markets and plazas, you will be told many times that you should buy one. He made me laugh when he bemoaned the fact that he didn't bring a shirt to wear when he first arrived which read, "Yo quiero una hamoca!" ("I want a hammock!"); he said that later in his trip, he would have liked to switch to a shirt that read, "Ya tengo una hamoca!" ("I already have a hammock!").

... what the locals were wearing. And to top it off, none of the locals had henna on them; only the tourists.... UUGH! Morocco is supposed to be a cheap country to travel in, and it is in terms of hotel rooms and food, but everything else about it, navigating, finding your way around, getting suckered by the locals, is soooo expensive! Its to the point now that I don't trust any local, because I've even had the experience where I asked someone directions to ...