After hiking through the waterfalls at Akchour, we drove to Tangier, which is at the northern tip of the country, close to Spain. Here, everyone spoke Arabic and Spanish, with French being less of a prominent language like it is in the rest of the country. We stayed for one night, then went to the beach the next day.
After breakfast in the Chefchaouen main square, we decided, on the recommendation of other college students in Rabat, to drive to Akchour and see the waterfall. The waterfall is about 45 minutes by grand taxi away from Chef, and we found a driver through the hostel owner. When booking the taxi, we hired the driver to take us to and from Akchour, and then on to Tangier. Between the six of us, we each paid about 200 dirhams (or about 25 dollars), which was probably too much, but in the grand scheme of things was fine. Just remember to bargain!
After working in the children's center for a few days, the group and I had the weekend off. When asking all the locals for places to travel to in Morocco, all answered "Chefchaouen," also called the blue city because of all the blue paint used on the buildings. So we bought bus tickets (on the public line, which is good if you want a cheap ride, but also crowded, so travel with a friend) and boarded the coach to the blue city. Five hours later we arrived late at night. All we could see were the lights in the windows of peoples' homes and the stars glittering in the country sky. We had no idea what we would wake up to, but slept until the sun rose. We stepped out of our room, and climbed the stairs to the rooftop balcony...
|