Morocco

Andrew had a work trip to Spain, so Kai and I joined. We had reservations to take a ferry from Tarifa Spain to Tangier Ville which was supposed to take 45 minutes and the port was not even 10 minutes to our hotel. Our ferry was canceled due to weather, so we had to drive 30 minutes to Algeciras to catch the slow 2 hour ferry. We expected a short travel day, however with weather delays even from Algeciras we didn’t depart until about 20:00. Then, we stopped at Gibraltar (which they only do every 2 weeks!) and then onto Tangier. When we arrived to Tangier Med we had to get our luggage from the container and took a bus to the arrival hall. Fortunately, we snagged a taxi and off we went for 45 minutes to the hotel. We did not arrive to our hotel until 12:30am! Kai was a trooper and slept in the ergo carrier.

Chefchaouen, Morocco

The following day, my birthday, we had 09:00 reservations for a private tour of Chefchaouen or the blue city! A van picked us up and drove two hours to the blue pearl of Morocco. Our tour guide, Mohammed, is a Chefchaouen native and photographer for the trip. It was incredibly blue and the women of town continually keep up the paint throughout the year. The reason it is blue is because when the Jewish people first settled they painted it the holy color. Mohammed said for the Muslim people they kept it blue because it repels mosquitoes. Mohammed took us to the sights that we showed him pictures of and we even bought Moroccan rugs! We had lunch at Riad Hicham which had a gorgeous terrace overlooking the center. The city was so unique and beautiful. The whole old town is a photo opportunity. There’s definitely nowhere like it and worth a visit if you’re in Morocco.

On Sunday we had reservations for a tour of Tangier starting at 10:00, however Andrew was nauseous and sick from something he ate the day before. I’m going to say it may be from the street figs we bought. That was something I didn’t eat and I wasn’t sick. Fortunately, he felt better and we started our tour at 13:00. Tangier is super picturesque and it reminded us a lot of California with the mountains and beach. We got a picture with a camel, saw the Hercules grotto, took pictures on the water and finally to the Medina or old town. We hope to visit again one day to see some of the other cities.

View from hotel, Grand Mogador, in Tangier