Ouarzazate aka Moroccan Hollywood (Day 13)

After a a long (6 hour) ride from Erfoud to Ouarzazate we didn't have much trouble finding a suitable hotel.
Our Lonely Planet guide book proved to be quite handy once again. This time Hotel Royal was our choice. It proved to be OK but not much more.

It was still early when we got up and headed for the Ouarzazate Grand Taxi station on the next morning.
We were expecting another bargaining session and we were right. As soon as we got there we found someone who would be very happy to take us to Ait Benhaddou. This was our destination of the day.
I thought it would be easier to lower the starting price for the ride there and back. The story was, M. and I would have to pay for all six (yes that's 6!) places in an old Mercedes (you can read more about grand taxi habits in Morroco in this post).
Although many of the drivers standing around were assuring us that definitely there were no other passengers going our way, we decided to hang around for a bit longer and wait for someone willing to share a ride with us.

We didn't have to wait long. Soon a foreign looking group of three stepped out of a petit taxi. We approached them before anyone else started talking to them. As we expected, they were also heading our way and it didn't take us long to arrange a ride.


During a ride to Ait Benhaddou in an old Mercedes we learned, that father and daughter of Korean origin were coming from US and have a local guide with them to show them around. We were told he was a friend of a friend and a really valuable asset when traveling around Morocco.


After a photo stop or two we arrived to our destination and went on a quick tour around the city made out of mud. It was quite interesting and soon we realized residents are probably never bored. The walls have to be constantly repaired - they are damaged every time it rains. Luckily that is not too often.
We saw a group of locals preparing the muddy mix. Most walls are obviously made from such a mix of mud, water, straw and supported by wood. Supposedly only nine families live in the mud city today and they are trying to keep it in a reasonably good shape.


This UNESCO site is often used as a movie set and is quite famous.

On the way back we passed Atlas Studios and we decided to check it out. They offer guided tours around most of the movie sets still standing today. Some of those are really old (for instance the F16 airplane from the 1985 movie The Jewel of the Nile is in a pretty sad state), others were reasonably new.
We also saw other famous movie sets (Gladiator, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatre, Kundun etc.) of which the most fascinating was a real-size castle for The Kingdom of Heaven. Supposedly it was built for 20 minutes of the movie.


Despite a 50 Dirham entrance fee per person and a pretty touristy feel to it, we still liked it (after all it was the single one attraction of this type on our three week trip).

Potential visitors beware: Because of the price and at moments a bit industrial feel to it, some of you might see Atlas Studios as a tourist trap.

After a quick tour of the studios (our guide was constantly rushing us from set to set) we caught a city bus to our hotel. After a quick stop we went out to grab something to eat. Since we still didn't have enough of attractions for one day, we walked to the city Kasbah. Kasbah of Ouarzazate is supposedly the largest in Morocco. It truly is magnificent!


After this we were really exhausted and literally fell into bed. We slept like dead until the morning.

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Flies come with the season of dates (Day 12)

Once again a swarm of annoying flies woke me up half an hour before sunset. It was impossible to ignore them, so I got up.

I found it quite strange to see so many flies in the middle of the desert. Later that day I asked one of our Berber guides about those annoying creatures. He explained that in the desert with the season of dates also comes the season of flies. Obviously those few palm trees we saw had dates on them almost ready to be picked.

Since just getting up was not enough to shake off all those flies, I grabbed my trusty Olympus photo camera, a bottle of water and headed up a nearby dune.


Flies followed me almost all the way up. At the top I just sat in the sand and simply enjoyed the silence. It is almost unbelievable how quiet it can be in the desert. I guess one could feel really alone on one side of a dune even with a group of drunken Scots attending a death-metal concert on the other side of it.

It really reminded me of those winter days with heavy snowfall, which muffles all the sounds of nature... without all that snow of course.


There was not even a bird to disturb this atmosphere. As a matter of fact, I was looking closely for some kind of a sign an animal left in the sand. All I could find in three days were dromedary tracks, dromedary droppings and some kind of desert-bug tracks.
I was also expecting to find at least some snake and desert fox tracks.



While soaking in the peaceful atmosphere and heat from the rising sun, I took some nice photos.
It is hard to resist pressing on the photo trigger all the time while in an environment so picturesque and unusual (for me anyway).

Before I knew it, it was time for breakfast again. I was the same as the day before, but we didn't complain because it was quite delicious. After cleaning up the table we formed our little desert caravan for the last time and headed back to where we started - Auberge LaBaraka.


A couple of days ago, when we were getting ready for the two night desert trip, we were a bit worried about different disadvantages of being in the saddle for too long (for instance heavy butt and leg pains). I think it is safe to say that none of us had any problems of that kind.
Also my clothes didn't smell so bad as I feared they would. Dromedaries were obviously well cared for.


When we got back to Auberge LaBaraka we had a hot shower, drank a pool of water and just relaxed in a shade for a while.

After a short discussion M. and I both agreed to leave on a first bus to Ouarzazate. Our friends from Switzerland also thought it would be better to move on. They even agreed to drop us off at the Erfoud bus station, to where we got just in time to catch the bus.

We kissed goodbye and left separate ways again. We were really sad to part with them. They were really nice and fun to be with. Andrea, Simone and Kim: thanks once again for everything!
We were sad to leave the dunes of Erg Chebbi behind, but there was so much of Morocco left to explore and (as always) so little time.


Together with M. we just had to agree that visiting a real sandy desert is such a strong experience, everyone who can afford it should do it at least once in a lifetime.
To really get a feel of it, you should stay at least a couple of nights.

This post belongs to a series of posts about our Moroccan adventure. If you liked the post, you should probably click on the suggested link to check out the rest of our trip.

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The dunes of Erg Chebbi (Day 11)

We were riding for the most of the morning (you can check out photos in one of my previous posts) and have made only a short stop. The first real stop for a longer rest was at a small Berber settlement. There was a group of some five tents set up, obviously in use by a small family and a herd of goats.


After a while they served us fresh salad made of tomatoes, red and green peppers, cucumbers, onions and olives. It was very refreshing and exactly what we needed at that time.

I also spotted what seemed to be some kind of a traditional Berber oven. It was standing in the opened, but was unfortunately not in use at that moment.


A young Berber boy was running around all the time, hoping to get some attention. He was quite cute and soon we were all trying to entertain him in one way or another. I for instance tried to show him how to make paper aeroplanes. He was quite excited about it... for a minute or two maybe.
Half a pack of wafers got his attention for much longer.


When the scorching heat eased for a bit, it was time to move on. We boarded our desert ships and headed for another Berber camp. We got there just before sunset.


We climbed up another dune to watch the sun set. This time we chose a smaller heap of sand. Unfortunately also the sunset couldn't measure to the spectacular sunrise in the morning. When talking to our companions from Switzerland time really flew by. We learned that being the same age in spite of growing up in a totally different country (when M. and I were kids we were living in a socialist republic of Yugoslavia) our childhoods have not been so different. We played the same games, liked similar stuff and did the same things we were not supposed to.

Before we knew it, it was time for food again. We were already quite hungry by then and whatever was on the menu, it was smelling nice.


When we dug into the Couscous we were unpleasantly surprised. We found out it was quite generously seasoned with fine desert sand. It was creaking and squeaking while we were grinding through our dinner. It was quite amusing to watch faces others were making.

Before we turned in for the night we tried to solve a bunch of impossible riddles supposedly invented by Berbers a long time ago.
If you spend your whole life in the desert it is not hard to imagine that making up impossible to solve riddles is just one of the ways to keep you going.

It was already late when we finally decided to crawl into our sleeping bags and fall asleep looking at the starry sky.

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A brand new look for Travel Photo Blogging

I thought it was time for a change. Those of you who visit me more often might have noticed it already... the Travel Photo Blogging 2.0 look.

First time visitors can see the old template on the screenshot bellow.


What do you think? Is this a good change or should I have kept the old one?
I would love some feedback on what you think about it.

I spent quite some time looking for a suitable candidate among many templates on the Web. I tried a few, but none of them was as good as this one.
I had a few requirements, that I think this new template meets perfectly:

• it had to be a Blogger compatible template


• it had to be a two column template


• main column had to be wider compared to the old one (larger photos look better)


• it had to be a free template


• it should support a banner at the very top


• the more customizable it would be, the better


• and last, but definitely not least, it had to look nice.

I found exactly what I needed in one of many templates at Our Blogger Templates.
They offer a wide range of nicely designed free templates and if you are looking for a new one, it's worth to take a look.
There you can also find some instructions and a few tips on how to do it properly.

I noticed something strange though... since I changed to the new template, my blog seems to be getting substantially fewer hits then before - especially from Google. That's only about 10 percent of the average from a few days ago (judging from the Google Analytics report)!

Does anybody know why this happens? Is this just a temporary thing or what? Is there something I can do about it?

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My first desert sunrise (Day 11)

I woke up just before sunrise. I would have definitely missed it if a large number of really annoying flies wouldn't have woken me up. Most of others were still asleep. We were a relatively small group of 9 travellers and 3 Berber guides.


I wasn't sure if I should bother to wake them up or better let them sleep. Fortunately one of the Swiss girls also woke up and we decided it was a good idea to wake up the others.

I was surprised how fast a bunch of girls can get up and ready to start climbing up the tallest sandy dune in the neighborhood. And all of that just because of a sunrise. But then again... it was a sunrise in the middle of the Erg Chebbi desert.


It was quite a challenge to climb that dune. I guess it wasn't more then 200 meters high, but the sand made it a lot harder then I could tell.
For every two steps up, the sand made us slip one step back down. On top of that the air was so unbelievably dry, that I had to stop quite often to take a sip from the water bottle.
Just thinking of it still dries my mouth. And the sun was not even up yet.
I really can't imagine how it would be to do it in the middle of the day. I think I wouldn't make it or at least it would take me three times as long.


The climb took me a bit over 20 minutes. Others (including my Swiss companions, used to real mountains) took a bit longer. We were all surprisingly exhausted, but made it to the top just in time to see the so much anticipated sunrise.
In the end it was really worth it and we took some time for an extensive photo session.

Calls from our Berber guides announcing breakfast reminded us of hunger. It was a matter of seconds to get down from the top.


Until we started eating, someone had to stand at the little round table and constantly swat at countless flies, trying to share breakfast with us.
Our guides have prepared a simple yet delicious breakfast. There was soft cheese, butter, jam, honey, olive oil, bread and of course orange juice. More then enough for us. After breakfast it was still time for a cup of green tea.


In the meantime guides prepared our dromedaries for the day trip. Usually they are incorrectly called camels, not only by tourists but often even by their Berber owners.


Each of us picked a ride and off we went. It took us only a couple of minutes to be totally surrounded with sand dunes. Our campsite was nowhere to be seen and it was really quite easy to imagine how would it feel being lost in this sea of sand...

If you are wondering what happened next, you can read about the rest of this day in this post.

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Finding our way into Moroccan desert (Day 10)

Compared to the night before it was a beautiful day. The sky was crystal clear once again. Muddy streets with surprisingly deep puddles were the only reminder of yesterday's storms. We were just hoping a storm like that doesn't happen again when we are in the desert. I just can't imagine what you can do when it starts pouring down like that and you have nowhere to hide...


Even with the morning sun, Rissani didn't look any better then the night before. We agreed to try our best not to spend another night here. To do that we had to find a ride to Erg Chebbi desert, where we wanted to spend at least a couple of nights.
We were staying in Hotel Merzouga, for 150 dirhams per double room a night. I guess it was OK, but definitely nothing more then that. When we woke up we found a 15 centimeter patch of chipped paint on a pillow next to the one we were using. It simply fell off the ceiling during the night.

When we were walking across town towards a much nicer and a bit more expensive hotel Dar Lamrani (if you can afford it I really recommend it), to our surprise we weren't approached by anyone offering us some kind of a deal. The hotel manager offered us breakfast and told us that we can pay as much as we think it's worth. Since this seemed really suspicious we insisted on a price. He just smiled, wished us “bon appetite” and walked away.

When enjoying fresh breakfast a couple of European girls came out of the hotel. We tried to start a conversation but they didn't seem too interested.
We thought it would be smart to team up with more people in order to be able to negotiate a better price for a desert trip.

When the two girls returned we tried a bit more direct approach and it worked. They seemed really nice and as they told us, they were traveling together with another friend and also had a rented car.
This was just too perfect to be true.

They surprisingly agreed to take us with them and were leaving in ten minutes. We were really happy with the outcome - It just doesn't get much better then that. I quickly payed the guy 50 Dirhams for the breakfast and thanked him for kindness. It seemed he was pleased with that.


We fetched our bags from the hotel we were staying in and left for the desert. At some point we left the main road and tried to follow a rocky-desert piste.

While driving into the desert we found out we were traveling with three Swiss girls, who knew exactly which hotel by the desert to go to. One of their friends from back home was there a couple of times before and even had a romance with the owner of the Auberge LaBaraka (to locate it on Google maps click here).


There we met Hassan, who was happy to meet friends of a girl he was still in contact with. We didn't have to bargain for the price of the desert experience. He came forward with a reasonable price and he didn't want to go lower (supposedly it was the price he charged the Swiss girl he knew).


This suited us just fine and we agreed to leave for the desert that same afternoon.

The Auberge LaBaraka is a quite simple but well kept place and staff is really nice. We enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere and I took the time to take a first bunch of many sandy photos.


It was a relaxed afternoon on the edge of sand dunes, followed by a lovely sunset in the desert where we found a camping place. After dinner some Berber drumming carried us back in time. It went on long into the night until we all fell asleep.


There were tents available but we chose to sleep in our sleeping-bags under the countless stars. I can't remember the last time I saw so many.

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Crossing Atlas Mountains (Day 9)

Our plan for this day was a trip from Fes to Meknes. Those two are both referred to as Imperial cities and as such offer many sights worth visiting.

We left the hotel and headed for the bus station. There we were informed that the bus for Meknes is not leaving until 6 PM. It was a long wait so we started looking for alternatives.

After a couple of minutes we were approached by a local and after a short conversation he offered to arrange a ride for Azrou for the same price we expected to pay for the bus. Azrou is a crossroad on the way south. From there the road continues across Atlas Mountains and into the sand dunes of Merzouga.

We didn't trust the guy, but we were very curious what he was up to. "Curiosity killed the cat" says an old proverb, but we decided to play along nevertheless.

He promised us a cheap ride with a Grand taxi to Azrou, where we could catch a fancy bus to Rissani. We liked that idea, because that meant skipping the town of Er Rachidia, against which we were warned a couple of times.
Different touts are supposedly especially pushy and persistent in that town. They know almost everyone getting off the bus in Er Rachidia is on the way to the desert. When trying to sell you a guided tour into the desert they just won't take no for an answer.

Even though we still didn't think the guy was telling the truth, we took his offer.
An old Mercedes was already waiting for us and all we had to do was pay the driver and hit the road. With us in the cab, the car was full. This meant six (yes, that's 6!) people plus the driver.

I guess we were lucky that all four of us sitting in the back seat were quite skinny. Two local guys sharing the back seat with M. and me were obviously amused with the two unusual passengers but unfortunately didn't speak any English to share their reasons with us. It was the same with the driver and other two passengers.

I guess this seems like a pretty uncomfortable event but it wasn't. Besides an occasional not very safe overtaking manoeuvre (on some occasions M. didn't feel very comfortable watching the road, so she tried to focus on something else), the two hours to Azrou passed pretty quickly.


From there on we boarded a bus to Rissani, which was just leaving when we got to the station. Unfortunately it wasn't a new, comfortable one we got used to until this point. CTM buses don't cover this destination, so we were stuck with a less comfortable option.

It is funny really... we always opted for CTM buses, almost the only exception was the longest destination over Atlas mountains.


We didn't have any problems with the winding road. Unfortunately this can't be said for quite a few of other passengers. Some of them were throwing up most of the way.

Despite all of those things we enjoyed the beautiful Atlas scenery. The most annoying thing were a couple of breaks during which we were pestered with locals trying to sell us something.
Some had various fossils to offer at supposedly very affordable prices, others were selling the best desert experience ever. We didn't give any of them a chance.When I was speaking with them and tried not to look too irritated and turned them down politely. M. on the other hand got annoyed by them quite quickly and was soon "a bit" more direct.


As we were nearing the desert, thunderstorms and heavy rain were picking up. In some places the road was totally flooded. On a few occasions I would feel much better if we were on a boat instead of a bus.

When we got to Rissani it was already late and we were pretty exhausted. To top it all we found out that our backpacks stored in the luggage compartment of the bus were soaking wet and covered in dirt.
Besides all that we still had a hotel to find. It wasn't easy but we succeeded after a couple of tries. It was just for one night so this time we weren't too picky.

After a quick shower we fell into the bed and slept like dead till next morning.

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(A)mazing Medina of Fes (Day 8)

We had a peaceful night at the Hotel Royal and when we woke up we were ready to explore the old part of the city of Fes.

Fes is one of the four imperial cities and has been the capital of Morocco several times in the past. It is believed that Fes was the largest city in the world from 1170 to 1180 and today has a population of around one million. Fes el Bali, the largest of the two medinas of Fes, is not only the largest Medina in Morocco, but it is also believed to be the largest contiguous car-free urban area in the world.

Since we even felt lost for a short moment in the tiny Medina of Chefchaouen we were pretty sure we will succeed in doing the same in Fes.

After a quick breakfast (it was finally the end of Ramadan and food was a bit easier to find) we were set for the Medina.

We entered the maze of medieval streets through the eastern gate. Pretty soon we found ourselves in the middle of a river of people, rushing through the narrow streets. Some of the streets were partly covered to protect people from the hot sun. Since it was quite hot various strong smells were hard to ignore. Some were even pleasant, but mostly they were strong and unpleasant. Most of the pleasant ones were coming out of little shops. I didn't dare to wonder about the origin of other ones...

Every now and then we had to give way to a donkey carrying some kind of a heavy load.
I couldn't really decide if there were more donkeys or donkey droppings to worry about.

We walked by various shops crammed mostly with junk. One can find lots of leather shops in Fes. There are loads of bags, jackets (not really latest Italian fashion), belts and babouches (traditional Moroccan slippers). Owner of such a shop will usually take you to some kind of a terrace overviewing tanneries.


Since we didn't plan on buying a leather jacket or some other leather product, we didn't give in to never ending invitations for entering shops.
However we did buy a tea pot. A typical trashy-shiny-Moroccan-type. This is pretty untypical for us but M. insisted on having one of those.

Before the deal was made we had to negotiate for at least 15 minutes. During this time we kind of insulted the shop owner for at least three times. We also left the shop two times just to be called back in with a more affordable offer. It was all a game.

We ended up with a quite nice teapot of reasonable quality (at least when compared to others) for a price of 90 MAD. The negotiation started at 200 for a lower quality and half the size of teapot we got in the end.

Before the negotiation game started, we agreed not to pay more then 100 MAD, so we were quite pleased with the outcome. The shop owner on the other hand didn't seem too happy but we were sure this was also just a part of the game.

Later in the afternoon we bought some nuts, a bunch of postcards with stamps and visited a suspiciously dark little room with Internet access (they had a surprisingly fast connection).


It was quite late when we finally decided to head back to our hotel and find something to eat. We really didn't have a hard time finding our way out of the Medina (we found one of the exits on the south-western part) and before we knew we were standing on a city bus headed in the direction of our hotel. Once again we were the only tourists on a crowded bus. We didn't mind it but some locals were obviously quite amused with our presence.

At he end of the day we were quite pleased with ourselves. We survived the largest maze Morocco has to offer and didn't have to ask for directions once. That doesn't mean we knew where we were at all times, but we surely didn't feel lost.

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Goodbye to Rif mountains (Day 7)

After paying for our stay in the Ouarzazate Hotel we negotiated to leave our luggage in the hotel until we left for the bus station.

Before we left Chefchaouen we still had a couple of hours to spare and first we grabbed a pancake breakfast, which was followed by a visit of the old Kasbah. It houses only a small museum, but since the entrance fee is very affordable I guess it is worth a visit.


Since the end of Ramadan was just a day ago, this meant that many Moroccans were planning to travel - usually visiting relatives.

As a precaution we bought our bus tickets a couple of days in advance. This proved to be a good idea, since the bus was fully booked way before departure. We also learned they charged us a bit differently for bus tickets each time.
This time we had to pay a bit more for our luggage. We didn't want to argue with the guy doing luggage check-in over a couple of Dirhams, so we just handed over the requested amount.

Since our next destination was one of the biggest cities in Morocco, we were a bit sad to leave this cute little town, nestled in the middle of Rif Mountains, behind. We really liked it.
Fes was next on our list and in spite of everything we were still looking forward of getting lost in its vast medieval Medina.


The bus ride to Fes went by without any problems. When we arrived to our destination it took us a while to find a decent hotel. The budget options recommended in our LP guide were either full, nonexistent (!) or really stinky.

This was at least the second time in Morocco that our LP guide let us down. The first time it was during a search for a nonexistent museum in Rabat, I was writing about in this post.

We took the only one that was acceptable by our standards (we only wanted a reasonably clean and cheap place to crash).
Hotel Royal turned out to be just that. Nothing to write home about, but served our needs perfectly for a couple of days.

It was probably a really nice place in its time... but I guess that was ages ago. We got that feeling from the generously sized bathroom with a large bath-tub and massive (yet a bit oxidized) water taps.

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Up and down Jebel el Kelaa (Day 6)

Once again we woke up early in the cosy Ouarzazate Hotel with the intention of going hiking. But this time we weren't ready to give up so easily.

We got up, ate a quick breakfast we bought the day before. I put on my backpack and off we went. Well, almost...
When we tried to leave our hotel, the door was locked and the receptionist was nowhere to be found. We didn't want to give up the hike before it really begun, but there was nothing else we could do but wait.

So we went back to our room. The receptionist didn't take too long to return and we were out of the hotel in a minute.


Jebel el Kelaa was recommended to us both by Lonely Planet guide and a Swiss couple we met on the day before.
We found the northern gate out of the Chefchaouen Medina and followed a path uphill through the old graveyard. Sun was still hiding behind one of the mountains to the east, but it wasn't dark anymore.

It was easy to follow markings on rocks. Unfortunately we couldn't decipher the text accompanying them. The hike was quite pleasant. The winding track was not too steep, but it went on forever. We also had quite a slow pace and have stopped quite often to take photos.
During one of those stops we admired a group of falcons playing in midair, shooting past us while we were sitting on an edge of a cliff. They were too fast for me to take a decent photo. This reminded me that I must replace my Olympus C-5060 camera with a decent DSLR soon.


I also stopped a couple of times to disturb some dung beetles. There were quite a few of them, rolling little balls of dung around. M. is always complaining when I start bugging bugs. It was no different this time but in spite of that it was worth the effort. I got a few really nice macro shots.


Almost all the way to the top there were remains of marijuana harvest on both sides of the track. As a local explained they harvest it at the end of August and in the next months it is time to turn it into hashish.

It took us approximately four hours to get to the top.

Actually we are still not sure if it actually was the top. At 1600 meters there were a couple options to continue. We took the most obvious one and made it to the top.


There we enjoyed a meal of local bread and a few peaces of soft cheese we brought with us. As we learned buying them, those soft cheese pieces, wrapped in aluminum foil were not sold in prepacked boxes, but piece by piece. Surprisingly also cigarettes (by cigarette not box) and chocolate (by square not tablet) are sold in a similar manner in the Medina streets.
After enjoying the snack and a beautiful view we went back down. It took us two and a half hours to get back to the town. First we freshened up with a fresh orange-banana juice and then relaxed until diner.

We were pleasantly tired therefor a paella we ordered seemed even more delicious.
Another fresh orange juice followed (these fruit juices simply rule - they cost one third of the price we're used to back home and are even more delicious). As usually the day ended with a pot of mint tea.

Chefchaouen Vacations

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End of Ramadan in Chaouen (Day 5)

We were awaken by the sound of drums and shouting from the street below our hotel window. It was 6 o'clock in the morning and just a perfect time for an early hike up a nearby mountain.

That was the plan, but because of all that noise from the street we quickly changed our minds. We didn't want to miss an opportunity to see a genuine Moroccan festival.
We noticed the anticipation in the local crowd already the previous evening. People were carrying around huge plates loaded with pastries ready to be baked. Also every shop owner was trying to explain to us that for the next couple of days his and almost every other shop is going to stay closed. Of course mostly they were saying that only because if we were moving on to another city soon, it was our last chance to buy something from their shop.

When we finally got up we agreed to make it an easy day around town and its surroundings, join the festival and take a photo or three.


We expected something to be going on, but Medina streets were much quieter compared to previous days. We didn't bother about that, changed our plans and slowly walked through the maze of narrow streets to the eastern part of town. From there we spotted an old ruined mosque on a nearby hill.

It was almost noon by that time and quite hot. As we didn't want to break our habit we bravely took the path leading uphill (we usually try not to, but always end up climbing some hill in the hottest time of a day).
It wasn't much of a climb and after a half an hour we were already at the top, looking down on Chefchaouen - 'The Green Capital of the World', as a local guy standing there called it. As you might imagine it had nothing to do with environmental awareness and quite a lot with large quantities of marijuana grown in the surrounding hills.

There were some people relaxing there and enjoying the view. Half of them were tourists and the other half were locals.
Soon enough we figured out this was a popular spot for hash smoking. The locals were mostly there on business i.e. trying to sell some hash. Surprisingly they were not at all pushy and telling them you don't want any, was enough.

So we just chatted with some of the guys, enjoyed the view for a while, took some photos and then went back into town.


There was still nothing going on, so we took time for a meal and just relaxed for some more.

In the evening people started gathering in the new part of the town. It seemed like everybody was there. But besides the cooked-snail stalls there was nothing interesting to see. It seemed people were just promenading up and down the street.

After a while we got tired of doing nothing and decided to go to bed and head into the mountains early in the morning. I guess I don't need to point out that we were a bit disappointed by the so called 'festival'. We figured that either we didn't find the place or we just didn't get the point of it. Who knows...

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