Our tour started today at the crack of 8a with us piling into our nicely appointed minivan, quickly nicknamed “the sardine can”. Luckily governmental law has strict laws limiting the time the driver can spend behind the wheel so we’ll have frequent breaks to stretch our legs.

Today was mostly a driving day – 4 hours north to Tangier, then 2hrs southeast to Chefchaouen. Our day didn’t end till 9:30p so my blog posts are bound to be shorter if each day is this busy!

The way north was near the Atlantic Ocean so a heavy marine layer disturbed our view the whole way. The landscape was most scrubland and agricultural fields, oak trees and my favorite yellow wildflowers (“vinagreta” in Spanish, I learned) so very similar landscape to Spain.

We arrived in Tangier just after 12p. We turned off the highway and like magic all of a sudden everything is lush and green with wildflowers, fancy villas, camel rides, and most impressive the Atlantic Ocean. We stopped at a lookout over where the Atlantic mixes with the Mediterranean, had lunch, then drove past all the zillion dollar villas on our way to the new town.

Tangier is a beautiful waterfront city, very cosmopolitan and was once a playground for the wealthy. We picked up a local guide for a trip through the Medina. He was rather loquacious, and to be honest I pretty much tuned him out but his more extravagant facts were fun.

After Tangier we were back in the van for a couple of hours. The trip was quiet as the motion set most of the jet-lagged passengers to sleep. Unfortunately I sat on the wrong side for the best photos but I took a couple on the fly.

We arrived in Chefchaouen at 7p so just enough time to find our rooms and get a quick orientation tour before we went to an amazing rooftop terrace for dinner. Instead of ordering individually we went for a group meal where they just kept coming out with plate after plate of food: baba ganoush, hummus, olives, salad, soup, lentils, faves bean soup, oxtail and lamb and goat tajine, etc! It was fantastic and we all rolled off to bed.