Washing Away the Desert Sand

The bus driver awoke me to say we had arrived in Fes. He asked me if I was continuing on to Chefchaouen, but I wasn’t.

Then I was.

After reading a description of the small mountain village in the Lonely Planet guide, I convinced Jennifer to skip Fes and go directly there. Afterall, it was a rainy day in Fes and it would be nice to spend sometime in “a charming town” with its signature blue-washed homes with red-tiled roofs.

I was looking forward to taking a hot shower to wash away the sand, but instead I was greeted in Chefchaouen with a torrential downpour that had started 24 hours before. We didn’t have a place to stay, so we shared a taxi with a fellow traveler, Troy, to the medina and took shelter in a small restaurant to eat a hot meal and figure out our next step.

He went off seeking a budget option, and when he returned, I set out find a more comfortable accommodation. We had read about a Italian-run place that had fireplaces in each room, but when I finally found it in the wet and windy alleyways on the hillside, they only had bunk beds in very small rooms.

We settled on a family-run pension, which had rooms that surround a covered courtyard. It seems pleasant enough! Now we are waiting for the rain to stop while we check email. It doesn’t want to give up. I needed a shower, but I wasn’t looking for a downpour!