Our bus to Chefchaouen on Wednesday was at 11am, so we were able to take breakfast at the hostel before heading out to catch a taxi. We knew that we needed to walk about 5 minutes from the hostel to outside the medina to catch a taxi and my idea was to use InDrive, which is an Uber-like rideshare app. InDrive is technically illegal to use for Moroccan drivers, but we had used it a few times during the trip and I wanted the ease of knowing the price and not haggling with a taxi driver. In each Moroccan city there are “petit taxis” which are required by law to turn on the meter and charge you the exact meter amount, but they refuse to do so for tourists unless you are fluent in Arabic. We were exhausted from bartering each taxi down from their first price at double what it should be and opted for what should have been the easier choice. When we got outside the old city walls a man in an SUV quickly asked us if we needed a taxi, told us InDrive is illegal, then told us that the taxi’s were on strike that day and he could give us a great price. We told him we didn’t need a ride and we weren’t waiting for a taxi, but he didn’t stop. Then he backed up his car to be right in front of us and again offered us a ride. We declined and when he did not leave we walked away. He finally drove away a little, saw us stopped on the road and then flagged down a petit taxi to presumably tell them he thought we were waiting for an InDrive. We then walked further away from this guy, calling our InDrive to see where he was and then noticed this guy in the SUV parked at the bottom of the hill. We eventually got the InDrive, like 30 meters from this guy, and he immediately got out of his car and dialed someone on his phone. I told our driver that I thought this dude was calling the police or something and our driver shook it off and wasn’t bothered. We got into the car and drove off. The ride to the bus station was without incident and our driver was very concerned about getting us there as quickly as possible, even though we had ample time before our bus departed.
When we arrived at the bus station we recognized two guys that stayed at our Fes hostel, although we never spoke with them. They were also going to Chefchaouen, so we sat next to them, introduced ourselves, and chit chatted until it was time to board the bus. Other than being a little long, 4.5 hours, the bus ride was not memorable. Once we arrived in Chefchaouen we made plans to watch the sunset by the mosque on the hill (the thing to do) with the two guys. We checked into our hotel and relaxed for a little bit before grabbing a bite to eat. We found a little food stall and finally tried “tacos” which we have been seeing advertised all over Morocco. A taco in Morocco is more of a wrap filled with mostly meat, cheese and some veggies, then finished on a panini press. We noticed that all the other patrons were locals while we enjoyed our delicious and very affordable meal. While we were finishing up our food, the two guys from our Fes hostel walked by and we joined forces then to walk over and up to the mosque for sunset. The walk up is a little steep, and around .75 miles, but it was nice to stretch our legs and get some steps in after the bus ride.
Sunset was beautiful looking out over the blue city while the sun dropped behind a mountain peak across the valley. Tourists and locals all gathered around the mosque snapping photos and hanging out as the sun went down. There is also a cafe at the top of the hill, if you’d like a drink or snack. Once the temperature changed enough we decided to head back into town and find one of the few establishments that serves alcohol. Since drinking is not much of a thing in Morocco, even though there were locals in this bar, this bar we went to had about zero vibe….haha You can also smoke inside in Morocco and this bar was somewhere that allowed this, so that further downgraded the vibe. We all had two drinks while we talked about European football, both of our new friends had important matches to watch later in the evening, past travels, and life in each of our respective countries. On the way back to our hotel we purchased a few Moroccan cookies to enjoy back in our room.
On our second and last day in Chefchaouen, we walked around the town, purchased some local soap (since we’ll need some more soon anyway), and walked up to the mosque again to get a view during the daylight. Once we were back up on the hill we noticed a path that went over to another hillside 1km away and a second path that went into the mountains. After seeing these we definitely wished we had booked two nights to be able to do some hiking or rock climbing (there are 4 bolted routes basically in town!). We had a decent lunch along the little river/ creek that splits the town, more tacos, accompanied by probably the worst service we received the entire trip. The bus to Tangier was about 30 minutes late but was the shortest bus ride we had in Morocco, only 2.5 hours.
