I received a midnight message from
Tim letting me know he had made it into Morocco but that no one was at the
rental car window. His plane was delayed due to a horrendous blizzard
in Paris that dumped an astounding ¼ inch of snow on the runway. He ended up arriving past the normal rental car hours. I tried to reply but I
received nothing back. The next morning I heard from him again and he
had made it to Rabat late that night. After waiting some time someone
had appeared at the rental counter and allowed him to complete his
reservation.
Our GPS unit we had purchased in South
Africa was not functioning properly so he had to rely on analog maps
to get to Chefchaouen. Google maps estimated the journey at around 3
hours but having already taken the voyage up these mountain roads I
knew it would take longer. Every hour I would go walk around the main
streets outside of the medina looking for him. My first patrol was
unsuccessful. My second started at 1 pm and still no Tim. I decided I would just wait in front of the medina until
I saw him as my moving around was probably not helping.
After about twenty minutes I saw this
pissed off goofy white guy driving down the road. I knew this face I
said to myself. He didn't see me so I ran to his car. Another man
was tapping on his window to do I don't know what so Tim was not
looking to the side. I pushed the guy away and started to tap myself.
He didn't look and sped off down the street. I ran behind him waving my arms like
an idiot to no avail. As I stopped running he stopped halfway down
the block, finally looking at the frantic man running after him. I
walked up to the car and he let me in, our logistical nightmare was
over. The weather had improved dramatically
from the day before.
Tim had not eaten since he landed so we
grabbed some lunch.
I then showed him around the medina a
bit and then we decided to go on the hike I had attempted to do
yesterday before mother nature had other plans.
Theres Tim! It was a pretty short hike.
Some had predicted that it would take hours but this was not the
case. There were many trails you could take but the most developed
one took you over a hill with a Spanish mosque residing at
the top. The view from the top was alright, if you are into that kind
of thing.
Our hike was not as extreme as this
ladies.
After the hike we went back to the
hostel and rested a bit. At nightfall we decided to hit the town and
see what Chefchaouen was like on a Saturday night. Surprisingly it
was pretty dead.
This kind of looks like a disco but it
is really a small bumper car attraction. This seemed to be the only
thing going on. We did not partake as I am sure every one of the
other participants would gang up on us and destroy our car. The
chickens seemed to be having a better time than the people.
After some walking we grabbed some
dinner in the medina. We had tried to find this restaurant rated highly online but it was deep in the medina and my navigation skills failed.
We ended up stumbling onto a very good place though which happened to be my
favorite meal in Chefchaouen.
We started with some onion soup that
was pretty damn good. With the bread it would have been fine as a
meal on its own. For the main course I ordered lemon chicken. They
were out of what time wanted so he ordered what the waiter suggested.
We had no idea what it was.
When the food came my lemon chicken was
bland and was covered in french fries. Tim’s dish however was some
sort of chicken pancake with veggies covered in powdered sugar. It
looked gross but tasted amazing. I was a dick a stole a number of
bites. He is just going to have to deal with that.
All in all I am happy how things went.
I assumed we would have much more difficulty finding each other but with
a bit of luck it worked out. Oh, and it looks like we have some Ducks fans in the neighborhood.
