On August 31, we arrived in Tangier by the awful, horrible GNV ferry from Barcelona (820€ with meals and a supposedly luxurious suite).
Tangiers
We drove straight to the Fairmont Tazi Palace Tangier. We stayed a week in a junior suite. It was okay, but we decided that for our second 1-week stay in November we would upgrade to the Signature Suite One Bedroom.
Audre's friend, Brucie, and his wife, Michelle, visited Tangier and reported that they liked it better than the more well-known cities of Casablanca, Marrakech, and Rabat. We used it to get acclimated to Morocco and to get chores done before our exploration of the country. We got our Kia car serviced at the Kia dealer and other things like that. The dealer could not fix the loss of the Kia navigation feature of the car when we got off the ferry. Evidently, a quick software update would not fix the loss.
Our first Moroccan meal was at the Fairmont's Social Kitchen, and it was very good. We had a chicken pastilla. This is a dish that we particularly like and has significance for us. For our first New Year’s Eve together, we made pastilla together (it took hours), and we thought our collaboration was very good (a good sign, oui?)
In Morocco, Audre was back to practicing French and Dimitri was speaking fluently (of course), sprinkled with the Arabic that he knew. The longer we stayed, the more Arabic he was speaking to the delight of all.
We took a city tour of Tangier (Tanger in French and Tazi in Arabic), and we went to the medina. There is a third language spoken in Morocco, and it is Amazigh (Berber). On signs, it actually looked like hieroglyphics. In Tangier, we also had a chipped tooth of Audre's fixed, and both of us got our teeth cleaned.
We were surprised by how hilly Tangiers was--it seemed that hills were everywhere (the Fairmont was on the top of one). We parked Kia car in the Fairmont lot and took Ubers everywhere. Uber is not common in Morocco, but in big cities, it exists.
While we were in Tangier in September, it was very, very hazy. The panoramic view was obscured during our stay, even though it was also very windy. And it was hot--in the 80s and low 90s.
Chefchaouen
After a week in Tangier, we started our road trip in Chefchaouen, the Blue Pearl, a most touristic city.
Our road trip was through the very hilly countryside. There were some green pine forests but lots of brown hills. The roads were okay. In the 1990s, someone decided to paint everything in Chefchaouen blue and make it into a tourist destination. It worked! We took a guided tour of the medina, and it was definitely blue.
Our hotel in Chefchaouen was on the top of the hill (really a mountain) above the medina. When we looked down from our suite, it was a sea of blue.
After our first climb down, we decided to take a taxi back up and to take taxis back and forth from then on. While waiting to get our first taxi, we met Zaid. We hired Zaid to drive us through the Rif Mountains to the obligatory tourist site of the Akchour Waterfalls. The route Zaid took was through the marijuana agricultural fields. It was the first time that we ever saw marijuana growing, and that was a kick.
We definitely do not recommend anyone go to the Akchour Waterfalls. It is wall-to-wall tourists, littered with trash, and the path is lined with one restaurant after another. Yuk.
In Chefchaouen, we stayed at the Taj Chefchaouen (Bab El Mahrouk St Al Fahfouh District, Chefchaouen 91000 Morocco) in the Royal Suite (US$432.41). The people were nice, and the suite was good, but the hotel was most definitely not part of the Taj chain. Taj means crown in Arabic, evidently. We had originally planned to stay in Chefchaouen for 5 days, but after 4 we had done everything, and we wanted to move on to Fez (Fes in French).
Ouezzane
Because the drive all the way to Fez was too long for us, we stopped for a night in Ouazzane (or Ouezzane) at the L'escale Hôtel & Spa By 7AV HOTELS (QCPX+PH, Ouazzane,16200, Morocco Ouarzazate,+212 539669904). That hotel was really in the middle of nowhere, but we had a two-bedroom apartment that was very comfortable. The hotel had a Jacuzzi (that, incredibly, allowed the user to set the desired temperature of the water) and a good gym. There was really nothing around, except we learned about marijuana growing fields. The only thing we could figure was that the hotel was built to service that industry.
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