Nothing to write home about yesterday as we had another day on the campsite. The town of Chefchaouen had completely changed since March. It’s now totally geared up for the tourists – we reckon the shops have bought a load of stock from China as they’re bursting at the seams “All hand made! 🤣”.
This morning, we left early for a long, scenic drive over the Rif mountains. This region used to be a bit of a ‘no go’ area as it’s where almost half the world’s cannabis comes from. There’s apparently been a bit of a clampdown on it in recent years though…unless, of course, you can afford to bribe the police. 😬
No sign of it today thankfully, but there were an awful lot of old Mercedes cars on the roads and some quite big isolated houses.
We climbed steadily up to Bab Besen, which at 1600m was the highest point. The scenery changed from olive trees to cork oaks and then tall cedars. We could see for miles in every direction.
Eventually, we were on the downhill stretch from Targuist and when the Mediterranean finally came into view, it felt like a big achievement.
We decided to park at the port in Al Hoceima, where there are lads walking around with captains hats on pretending that they have their own boat – I thought they worked for the port at first.
This place is Morocco’s nearest thing to a Mediterranean beach resort, and it’s busy already. The Plage Quemado that were parked near to, was full of parasols late afternoon, many families, but the women were still covered from head to toe.
We walked around the port areas and passed by a fish restaurant serving huge platters of fresh fish. It was very busy with Moroccan families, cats and seagulls. Despite the latter two, we did a u turn and sat down. It was a very long wait but well worth it. Five different types of fish plus prawns, calamari and some unidentified. We usually eat lots of fish but haven’t touched it since we entered Morocco – I think the fly ridden markets put us off. So anyway, just eaten two months worth in one sitting. Fork for the chips, but fingers and kitchen roll seemed to be the order of the day for the fish.
A man came through carrying two massive swordfish and we looked on in amazement as he sold one to a passer by ..I mean, they’re not easy things to carry around are they?
