Vacances d'hiver: Chefchaouen

So last night (Thursday night), Louise and I took the overnight train from Marrakech to Tanger, which was about 10 hours long...yes, I know, it's a very very long train ride. But there's a story, so don't worry!

This is the Marrakech train station. Isn't it so pretty???

When we bought the train tickets, we decided to be cheap and bought second class, so we were in a regular compartment (like the ones in Harry Potter, not gonna lie--there was even a guy who came around with a little food/drink cart!) with one older man sitting in it. We started talking to him pretty easily; he was going to visit his son to help with some sort of interview, and he worked in education, which was pretty cool. He was SO nice and had that whole "old wise man" vibe going on, which was awesome. We started off talking about pretty basic things, like where we had been and where we were going in Morocco, what we did in France, what he did as a job, etc.

After a while, these three guys came to our compartment and didn't sit down (one put his stuff in the compartment though), but were just standing around in the hallway for a long time, and finally the one who had his stuff inside sat down, and the other two went away. We kept talking to the older man (never learned his name unfortunately), and after some more time the other two guys came back and sat down. Louise and I still kept talking to the older man, but eventually we all started talking to the three younger guys too. There was one who talked much more than the other two, and he was mostly talking to me; his name was Yassin. Another was named Abdul but he barely talked because he didn't know French or English very well. The third guy...whose name I forget...had some pretty awesome dreadlocks going on; he talked at the beginning but then he kind of passed out. So basically, the ones talking were me, Louise, the older man, and Yassin. We talked for SO long, about so many things, and even had a pretty intense philosophical discussion about religion and miracles. Yeah, I know. Pretty insane for an overnight train ride. I didn't talk much during that conversation since I don't know much about religion and generally don't like to talk about things I don't know about...but it was definitely interesting to listen to! Anyway, the older man got off first, maybe around midnight or so, which is when Louise tried to get some sleep but I kept talking to Yassin for a while. He ended up inviting us to stay with him and his family so we could experience "real Moroccan life." He apparently helps take care of this private villa that his sister owns and rents out, and also invited us to go stay there whenever we want, which is very nice but seeing as I grew up in NYC and am never completely trusting of any sort of offer like that, I was a little wary. He even tried to convince me to stay in Morocco longer so that I could go with him, but seeing as I have a plane ticket already and need to spend a good week applying to jobs and all that, I declined. Anyway, we finally stopped talking around 2 or 3 in the morning (can't remember), because I was exhausted and wanted to try and sleep. So that was basically the end of the conversation, and then Yassin and the dreadlocks guy left at around 4 (I think), and then Louise and I slept. Abdul left at some point while we were sleeping. Anyway, all in all it was a really interesting and fun ride on the overnight train, and it was really awesome getting to meet people. Yassin gave me his contact info and we are now Facebook friends. =)

Finally, we got to Tanger at around 7 this morning, walked to the bus station and took the bus to Chefchaouen. We arrived around 10, spent a while in a taxi trying to find our hostel (apparently the map they had on HostelWorld was wrong), but we finally made it and spent the day basically just wandering about, because it's a pretty small town and there's not much to do. It's SO beautiful here though, oh my god...it's in the mountains and the houses are all blue and white, and the streets are small and winding and it is just...amazing. One of the main sights here is "La Source," which is this waterfall where their water originates from and where they also do their washing! Pretty cool. There were also these baby goats running around by the waterfall and they were SO CUTE. OMG. I wanted to pet one but it kept running away =( There are also tons and tons of stray cats here, which is the same as Marrakech. Don't know why there are so many, it's kind of ridiculous. Lots of photos now!

Tanger in the morning.

Mint tea as part of breakfast, mmmm.

And now for lots of blue.

Yay blue!

La Source

BABY GOATS! aka kids.

Chefchaouen!

Door. On the mountain.

I just liked the contrast of bright colors =)

Soooo many beautiful rugs, I wish I could afford them T_T

Our hostel!

View from our hostel terrace. Yup.

Terrace!

Our room--cute right?

Snow on the mountaintops!

Best. Kefta. Ever. THERE WAS A POACHED EGG IN IT!

Basically, I love Chefchaouen and want to live here forever. It's just so peaceful and stunning...a perfect place to just relax and do nothing. Except maybe shop. The region is known for its wool products, which makes sense since they're in the mountains and it gets cold. That last photo, though, is of our dinner, which we had at this little restaurant right by our restaurant called Assada, which is fantastic. If any of you ever come to Chefchaouen, go there!