Today was a travel day. After a quick breakfast in Tarifa (I love how everywhere serves fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast), we hiked to the bus terminal to take a bus to Algeciras. Upon arriving, we crossed the street from the Algeciras bus terminal to the train station and boarded a 4+ hour slow-speed train to Granada. I slept most of the ride, but Valerie mentioned that the scenery was quite beautiful. Once in Granada, other tourists occupied the available taxis, so we took the very convenient high capacity bus from just outside the station to the Cathedral and walked to our hotel.

Chefchaouen is a small city about 2.5 hours southwest of Tangier. We hired a tour guide to drive us to Chefchaouen, take us on a walking tour of the city, and then drive us back to the ferry port to meet a ferry back to Tarifa. The city is probably famous for many reasons, but what struck us is its color. The bottom half of all the buildings in the old town are blue. Our guide said that the color was for “the eyes and the heat” meaning that it is pretty and keeps the town cool. I have no idea if this is true or not.

We started our walk at the top of the old town near the “waterfall” which was actually a natural spring which flowed into the town’s clothes-washing area. We walked down through the town and admired the twisting alleys, blue walls, and communal bakeries before reaching the plaza at the bottom. We ate lunch at a nearby restaurant that only served tourists and cost a bit more but did not lead to any intestinal distress. (Yay!)

During the long drive, we noticed that everyone in Morocco drives with their windows down. As far as we can tell, no one uses air conditioning in their vehicles.

Tomorrow, we are taking the train to Granada where we will be spending three days.

During our travels, we often wonder if we can drink the tap water wherever we happen to be. In the United States, tap water is usually potable, available at public drinking fountains, and served for free in restaurants; bottled water is usually considered a luxury. However, this is not the case in many countries. As a general rule, we have noticed that the cheaper bottled water is, the less drinkable the tap water is.