How? Where? Why?
let me tell you from the beginning, because it was quite a journey
Took a train from Rabat Thursday night at 11:45, to the city of Taza, where we arrived a little after 5 am. From there, myself and five friends took a three hour grand taxi ride (which holds six people plus the driver....two in the front seat and four in the back) through the Rif mountains along a veeeeeerryy windy road. Around 9 am Friday morning we arrived at our final destination, the wonderful city of Al Hoceima that is surrounded by the mountains and is on the Mediterranean Sea. Checked into our suite at the Villa Florido, our hotel in the middle of the centre ville. The owner of the hotel, Mike, spoke excellent English and set up a boat tour along the coast for us. After a slight issue with the taxi we managed to arrive at the port where our boat captain, Mourad, met us and led the six of us onto his boat where we met his helper/first mate, Jawed.
After driving around on the water we stopped next to one of the three islands that are still technically Spanish territory to swim. Our driver had us swim to the island, scale the cliff and JUMP OFF INTO THE SEA. It was terrifying, exhilarating and SO MUCH FUN all at the same time. I, of course, was last so as I waited for my friends to jump and tried to gather enough nerve to do it myself I squatted and had myself a nice little illegal pee on a small deserted Spanish Island before free falling through the air into the beautiful deep blue water below.
The fall was long, the landing rough, but was worth every second of it.
After climbing back on board the Vedette Rif, our boat, we made ourselves various sandwiches with fresh bread, olives, avocado, cucumber and tomato as the police (Moroccan, or Spanish we are still unsure) "pulled us over" Why? We have absolutely no idea.
We made it back to the hotel in one piece, with plans to call our captain for tea later that day or Saturday.
Saturday: Breakfast, bought snacks and squeezed into a grand taxi to drive to Calla Iris, a little port town in the Al Hoceima National Park where we hiked along the coast up monstrous mountains, put my sipsi to good use again and saw BEAUTIFUL sights.
Started to rain during our treacherous climb back down via a dried up river bed to the road where we were meeting our taxi driver.
Back at the hotel we made guacamole, drank wine, and called our boat captain and made plans to have him meet us in the lobby. We walked with him and Jawed to his house which was a feww blocks away. We brought wine and my sispi, he provided us with more wine, and other drugs. Jawed made us a tajine, berber style, of potatoes, tomatoes and onions like his mom had taught him and was absolutely delicious
Traveling back today was a LOOOOONG journey....taxi, two trains, the second of which was so crowded we couldn't find seats and was stuffy and smelly and we were all thoroughly exhausted when we finally got back to Rabat
Moral of this weekend: everything was a journey and a production but in the end it was all worth it
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