Rabat; Last Few Days in Tangier!

With my number of hours swiftly dwindling here in Morocco, I decided to head back to Rabat this weekend to hang out and visit my friend Mike (shout out!) who's studying there. I have only two full days left before flying back to Washington DC! Madness. I'm really sad to be leaving but also excited to get home, where I haven't been since March.

In Rabat, I didn't do a whole lot but hung out and walked around the beach and the Oudayas, which was great because I really needed a chill weekend before all these tests I have this week. I'm super jealous of where Mike is living (in the Oudayas! This is prime real estate...) in an awesome house 5 minutes from the beach and the terrace has a sweet view of basically all of Rabat + the ocean.

I mean, the Qasbah door is right across the street! Can't beat that.

Mike sitting in a niche by the Qasbah; you can sort of see Salé (or Sla in darija) in the background.

A gorgeous view of the Oudayas and the beach from the Northern jetty.

Me on the southern jetty with a view of the Qasbah, le tour Hassan, and Muhammad V's tomb all faintly visible in the background! 

Ra's al-Ma' (Head of the Water), Chefchaouen

After our hike on Saturday, we hung out at Ra's al-Ma', a small waterfall in the spring where women come to wash carpets and clothes early in the morning, and everyone else comes to cool off in the day, or hang out at night. It serves many functions and is a fun and interesting place at any time of the day. We hung out in the river for while and watched the guys who play soccer on the concrete platform above the waterfall. There's also water flowing over the man-made part which might be hard to see in the pictures. I was really intrigued by it which is why I took so many pictures and even a video... haha.

I also have a short video of them playing, but they are just juggling. They played real games on the water too, despite how small it was!

We also took quite a few pictures while we were hanging out in the river, but most of them are on other people's cameras, so hopefully I'll get a hold of those later when we all share our pictures.

Crazy guys who jumped off the bridge into this pool which is approximately 4 feet deep.... I have no idea how they didn't die.

Drinks in the "refrigerator," i.e. the cold river water.

Chefchaouen

This weekend we visited the gorgeous mountain city of Chefchaouen in Northeastern Morocco, which, like Asilah, is mainly painted in white and blue. The best part of the trip was our hike on Saturday morning; we got up at 6:30 and set out at 7am to beat the heat. Chefchaouen is also famous for its pure, cold springs where much of Morocco's water is bottled, but the river is also fun to hang out in as we did to cool off after the hike.

This shot is a view of the city of Chefchaouen, from just above the trailhead in the early morning.

The crew: Ashley, Mike, Nina, and Alissa. An awesome group to hike with!

From the top of the ridge, with Chefchaouen in the background. Alissa managed to take a pretty decent picture of me (usually I look terrible) despite being super hot and sweaty.

A rare 8-sided minaret at a mosque directly beside the Casbah, the main center of the city. I really liked the setup of the city because it is close to impossible to get lost, one of my major talents. All roads lead to the Casbah and people are very willing to give directions (because it's so easy!).

Ashley and I at a cafe by the Casbah. I'm drinking avocado juice, which is super common here and delicious! I'm going to have to try to reproduce it at home.