Who knew there were Roman ruins in Morocco?

Yesterday morning we said goodbye to our hosts at the little farm stop restaurant. Such nice people. The father insisted we see his simple family home before we left, so we followed him up for a tour. 

I did not take photos, but it was pretty basic. One entrance room, one sitting room with a big homemade couch that lined all the walls, one bedroom for the adults and the two kids, and a kitchen. But it was clean and comfortable, although I did not see any heat source for chilly mornings.

A much better experience

Yesterday morning, a lot of the vans at the campground at Chefchaouen had moved out. By the time we got Max ready to go at 11:00am, it was half empty. Definitely, the best time to arrive at a new place is between noon and 2:00pm when you'll have the most choice of spots. 

We only had an hour and a half drive ahead of us to our next destination.

We're always impressed when we meet single women traveling alone

They were calling for another blue sky day, but the morning sure didn't turn out that way. Still, it was perfectly fine for a hike, so off we went.

I had seen a route up the mountain behind Chefchaouen, and there were a couple of viewpoints listed, so we headed up to get a view of the city down below.

The blue city of Chefchaouen

First order of business yesterday was to get a Moroccan SIM card. There are three different providers here. Maroc Telecom apparently has the best coverage, including into Western Sahara. But I've read that Inwi has an unlimited plan available. 

We walked down into the more modern part of town. We went to the Inwi store first. It was supposed to open at 10am, but it was five after and there was nobody around. A little ways down the street, we found the main outlet of the Maroc Telecom store and went in there.

Welcome to Morocco!

That was an interesting day! It's always an adventure crossing a border, but even more so when you're doing it by ferry. But overall, it went really smoothly. 

Written on our ticket booklet was the ferry departure times. It said 4am, 10am, 4pm and 10pm. We wanted to be on the 10am ferry and had read that it was best to show up at least an hour and a half ahead of departure.

We are off to Morocco!

It poured with rain pretty much all day yesterday. It had been in the forecast so we knew it was coming, but I think we got far more than they were expecting. 

We only had three things on the agenda for yesterday... cash, laundry and propane.

Busy day yesterday!

We did the short drive yesterday morning from Jimena de la Frontera to the port city of Algeciras (pop 121,000). 

We had a list of things we needed to accomplish. First stop was at a motorhome service point along the way, but it was quite busy with other motorhomes. We waited and watched for ten minutes or so, but the people using it weren't moving too fast and it looked like it was going to take a while.

Beautiful drive down through the mountains

We could definitely spend more time in this area. From Ronda down through the mountains to Jimena de la Frontera is absolutely gorgeous. It's only about 60 kms (36 miles) but it took us an hour and a half because of stopping at viewpoints along the way.

It's a twisty curvy mountain road, but it's in good condition and fine for a motorhome.

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Preparing for Morocco, and views around Ronda

We arrived in Ronda before lunch, doing the drive straight through from Archidona. We figured if we stopped along the way we might get sidetracked again, which tends to happen to us.

Ronda is a big tourist spot, and there are lots of campervans and motorhomes here as well as other tourists. We had no trouble finding a decent free overnight spot though, located across from a new Lidl store.

There's too much to see along the way!

Once again we didn't get as far as planned. But, we sure managed to get some exercise!

There's just too much to see and do in Spain. It's like every little town along the way has some kind of attraction. We could easily spend a full year just exploring Spain.

The story about the ringing bells

Yesterday I mentioned that when we were in Granada there was a constant lineup of people ringing the bell at the tower of the Alhambra. And that the bell rang all day and you could hear it from pretty much anywhere. It was kind of annoying.

Well I just couldn't see that being the case every day, so Ruth did some research.

A day in Granada, Spain

The main attraction in the city of Granada is the Alhambra... an Islamic Palace built on a hill overlooking the city. The history of the Alhambra goes back to the 9th century, although most of the current structures were built between the 14th to 16th centuries.

My father had visited the Alhambra in November of 1954, and had taken two photos, both of which we were trying to match up.

A few details about our upcoming trip to Mauritania

Yesterday we drove into the big city of Granada (pop 250,000). There are no ideal places to park to explore the city, but the best option is a fenced compound that is trying it's best to be a campground. But really, it's just a gravel parking lot for motorhomes. 

It's €12 ($17.50 CAD, $12.75 USD) a night without electric so it's not cheap for what you get. But, it's a safe place to leave Max while we go explore the city today.

We were not successful

Happy New Year to you all!

Friday night had been spent in the big parking lot at Guadix. Not a bad night, considering it's just a big parking lot. Maybe a dozen other vans spread around. Not very scenic, but we were only there for the convenience of visiting Guadix. 

But I had seen a sign that said there is a Saturday market in the parking lot.