Taking it Slow

So I am taking in quite slow here, and I have not yet moved from Chefchaouen. Every day I go to sleep unsure of what to do the next day, and then I remain.

This town, if one stays too long within its official confines, is a difficult place. It is most definitely touristic, and can be hard to handle the constant pleas by restaurant owners to enter their establishment, the hassle of the dealers, the smallness of the place.

Every time that I leave town, however, I am reminded of the beauty of this town. And so I spend my time in the mountains, walking beneath the hot sun and stopping to gaze at the houses from afar.

Today I went out with Evan, an American that I have met here, only twenty years old, who has come with his French wife. They are a great couple, very adventurous, very earnest, and very fun, and have provided me with excellent companionship over the last few days. So Evan and I, later joined by some other tourists, walked farther into the mountains than I had the other day, until we reached the next small town. There we merely chatted with some locals, drank a cold soda, and headed back to town for some late lunch.

There are some very interesting people in the hotel...some strange types really...the type of people that have been living here for years, Spaniards that have retired here (to smoke pot and drink whiskey and live cheaply), Americans that have stopped here while traveling and "developed a hash problem", Brits that come through with intelligent yet annoying arguments for why Africa is "all messed up". It really is a bit of a cast of characters here, and, like the rest of the town, they can become too much to handle if one spends too much time with them. As it is, they are amusing and can only add to my experience here.

I would like to add to my description of some of these characters, particularly Pablo, the retired Spanish man. Briefly, this is a man that left home as a young man to travel to India, Afghanistan, etc, as a hippie of the time might do (he says that he did so in a stolen car, and described to me his "fancy" and complicated method of thievery). He ended up becoming a war correspondent (he was a photographer and spoke some Afghan languages at the time that the war with Russia broke out) and eventually retired very young after losing most of his sense of sight. This man is an enthralling storyteller and a tragic figure, and it is my hope to soon give his story more justice with a thorough telling. For now, however, I will leave it at this.

Below I will include some more pictures of the mountains taken today. We will see what happens tomorrow, if I decide to leave or stay once again. For now, I leave you, and hope that all are well.