Stoned Scottish Hippies

I know there has been a large gap between the last pre-trip post and this one. It turns out that having to write in ramshackle cybercafes on French keyboards from which all the letters have worn off the keys is not conducive to keeping a blog up to date; Situation somewhat improved so I will try and catch up. Still writing on French keyboard; so please excuse typos. Our first night in Morocco demonstrated the fallibility of internet trip planning. Based on a charming website and rhapsodic online reviews I had booked us into an establishment in Chefchaouen that turned out to be run by stoned Scottish hippies and was far from town; Fled the next morning and lucked into a wonderful small hotel near the town square staffed by a lovely young man named Mohammed, who was perfectly happy to discuss everything on the list of banned topics with us: He was explaining about being a moslem in morocco and said, i don't know if you know this, but there are two branches of Islam: Sunni and Shiite. We know now, we said. Ah, yes, he said, ever since Sept 12th.