It’s 5 o’clock. We are sitting on a terrace, high above the Chefchaouen medina, sipping on mint tea. To our left, the hotel manager is sitting, softly struming out a tune on an accustic guitar. Blue is everywhere – the terrace walls, the cushions, the tablecloths, the sky. The only real contrast is the Rif mountains that surge upwards in front of us, a towering mass of green bush and yellow rock. The sun is just starting to weaken, and we watch as the mountains turn pink with the changing light.

It was a slightly challenging ride to get here. We knew about the two big climbs, but hadn’t expected to spend most of the ride slogging along on the dirt shoulder trying to avoid being hit by the buses and trucks that wizzed past. Despite the traffic, it felt really good to be on the bikes, and the destination was cerainly worth the effort.

Chefchaouen is, quite simply, stunning. Even though it is slap bang on the main tourist trail, the town gives off a really laid back vibe. It’s still fairly quiet, the locals are friendly, the prices are reasonable, and each street you walk down seems to be even more gobsmackingly beautiful than the last one.

We’d spent the previous day in Tetouan, which in contrast to Chefchaouen doesn’t get much in the way of tourists. We arrived on market day, and the medina streets were a loud, crowded maze of stalls selling everything you could possibly imagine – second hand remote controls, jewelery, seafood, fresh cheeses, live chickens, leather slippers, furniture, and jallabas (traditional moroccan clothes).

We’d bumped into a Moroccan man when we’d entered the campground the day before, and he ‘just happened’ to bump into us again on our way into town and insisted on taking us on a tour of the medina. He was really friendly, but obviously an unofficial guide. Without a real plan for the day, we figured we may as well just run with it and see how it went.

While we’re not sure we’d ever do it again, it did mean that we saw some things we never would have stumbled across on our own, like the shed in the tannery where they were scraping the fur off the hides, and the communal bakery where the locals bring their kneeded bread to be baked. Unfortunately, being led round also meant that we lost our bearings about 2 minutes after we started wandering through the medina. Four hours and the inevitable rug shop later we managed to convince him that we had had enough. Thankfully, he insisted on taking us right to the door of our Riad (Moroccan b&b) before we said our goodbyes and parted ways, as there is no way we ever would have been able to find it without a guide.

Tomorrow we are bound for Marrakech, this time by bus. While we are not thrilled at the idea of spending more time off the bikes, Morocco is just too big for us to cover in one month without a little petrol-fueled help.