Week 15 - Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen

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Week 15 Chefchaouen

Written by Tina Sibley in April 2019

This is where things really started to get serious!

This weekend featured a trip to Chefchaouen and a hike to the Akchour falls - this really made me realise that I've been playing with my preparation so far and not taking it as seriously as I needed.

I think the journey to Machu Picchu somehow seemed so far off still. Suddenly I realised that I'm over 3 months since booking the Machu Picchu trip and have a little over 4 months to the Inca Trail itself - but only a little over 3 months until I leave the UK on my trip.

The great thing that happened this week was I finally got my Spanish Residencia!

Monday 8th April

Very little exercise today! Last day for my visitor so we chilled out and did lots of talking.

Tuesday 9th April

My visitor left so I caught up on chores. I also got back to my circuits and did legs workout. I also managed to put over my target 6,000 steps in. Went dancing.

Wednesday 10th April

Busy day with work and Spanish plus lots of paperwork and chasing for my next Residencia appointment tomorrow. Did circuits - arms day.

Thursday 11th April

2nd Residencia appointment today, and it was granted! Did a legs circuit day and it was a crazy busy day. 2 hours dancing. Got back to fasting today too.

Friday 12th April

Another crazy busy day with work, plus preparing for the weekend away. Left for Algeciras around 4.30 - then had a stupid wait at the ferry port from 5.30pm until 11.30pm!!! Starting to feel nervous about the hike - wasn't sure what to expect.

Because of the ferry delay, we didn't get to bed until around 4am Spanish time which was 3am Chefchaouen time!!

Saturday 13th April

This was a fantastic day! It wasn't a particularly long hike, at only 12kms (although in total for the day 18.33 kms according to my fitness app) but it was pretty steady uphill there and downhill coming back. 85 floors climbed for the day!

And I was tired after not getting much sleep.

In terms of my muscles, I felt OK so the circuits have started to pay off. However, it was quite a scramble in places with lots of river crossings and my knees started to hurt by the end of the day.

This was where it hit me that I have such a lot of work to do if I'm going to get fit enough for Machu Picchu. I realised that I need to start pushing myself much, much more - but without crashing and burning like I did at the start.

There were also some nice tests in terms of my heights progress. Although there were no big altitudes, we had several river crossings. Some of these were on stepping stones maybe 2 feet high, perhaps a bit more? One of the higher ones had a makeshift bridge like a log ladder. Now these seem really trivial to me - especially since our lovely guide helped me navigate these. But, looking back, in only December, I was extremely scared standing on my desk to put up Christmas decorations.

Sunday 14th April

Today was another walking day, which is great - I need to get used to walking several days in a row.

Although still stiff from yesterday, especially my knees, we walked all around Chefchaouen on a city tour, which was wonderful. An easy, slow pace, but with some up and down hills.