Chefchaouen

soap/incense shop in Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen was wonderful and blue. The tradition of painting Chefchaouen blue comes from its former Jewish population.

We all fell in love with Chefchaouen, and I would have loved it more, had it not expressed such an influx of tourists.

I left with Sara, Rebecca, and Claire to Chefchaouen on Friday morning. It was a six hour train ride to Tetaouan, during which we faded in and out of sleep, then took a beautiful 1 hour grand taxi ride to Chefchaouen. Us four were squeezed into the backseat, two men sharing a front seat, with our bags lined up across our laps. Like most taxis, when we wanted to roll down our window due to the stuffiness that the intimate cab ride produced, we had to ask the driver to hand us the nob that we could attach to the door to roll down the window. We saw rolling hills and beautiful views, totally unlike those seen in Casa.

That night we got a cheap dinner of couscous and tajine at a local restaurant, then headed back to la medina ancienne to our hotel. From a distance, it is noticeable that Chefchaouen buildings spiral around. This ended up being favorable to us, and especially me who has no sense of direction, because we unintentionally ended up where we needed to be after wandering around aimlessly due to the curvature of the streets. At one point when we were about to reassess our surroundings, we realized we were only a few feet away from our hotel. I liked Chefchaouen if only for its navigability.

The next day we walked around, going into shops and making some of our first true purchases of the trip. After inspecting many blankets, feeling very grown-up and picky, I settled on a berber blanket, hand-made at one of the cooperatives, whom I trusted more than random men in side street shops. I also bought honey from Chefchaouen (wild flower honey) and from Tetaouan at a cooperative (eucalyptus). Both are delicious, and are my first honey specimens in a collection I've been contemplating for some time. Yes, I want to collect honey from various places I visit. Maybe not one from every city, like I did this weekend, however...

That Saturday night, after stopping by two recommended restaurants from the Lonely Planet that were unfortunately closed, we went to an anonymous restaurant, that, from the outside, looked like a residential area. As I stepped in hesitatingly, a man encouraged me in, let us inspect the menu complet and led us to a terrace that looked on to the mountains. We bought 2 complete menus, and Moroccan tea, and it was hands-down the best food I've had all trip (and most expensive too at $5.75! We thought a splurge was necessary). We got the usual appetizers of Moroccan bread, olive oil, vinegar and olives, with "salads" (Moroccan salads are sautéed vegetables, no matter what nationality they put in front of "salad"), an anonymous meat tajine (goat?) with almonds and prunes that we scooped up with bread, and a vegetable couscous. Dessert of flan and orange slices with cinnamon. The entrees were sweet, as common with Moroccan meals, and the tea was very well sugared, as usual. Its no wonder that Moroccans have horrible teeth.