MOROCCO

Chefchaouen – June 2019

MM and I planned this trip to celebrate our 5th anniversary. Deciding on a destination is never easy for me due to the long list of “Must Go” and “Must Must Go” and “ASAP” places that I can’t wait to go to, but I had had my eyes on Morocco for some time and MM was more interested in Europe and wanted to visit Spain, so we planned a trip to see a little of both countries!

This was my very first time in the continent of Africa and our first destination was the all-blue village of Chefchaouen which added about 24 hours of transportation to our trip, but it was well worth it!

I’d been feeling sick since we got on the plane; something between an allergic reaction, a cold, and a stomach flu. That plus the fact that we had to leave for the plane at 3:30 am made me sleep most of the way, but I really enjoyed the rest of the journey.

The residents seemed very warm and welcoming. The taxi driver for our 2 hour ride to the village didn’t speak much English but had a sweet smile and managed to give us some info about different cities on the way.

Drive to the village

On the way from the Tangier city airport to Chefchaouen, there were some logo-like identical white buildings, really cute cactuses, some awful looking dumps and a whole lot of goats! The nature looked similar to Merit, BC, except for more green patches.

The Riad (Moroccan guest-house):

The riads send a guide to the village to help carry your luggage and escort you to your room. This was a great relief as we were not in a good shape to carry our luggage up the many stairs the village had in the super hot weather at the time.
Our riad was one of the best in the village. It was really high up with the best views on the Terrace. We were welcomed by fresh orange and carrot (or ginger?) juice and some sweets, similar to Persian sweets.

Our room was super nice and exotic. We took an interesting nap (explained later) and things got much better after. The riad smelled like rosewater. It had an open concept which was called family style! We could see through our neighbours rooms from our windows and were thankful the other rooms were empty. But all rooms got full within hours after we checked in and our much needed nap after checking in (we had to leave at 3:30am the night before) ended up being a weird combination of the super loud neighbours speaking in different languages, babies crying, someone swimming REALLY loudly in the pool down below, and my really weird dreams about all those people in the same setting and vicious giant cats in the middle of the riad!

The Village:

The village was mostly narrow walkways and staircases, all in blue! Different shades of blue that were painted following no rules. There were lots of ups and downs and confusing mazes and lots of cute little shops selling rugs, spices, dyes, traditional shoes, leather bags and accessories, and paintings! The art was amazing; some artists had their paintings showcased very nicely. I could stand there and watch them all day.

Most restaurants were not highly clean. I loosened up a bit after the first restaurant as per MM’s advice. “When in Rome do as Romans do” (which he only remembered half of, but kept saying it throughout the trip anyways). The glasses were clearly dirty, the pot with the tajine was also dirty, the bread was hot and made fresh, but handled without any care and placed in a dirty cabinet. We were dining with 2 other tourists in a cute little terrace with a really nice view overlooking the blue houses.

Azan would go off in every single building in the village 5 times a day and came as a shock to us and surely to the non-muslims. It totally surprised us on our very first day as we were dining in a cute little restaurant. It was short, loud and sweet. There were lots of cats everywhere and a few dogs. They were so skinny that I was worried about them starving, but later I found that the locals are really nice to animals. I saw multiple people petting and feeding them. I too fed them at restaurants. One time I gave a little bit of rabbit meat to a cat and then they all came in big groups, one of them jumping right on our chair; he was kind of vicious! I hid some of my rabbit meat in a napkin and put it out in a dump later for the rest of the cats and the dogs to eat. There were really cute orange stands and lots of fig trees (unfortunately not ripe at the time).

There were some large interesting cacti in the village. We took a short hike to get to some of them and passed an emu and a few peacocks on the way! MM was such a good IG husband and took so many photos of me~ 😀

Anniversary:

Anniversary dinner was on the rooftop of our own hotel where we got goat meat and plum tajine for MM, and fish, rice, and vegetables for me. That was my best meal in Chefchaouen as I hadn’t seen a lot of seafood options or any carbs other than bread.

We got a private pool session in the traditional warm pool, parts of which could be seen from every room. The pool was really deep! I couldn’t reach the bottom and ended up getting in and drinking some of the supposedly bleach free warm water. We both felt nice and refreshed after the romantic private pool session.

We also had sweet Moroccan mint tea and local sweets up on the terrace overlooking the whole village at sunset that day ❤

Food:

The most common food was Tajine (slow cooked savoury stews with mostly goat or lamb meat or chicken and minimal or no vegetables and unfortunately not my favourite food) with a special bread. Couscous (that I had been looking forward to) was only available on Fridays!

I got fooled by the “feastful” title of a food at a restaurant “Rabbit and Figs” thinking it wasn’t a tajine, and it so was! I got a whole rabbit that tasted just like cooked chicken in a tajine pot with a few dried figs around it, similar to Persian “Morgho Alu” (chicken and plums). It was mostly eaten by MM and the numerous cats around us!

We also ordered some yogurt to add to a fairly dry meal at a restaurant which really confused the server. He asked a few times to make sure we wanted the yogurt with our meal (and not after) and finally came back with a dessert! Super sweet but tasty yogurt and some kind of jam. I guess yogurt with food isn’t common there (or anywhere else for that matter).

A beautiful colourful city with a charm. We took the night train which was surprisingly comfortable. Our riad was in Medina which is the old historic part of town with high stone walls.

Browsing the souks of Marrakech is a unique experience as you’re in a constant state of deciding if you want to run away from all this chaos or continue down the path of all the colours and shiny lights. In the narrow walkways, not only is there a large number of people, occasional donkeys, and really loud motor bikes that only barely miss you, but also the hopeful storeowners who stare you down and insist that you should buy their goods! If they find out you’re interested in something they sell, you may never leave the store! MM kept it cool hoping that our Middle Eastern look would make us seem like locals, which probably would have worked (as some people talked to him in Arabic) if I wasn’t such a tourist! I tried not to show interest and excitement but it wouldn’t take more than 5 minutes before I would jump to another store front, all amazed and excited and we would have to get ourselves out of buying the whole store.

Note: Morocco is an Islamic country and to be respectful of their beliefs it is recommended not to wear anything too short or too revealing. I noticed people stared at you if you weren’t covered up specially in the more religious parts such as Chefchaouen.

We did a tour with a local guide through Airbnb experiences which turned out to be very interesting. I was mostly excited about the camel ride which was a big part of the tour but I learned (or re-learned) that day that animal-related activities in developing countries could be inhumane. We wore Berber clothing and were welcomed by the sweet Moroccan mint tea served the traditional way. See link below for more info on this: https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/pouring-moroccan-mint-tea

The best part of the tour was visiting a village with beautiful views of Atlas mountains, where we walked and hiked and tried a healthy and tasty homemade tajine in a local’s house with a giant spider watching us from the ceiling.

Le Jardin Majorelle and the YSL museum are both located on the same street and are both highly recommended! The street itself and the whole neighbourhood are very nice and a relaxing change from the chaos of the Medina. I personally loved the YSL museum as they not only showed a small documentary including some of Yves’ Fashion shows, but also displayed some of his original work! Ps. I never though I would get MM to watch a fashion show with me!