Blue Cities, Green Trees, Red Rocks

So our taxi driver took us to Chefchaouen, or as many people call it, Chaouen. First of all, he wasn’t charging us a bad price, $40 for the hour and a half that it took. Turns out, as he claims, he is from Chaouen, and that had us interested at first. See, Chaouen is a place made for tourists; it’s streets are bright blue, its medina is vibrant and charming, and it’s got great hiking right by the city. It’s firmly in the Rif mountains, and it’s got all the charm of Marrakesh but all the peace of Tetouan. Honestly, it doesn’t even seem like people would even really live there who don’t serve the tourism industry somehow. And to some extent, that’s true. I asked a taxi driver of ours in Tangier what the economy is made of in regions like Chaouen, and he says that it’s mostly just artisans. And these artisans, of course, are supported by tourists and locals alike. There’s not industry, there’s not engineering or large hospital conglomerates. Of course, this is more true in the medina than in the newer city outside of the walls, but the sentiment stands for sure.

He wouldn’t be the last one that we’d meet outside of Chaouen who was born there as well. In fact, a taxi driver of ours in Tangier and the host at our hostel were both from there as well. I suppose that though it gives off small tourist town, there are a decent number of people that actually live and grew up there. On our way to Chaouen, we heard our taxi driver call a few people in Arabic, so we figured that we’d have “company” when we arrived. And we were right. He pulled into a spot, and a swarm of five or so people came up to our car, offering to help us find our hostel, asking us if we wanted a tour of the medina, and other things of the like. We could hardly get out of the car since they were standing at every door. We brushed them off and walked around for a little bit to lose them, as they were yelling at us, trying to get us to give them our business. My favorite insult was “you don’t know anything!” he then pointed at a place that was clearly a restaurant, and said “for example, that is a restaurant!” We all laughed at that. After checking into our hostel, we walked around the city and took pictures and walked through the souks. They were selling a combination of things we’d seen before in other souks, notably rugs, other wool products, magnets, art, etc. but they were all blue, as to match the city. We ended up buying some art from a guy at a store who gave us some life lessons, introduced his kids to us, and told us “don’t worry, be happy! You’re in the Blue City! This doesn’t happen every day, every month!” Remember that line, “don’t worry, be happy,” as it will come up more inauspiciously in Tangier… It seems to be a bit of a line targeted to get tourists to trust you…

As we continued to wander the medina, we really began to feel the magic of the city. Its winding streets that go up and down the hills, the houses built into the hill, the minarets visible from every corner of the city. And there weren’t even that many tourists. Yeah, you’d see tourists wherever you walked, but it was by no means crowded or filled with them. Honestly, at this point, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, since there’s not much more to say about being in Chaouen. It’s a place where you go to see it, to wander and walk. You don’t go there because of the interesting museums or history, the place itself is a museum.

To get a sense of how steep the hike to the Spanish Mosque was...

That night, we climbed up to the Spanish Mosque, which was on a hill overlooking the city. We found out after we were at the top that there was a regular, paved path, but we climbed up the face of the very steep hill, following the narrowly trodden path of the few travelers as adventurous (oblivious?) as we were. We sat there until the sunset and the subsequent call to prayer, and the entire time I reflected on what wonderful experiences I’ve had these last few years, what pretty and beautiful sites I’ve seen in the last few months, let alone years, and what a life with more travel in the future would lead me to. We headed down after the call to prayer into the main square of Chaouen, where we had our Friday Couscous, a Moroccan tradition.

On Fridays, Moroccan families will eat couscous all together in celebration of the week. We were told that by our questionably reliable taxi driver, but when we saw on several menus that the “Royal Couscous” was only available on Friday, we figured he was telling us the truth. At least about that…

We were all exhausted, but had to get up early for the next day.

The next day, we had a hike! In the morning, I had to go and get some more cash, so I got to wander through the blue streets all alone in search of an ATM. It was very peaceful, and though I got lost on my way, I enjoyed trying to find my way back.

We were a little nervous about our hike, as the description for it was a little sketchy, filled with typos and no real set agenda, but it turned out to be really good. We drove from the medina all the way to Akchour, a 45-minute drive. On the way, we stopped to look at the

massive cliff, cutting into the valley, as well as to frolic in the fields of marijuana for a few seconds. Our tour guide Yousuf was very knowledgeable and led us well, and we enjoyed having him with us for the morning.

The first hike we did was to God’s Bridge, a massive rock arch in the middle of the woods with a natural pond underneath.

Since the hike wasn’t very strenuous and it wasn’t too hot outside, the water being glacially cold wasn’t the best feeling, but it was pure, fresh, and crystal clear. A complete joy to swim in. See, in the US, you’d have someone playing a “beach vibes” playlist over the water, but here, as we approached the water to jump in, we realized that there was a loudspeaker playing Quran! It added to our feeling that we were indeed in Morocco, or a different world, nonetheless.

We headed back and hiked through a waterfall path as well, and we got to swim in and behind the waterfalls! When we got back to Chaouen, we had a few hours to kill, so we spent them going through the medina in circles, walking into shops, humoring the salesmen, and then seeing how hard it is to walk away without buying anything. Mercedes was able to get a salesman to offer her to take something for free, but out of fear that there was a more sinister reason, she didn’t take it.