Our day trip to Chefchaouen. (shef – sh – ow – en)
Chefchaouen is a town in the northern part of Morocco, famed for its very distinctive blue and white painted houses. It was originally founded in 1471 as a small kasbah, but grew quickly around 1492 when the Spanish started pushing the muslims and the jews out of southern Spain into Africa (or anywhere really), and the last muslim city of Grenada fell. Chefchaouen became home to Andalusian families between 1492 and 1609, when the last muslims were expelled from Andalusia by King Felipe III. Now its a major tourist site (that is, extremely poor and rundown as a result of COVID).
It’s an awful long way, and Morocco doesn’t have any freeways heading through the countryside, so it’s slow going. Four hours of slow going actually (although we did get a comfort break). We were picked up at the Old Blue Gate to the Medina at 8:00am and stuffed into an SUV. Mandy copped the middle back seat, but at least it did give her the opportunity to have a welcome intellectual conversation with somebody other than me for a change. Our traveling companions were two young women traveling together on Spring break from their Italian university, although one of them was actually from Colorado. As the driver was Italian, and ended up with the Italian girl in the front, they has a great old natter and explanation of what we saw, but only a little was translated for the back seat’s benefit.
We arrived at noon, and were taken on a sprightly circuit of the town to get our bearings. Our driver wasn’t a licensed tour guide so he wasn’t allowed to explain anything, but instead tried to orientate us, before dropping us at a well renowned fish restaurant for lunch. Enjoyed the great food, the spectacular rooftop view, and the hyper waiter who ran and bounced around the restaurant. Then we had a further three hours to explore under our own devices.
Look, it was a nice town, but fairly typical tourist attraction with a hook (the colour of the buildings), a central tourist area that’s overpriced (the plaza), lots of tourist shops that all sold the same things, and touts that seemed to know every English word except ‘No thank you’. We wandered up and down the lanes, probably passing the same shops several times. Extremely hilly, so it was either up those stairs, or down the stairs over there.
For me, it was the kind of tourist attraction that was good to see, you would have been disappointed if you’d missed it, but you wouldn’t have actually missed much if you had.
Another four hour drive home, and the mood soured pretty quickly when the driver got pulled over at one of the many police checkpoints for speeding, and copped a fine. If my very rudimentary italian is anything to go by, there were lots of angry comments made about policemen, bureaucracy, the unfairness of fines for good drivers, and the money raising motives of the police. Ah, to be an ignorant english speaker in the back seat.
Home after 8pm with a very numb bum.