Friday April 11 - Algeciras, Ceuta, Chefchaouen, Fez

Today Beth and I woke up at about 4 am and walked to the Torre del Oro to depart for a weekend in Morocco with and Spanish travel agency. We were supposed to leave the Spanish port of Tarifa and take a ferry to Tangier, in Morocco. But bad weather changed our plans, and we had to drive further and depart from Algeciras and landed at Ceuta, one of two Spanish cities in Morocco. From Ceuta we crossed the border into Morocco – official passport stamp and all. Then we drove for hours (three? four?) to get to the city of Chefchaouen. Along the way we passed lots of lush green valley-like land – not exactly the image that comes to mind when you think of northern Africa. Really pretty views.

In Chefchaouen, we stopped to check out the city and eat lunch. Our guide Abdul showed us around the steep winding streets of the medina, or the old walled city. Pretty much every city in Morocco either has or consists solely of a medina, which is always a walled city with extremely narrow winding streets filled with EVERY kind of shop you can imagine. Walking through the medina at Chefchaouen, we saw super small living spaces crammed in next to shops selling jewelry, spices, fabrics, books, meat, slippers, fish, furniture, beads, olives, sweets, leather belts/bags/jackets/shoes etc., interspersed with huge, beautifully decorated mosques and medirsas (schools for learning the Koran) that you don’t even realize are right there because from the outside all you see is a tiny door. Just walking down the streets is tough because every two seconds there’s a giant donkey packed with like 1,000 pounds of clothes/furniture/whatever trying to get by, and you really have to get out of their way. One second I smelled a spicy dessert baking, and then a second later I turned and saw (and smelled) a giant bloody goat head for sale hanging from a hook. The poultry seller will cut the head off your chicken for you while you wait and watch, while right next door (literally 3 feet away) a woman buys beautiful silk and brocade fabrics. Contrast much?

The entrance into the medina.

It was really interesting to see practically every street and house in Chefchaouen painted bright shades of blue. Abdul said this was to keep flies away, but I’m not sure a) how exactly that theory is supposed to work or b) that it is working at all. Anyhow, the tiny homes, doors and streets all painted blue are cool.

These don't need much explaining...

A view looking back up at the city.

For lunch we had amazing tagines of chicken and rice for something like 30 Dirham, or less than 3 Euros – about $4.50 each. All the food we ate in Morocco, especially the rice and meats, was unlike food I’ve had almost anywhere else. It was really heavily spiced but with sort of sweet savory spices, nothing that burned my mouth. Beth and I didn't drink any tap water there, which tends to taste like chlorine and can make travelers really sick. Whenever we ate it was a huge ordeal though, because there’s no real concept of having something already prepared to eat. Everything is made pretty much from scratch and each dish is made separately, so rather than make two servings of chicken and divide them up for us to eat, they’d cook the servings separately, one at a time. It took a lot of time but tasted good enough that it was worth waiting.

These are tagines for sale in the medina - they're made of clay and a lot of foods, especially rice and meat, are cooked in them. Their shape helps trap moisture and put it back into the food.

After leaving Chefchaouen we drove on to Fez, getting there with just enough time to eat dinner and go to bed exhausted.