Chefchaouen

I have just returned from the best weekend. I took my first weekend trip, along with 4 friends, to a small mountain town called Chefchaouen. No time spent thus far has proved better that in Morocco you never know what to expect, and I love it!

I headed to the bus station on rainy Friday afternoon. We had about an hour to wait and ended up meeting two other Americans, Roxy and Drew also traveling to Chefchaouen. The bus ride was uneventful save for a few awkward bathroom stops (the toilets were holes in the ground) and a rather unnerving shaky bus driving on wet mountain roads. We arrived in Chefchaouen at about 8:30 pm and immediately noticed the temperature drop from the moderate climate in Rabat. We made our way up the slick steep streets (it felt like San Fransicso!) to the Medina. Our hotel was a tiny hole in the wall place nestled into the Medina alleyways. We had two rooms, one with two beds and the other three. There was a bathroom for the

floor to share and a communal living room lined with the traditional sofa. When we arrived there were two Australian boys in the other room on the floor. They were hanging out in the common room watching Amelie (cute). We talked for a bit and then headed out in search of food. At this point I should mention that Nate, the boy in our group, has already been in Morocco 8 months and is superb at arabic and knows Chefchaouen pretty well. So we were in good hands with our own personal tour guide and translator :)

We wandered into the square near our hotel and found a restaurant. This was our first experience realizing, 1. that the town is overcrowded with dread locked hippies, 2. that restaurants don't really have an inside and if so it's not heated, and 3. that Chefchaouen is bilingual like Rabat but instead of Arabic and French it is Arabic and Spanish, a welcome

change. After a filling meal we retreated to our hotel rooms suffering what we were sure was the beginning signs of hypothermia. We had some wine and talked before it was time for bed.

Saturday we slept in as long as we could. We were able to stay warm in our unheated hotel on account of 5 blankets each and nearly all the clothes we brought layered on. I took my first hot shower in a while (don't worry I go to the hammam quite often) and it was wonderful, though quite cold after and there were no towels. Before leaving the hotel we ventured up to the rooftop of our hotel where you can easily see the while city and the mountains beyond the valley. We left the hotel and headed straight for a nut roasting stand down the alley. Hooray for a warm bag of sugar coated peanuts. Then we took a self-guided tour of the Kasbah. Inside the walls of the Kasbah we found a park and ancient ruins of the fortress to explore. We climbed up a tall tower and could see the whole city with it's blue buildings built into the mountains. We ended up asking a man working there to take our picture and ended

up getting a personal tour of the museum in Arabic and Spanish as well a number of other "professional" (we were told) pictures taken by him. He had my friend Leah pose in a senior picture like pose in a fountain, Nate posed in front of a mirror for an angled picture, and got to sit in a traditional wedding seat . Afterwards we went for lunch at Said's Restaurant. Said is a young welcoming Moroccan man who has owned the restaurant for about two years. Nate and him are friends, or course, so we got what I felt like was special treatment. We spent a good 2 hours drinking tea, eating delicious foods, and people watching in the Medina square near us. At one point a little girl and a shopowner got into a mock fight the girl giggling and pretending to run as the man pretended to throw things at her. I saw a man fall on the wet slippery tiles and everyone stopped and rushed over to help him. Chefchaouen is a kind place.

We all greed that wandering around Chefchaouen felt like being in a cozy swiss mountain village. We left the restaurant with an offer to come back in the evening and learn to cook our favorite dish from lunch. We wandered around the breathtaking blue alleyways of the Medina full of traditionally dressed men and women with babies strapped to their backs. Little boys walked by by holding hands or arms draped over each others shoulders. My favorite pick up line of they day was, "Hello flower" which we heard twice. We all bought leather bracelets, postcards, earrings, and blankets. We spent at least half an hour haggling in a weaving store that had the most gorgeous blankets of every color combination you can imagine. Then we hiked up to a historic mosque up on a hill overlooking the town. It was a nice chance to hike and feel separate from the city. Of course it was at this point that my camera battery decided to die so I will have to rely on others pictures from this, the most breathtaking part of the trip :(

After that we were ready for some hot drinks and headed to a cafe for coffee and hot chocolate. On the way we stopped into a music store and purchased, Moroccan Party Hits and some other rockin' Moroccan tunes. That night we headed back to Said's Restaurant where I had probably the most incredible experience thus far. We were invited back into the tiny kitchen where Said and Feysal taught us how to cook a feast of Moroccan food. We certainly got our hands dirty and had so much fun. To top things off the entire feast was given to us free at their insistence,

saying that we are all family now. We were in an awkward position, so grateful and not wanting to give nothing for this rich feast but at the same time not wanting to leave money and offend. We decided we would meet them for drinks at a nearby hotel and pay for what they ordered there. We met them and ordered a round of gin and tonic's. We talked, and by we I mostly mean Nate as he translated and we chimed in occasionally. Finally when we were all half asleep we said goodnight and returned to our cold hotel once more. We spent the night talking, laughing, playing cards and of course 10 fingers.

Our return journey Sunday was quite an adventure as well as a dose of culture shock. We woke up after what felt like one hour of sleep and sleepily walked in the cold rain to the bus station. We found out then that the 7 am bus we were sure wouldn't be full, was. Luckily there was still room on the second class bus leaving at 7:30. As we were buying our tickets the driver was manually starting the bus somewhere in the engine, not a good sign. The bus itself was fine on the inside and at the beginning we each had our own two seats to ourselves and were planning to sleep the whole way. Not so. For the nearly 6 hour bus ride the bus continued to stop every 20 minutes on any random spot on the side of the road to pick up more passengers. I soon had to move seats and had all my stuff sitting on my lap the rest of the trip. For sure I thought the bus would stop letting people on once all the seats were full. Not so. The bus continued to stop and more and more people filled the aisle. Mothers began fighting over seats for their children and a lady may or may not have been throwing up a few seats up. Eventually we realized that the bus wouldn't go straight to Rabat so I tried asking the bus attendant when we would arrive but he answered in French. He must have understood what I asked though because soon he

was yelling something at us as the bus stopped and we realized we needed to switch buses. We hurriedly gathered out things and rushed onto another bus.

This bus was much less crowded but no less ridiculous. A boy's phone behind us kept making a sword swishing sound and exclaiming "Sparta!". Through the entire ride a man in a turban stood in the aisle preaching about something, kissing peoples foreheads, and selling them bags of some pebble looking things. We are pretty sure at some point that he may have told us we are going to hell. People seemed to like him and were giving him money and laughing at jokes he was saying, for all we know they could have been about us! Finally after what seemed like a month of traveling we reached the bus station, grabbed a taxi, and headed home to food, warm beds, and comfort. I was amazed at the comfort I felt being back in Rabat, I felt at home. Coming home to my host family felt just like coming home to my own bed and my own loving family.

I learned a lot on my first weekend trip in Morocco. The list is long and includes but is not limited to: Bring many layers of clothing, always bring a towel, don't forget to charge your camera fully, buy bus tickets in advance, avoid second class busses, go with the flow, and that home is always the place you want to come back to.

Most importantly I learned, and am still learning, that in Morocco you never know what to expect when you wake up in the morning.