Travelling Hopefully - Blue Edition

The next day our guide approached the group with tears in his eyes.  Between sobs he announced that he had been unable to book us tickets on the local bus to Chefchaouen and had been reduced to hiring us a private minibus instead.  We bore up nobly under this disappointment and wrestled the gun from his hand as he attempted to expunge his shame in the traditional way.

Once we had dried his tears we piled into the hired minibus with an almost obscene enthusiasm.  A few hours of thundering privately down the roads of Morocco later and we arrived in Chefchaouen a name which means “we found a bunch of vowels lying around and decided to use them all.  

We’re now in the Spanish portion of Morocco which is to say that bit of Morocco that was once ruled by the Spanish.  Ironically Chefchaouen was settled by refugees from Spain fleeing the Reconquista and subsequent expulsion of the Moorish population.  Apparently the only thing they managed to take with them was a supply of blue paint.

At some point the inhabitants of Chefchaouen decided to paint their houses blue and white.  Our guide suggested that this may have been inspired by the Jewish population but the remaining locals picked up on the idea enthusiastically and now the city is a blue beacon in the Rif Mountains some of which are a little close to the town for comfort.

Naturally Chefchaouen has an old town complete with casbah, mosques and shops, so many shops.  All in a haze of blue.  Here I bought Humpy the camel who will probably feature further in this blog and managed to get a shave.

The barber had a TV broadcasting stories from the Quran (helpfully subtitled in English).  While I waited for my shave I listened to the story of Joseph who was betrayed by his jealous brothers and sold into slavery but gained the favour of the pharaoh and wound up as a high ranking governor and was reunited with his grief stricken father praise be to Allah the All Merciful and Compassionate.

Much of the remaining time I spent in the company of two of my fellow travellers who turned out to have a serious blue door fetish.  We roamed the Medina photographing blue doors.  Every single door in the Medina is blue.  I diverted them temporarily by pointing out some nearby goats which led to a flurry of goat photographs but pretty soon we were back to doors again.

The next evening we went up to the Spanish mosque which overlooks the town.  The Spanish built this to pander to the natives when they took over however the locals showed their disdain for the occupiers by never using it.  Now it serves as a convenient place for tourists to take photos of the city and for the locals to try and sell them hashish.  I got five offers in the time I was up there including two from the same guy.  We were in Chefchaouen for two days and I was offered drugs eleven times.  Maybe it’s something about my face.