Chefchaouen – A Blue Jewel in Morocco’s Crown

Rabat, said bye to that,

Barely past dawn

Grogginess clearing but what’s that I’m hearing

A man slurping tea, I wish he was never born

Why did you do this, I’ll stab you in your pubis

That might be taking things a little far.

So, we grabbed the train to stop me from being detained

This carriage was well above par.

But thereat I sat, Rabat at my back, my only thought was of the man

I call him a man but he was a pleb,

one of the dregs of society,

I realise I never have to see him again and my anger did ebb

it rid me of all my slurping anxiety.

This complex poem weaves together the fierce sentiments of a young man grappling with the tempestuous emotions that he can feel on any given morning. A delicate time when the mind is being pulled from the realm of slumberous imagination and into an unkind reality. The poem is not only a physical journey from Rabat, onwards to an undisclosed destination, but also a voyage of rising and falling intensity which eventually settles to a place of peace and resolution. It’s not a pretty poem, but for me it does accentuate the writer’s burgeoning desire to rid the world of all those who make unnecessary food related noises. And I think that’s a sentiment we can all cling to, a uniting hatred if you will. And that my friends, is a beautiful thing.

– A critic’s review of “The Slurping Man”. The writer would like to stay anonymous for reasons of safety.

* * * 

But anyway, we were on our way to Tangier on the train, which was much more comfortable than the cramped carriage from Marrakech. On arrival, we were ambushed by some very keen taxi drivers but that was pretty normal, so we ignored all the overly enthusiastic ones and got in one further away from the train station. Exuberance and cheeriness doesn’t get you everywhere, we Brits don’t want to feel too welcome. Once at the bus station we easily got a ticket up to Chefchaouen and then had a few hours to kill which was no bad thing, my stomach was vying for my full attention by this point. A small, uninspiring café was perfect for our needs and it had Wi-Fi so watching a Bath rugby game was possible with lunch.

Our first bus was to Tetouan and I slept all the way there. Next we took one more bus through winding mountain roads to Chefchaouen, as the sun set. We arrived at night and as usual we had booked our accommodation very late, which had worked beautifully everywhere else, but unfortunately not here. We were stuck with an overpriced budget hotel, in which our room felt like it belonged in a hospital rather than a hotel, also the showers were never vacant and we hated it. There was only one possible cure. Yes, of course it’s food.

Unfortunately for us, being on a tight budget for the evening due to the hotel, we went to the pizzeria. A mistake. A terrible mistake. Firstly, this was at the end of the summer that birthed the worldwide sensation that was Despacito. This was a time when everyone was starting to hate the song they had once loved. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Despacito as much as the next person. However, when it was being played on repeat I did start to feel like ripping my ear drums out. To make things exactly 1000x worse, it wasn’t the original song. It was a series of instrumentals, played by a veritable circus of freakish people that leered over me from the TV with every bite of my pizza.

Among the vibrant TV orchestra was man playing an accordion. He had a thick but horribly patchy beard that grew only on one side of his face. As I watched I wondered whether the untamed jawline ecosystem was an utterly insane choice or a very rogue genetic abnormality. Next on the Despacito freak show, two intensely enthusiastic cello players who were either very gay or very European. Frankly, it was impossible to tell. The final member on the roster was a boy who cradled a saxophone in a way that suggested that if he let it go, and stopped playing for even a second, he’d be flogged by the producers of this television hellscape. The pizza was also not very nice. But when you’re being barbarically tortured through the medium of grotesquely contorted popular music, pizza toppings aren’t near the top of your list of gripes about an establishment.

After a functional night’s sleep in the hotel, we packed up and left as quickly as possible so we could get to our next hostel. Thankfully, this place was very central in the medina area. The streets were coloured in shades of blue as promised and so we could rest easy in the knowledge that we hadn’t come all that way to see some boring normal streets. After getting set up in the hostel, we immediately went for an explore. The town was pretty small but undoubtedly beautiful. The intricacies of the azure alleyways were fascinating, especially once we escaped from the main tourist routes. More than anywhere else we had seen, Chefchaouen kept its tourists obediently walking on the same paths. These paths were of course the ones that were lined with all the stalls. Apparently, an alleyway without somewhere to buy your mum a cheap trinket isn’t worth a visit. For us the quiet alleys usually held the most beauty and intrigue with local people going about their business and the blue of the alleys open and clear to see.

We decided to walk vaguely uphill, to see what there may be in terms of views. Eventually and completely by chance, we reached the impressive city walls, which separated the tightly packed town from the tumbling green mountains. After grabbing dinner number one and managing to get some of the last tickets to Fes on the next day, we returned to the wall for sunset. It was an incredible spectacle, with the area being bathed in golden light that shifted with the sinking sun, this beauty was somewhat juxtaposed however, by the stray dogs descending from the mountains to make a racket about something obviously important to them. Their crazy barking and fighting noises intermingled with the drums and music from the town centre, where a powder paint street party was brewing. All together it amounted to a weirdly tranquil atmosphere.

After dinner number two, in which I avoided a tagine at all costs, we headed back to the hostel wherein I had an uncomfortably cold shower. Even with the wonders of modern technology, I’m not entirely sure how they managed to get anything that cold to the sweltering heat of Morocco. It felt as though I was back in Sweden, swimming in glacial melt water but without the sanctuary of the sauna to skulk back to.

One of Chefchaouen’s most enduring memories for me happened that night, our final one in Chefchaouen. I woke up and stepped out into the featureless darkness of the roof terrace outside my dorm room. Once out there, multiple calls to prayer engulfed me from every direction. The calls came from all over the town and mixed together, echoing off the mountains. It was strangely eerie and spectacular moment, one of sensory deprivation and overload all at once.

Final thoughts

Chefchaouen’s beauty is inescapable, it’s striking blue streets and serene mountain setting gives it a noticeably different feel to anywhere else we had visited in Morocco over the last month. However, the small size of the town and the touristy feel of certain parts, did limit the amount of time we felt we needed to stay there. I would definitely recommend a visit there, but there are plenty of places that feature higher on my list for when I revisit Morocco.