Location: Chefchaouen, Tangier, (Morocco) and Cadiz and Seville (Spain)

Yet another adventure travel-filled week for us last week. An IES-sponsored trip to Chefchaouen and Tangier, two cities in the north of Morocco meant that our school week consisted of only two days (one of which was used to make a visit to the Moroccan Parliament- more on that another post). So Wednesday morning had us packed up and in the IES van on the 4 hour drive north to Chefchaouen. The long and winding road trip with the sun pouring in on me was another chance to see Morocco’s interior. (Quick note on geography: obviously Rabat, next to the ocean, is fairly flat, although the city proper is kinda built up on a hill that rises straight up from the sea and the river. After that the land continues mostly flat and open. Although the soil is fairly sandy and cactuses grow on the side of road, there’s plenty of groundwater so this part of the land is mostly farms of various sorts (hay, sunflowers, vegetables, the occasional sheep flock). Horse-drawn carts and donkeys are just as common as cars for transporting people and things. I’m guessing this is where all of the produce for sale in the medina everyday comes from. If it were a little greener and with more corn fields it could pass for Lancaster County back home. After that is gets hillier and more rugged, with orchards and farms of the no-tractor-necessary variety before turning into full-on mountains. But they aren’t ridge-and-valley mountains like the Appalachians); they’re more just like someone dropped Hershey Kisses from the sky with no real rhyme or reason. They also are covered in rocks and shrubs instead of trees.)

Chefchaouen is a idyllic picturesque little city-town in the middle of the Rif Mountains. And it’s painted blue and white. The pictures here are probably some of the prettiest pictures I’ve taken on the trip in my opinion. The city is built into the side of a mountain, so the streets are all set above one another into the incline. (It also means that climbing to the top gives a great view!) Our tour wasn’t going to start until the evening for the sake of the tour guide so he wouldn’t have to walk around in the eat of the day while fasting, so we all had a quick dip in the pool until then. It was a scene right out of a travel magazine; sitting by the blue pool with a view of blue painted medina houses spread out in the valley below us with the next mountain rising in the background.

Our tour guide gave us some background on the city; it was a popular destination for Jews fleeing the Spanish Reconquista, and the town is painted blue to reflect that Jewish influence (or at least it was originally, when tourists started flocking to the otherwise isolated city, they figured they had a good thing going and now just keep it blue to keep them coming). The town was founded as a fortress to fight the Portuguese from, but was later taken by the Spanish as part of Spanish Morocco. In any case, although it was very touristy and easy to get lost, the old medina was gorgeous. As we were walking with our guide, each of looking typically American and literally taking a picture every 5 steps, we felt a few drops of rain. Let me preface by saying that it had been really hot, humid, and miserable the last week or so; imagine those summer days where the weather just broils and broils and then finally a thunderstorm rolls through in the evening and clears it all up? It’s been like that, but with no thunderstorm. July is the driest and hottest month in Morocco, with less that 5mm of rainfall on average. So the moment we felt those drops on our arms, I started grinning from ear to ear. I suppose since we were in the mountains it was plausible for a small shower to form and grace us with it’s lovely cool drops. Our guide was baffled when we declined his offer to stand inside and instead we outside with our arms spread relishing this reprise. It was a very strange moment of happiness, and I’m sure all the residents thought we were crazy. To be fair though they also continued their business despite the rain. There is a little river that runs along the side of the city over rocks and such, forming a series of waterfalls and pools that they were all playing in and such- it looked lovely. Later I hiked to the top and watched the sunset over the city; another view that convinced me not to blame all the tourists that flock to this town every summer.

Sadly though, we had to leave the very next morning for Tangier. Originally we were going to have the chance to do a hike to a very pretty set of waterfalls further in the mountains that I’d read about before coming, but because we were trying to get to Spain that night, our activities coordinator had moved things around and that was one thing that got cancelled. Very disappointing, but I guess that just means I’ll have to come back!

Tangier was a very clearly a large city that had spent a few years under international control. There were a few cafes open even though it was still Ramadan, and the park had gravestones written in German for the expats and soldiers that lived here. There’s even an Anglican church with a quibla (notch that denotes which direction Mecca is), bible verses written in Arabic, and the bell tower is shaped like a minaret. We also visited the weaver’s section of the medina, and the fish market complete with swordfish and live lobsters (watch your step- the floors are wet with fish goo and seawater).

After lunch it was time to catch our ferry to Spain- which was so much closer than I’d thought! The ferry ride was only an hour, and after 20 minutes I could see the Spanish coast before Morocco even disappeared from view. We landed in Tarifa, the closest port, and after another bus ride we were in our hostel for the night in Cadiz, Europe’s oldest city! It was also where Christopher Columbus set sail on his second voyage from, which makes sense because Cadiz is essentially just an outcrop surrounded on three sides by sea and connected to the mainland by a strip of land less than a mile wide. However our plan was to only stay the night, visit Seville the next day, and come back to Cadiz on Saturday so that when we had to travel the whole way back to Rabat on Sunday were closer and had less milage to cover in one day.

Seville was so wonderfully European. Siting in a cafe eating huevos con queso and curros con chocolate watching all the Spaniards wake up and take their coffee, I was constantly marveling at how beautifully and simply Spanish it all was- such a difference from Morocco. Everything from the flamenco show I went to in a corner bar in the evening to the delicious tapas we ate that evening to the massive cathedral made me smile in awe. Thinking back to the beauty I witnessed in the rainstorm among the blue city in Chefchaouen and comparing it to the very different beauty of the view from the top of the gothic cathedral tower, it makes me think of the very different types of beauty in the world. Even the desert earlier this trip was equally as break taking in a different way. Each have their different majesty and significances. Yet even in Seville there was a mixing of the cultures, a remnant from the Islamic dynasties there. The cathedral tower, called the Giralda, used to be a minaret for a mosque that took on the same site. When they built the cathedral, they just used the minaret and made it taller for the bellower of the cathedral. So when we were walking inside it to the top, I noticed that the windows are the same keyhole-shape as all the windows and doors in Morocco- little traces of history.

Place d’España

Spain!

Place d’España

Outside the Cathedral – see the keyhole windows?

Moroccan window with gothic spiral towers outside

the view from the Giralda in Seville

We’d become so acculturated to Morocco that we kept being surprised by things in Spain: shorts, all the bars, the topless beach in Cadiz, the lack of taxis, pork, traffic laws that actually exist…you get the picture. It was a nice little holiday, and especially because we had to come back to a particularly rough week at school in terms of assignments (yes study abroad still has a definite element of “study” in it don’t forget) We only have one week left, but I’ll save the concluding thoughts for the next post. Until then, bslama.

Location: Chefcaouen, Morocco