Finally I got some time to get back to Morocco’s trip and this post is all about Chefchaouen. In the first part of the Morocco’s trip, I explained how our Morocco’s itinerary didn’t work out and we had to improvise. Initially the plan was to rent a car and drive by the coast and going north but we ended up staying in Fes for longer and it forced us to cancel the plan for travelling and staying in Chefchaouen for few days. Before leaving Fes, I found a day tour from Fes to Chefchaouen and back. Viator has day tours for $50 from Fes Medina. The good thing about it is the fact that we managed to book it a just a day before and it basically only covers a round trip minibus transportation to the city and back, nothing more.
We woke up early and found our way in cold dark early mornings of Fes to the Medina wall and found our minibus which supposed to take us to Chefchaouen. It was only us and few more tourists and just the van driver. The distance between Fes and Chefchaouen is only 211 km but takes 3.5 to 4 hours to get there so we had a long day ahead of us/
After passing through mountains, we got to Chefchaouen around lunch time. The driver dropped us off at the edge of the walls of the old town and asked us to be back in the same location withing 4 hours. Getting off the minibus, we quickly realized that it was at least few degrees colder than Fes which was already too cold for our expectations of Morocco in April. Mountains in the distance were covered in clouds and as soon as we started our walk uphill in the old town it started to rain too.
Unlike Fes old town that looks like a bowl and the more deeper to get into the town, you go downhill till you get to the lowest point, Chefchaouen is completely opposite. The more we get into the town, it gets steeper and steeper and in most places alley ways are more like stairs and it definitely feel colder and colder.
This humble town is the embodiment of almost every Moroccan cliché. The picturesque Medina, set against the dramatic backdrop of the Rif Mountains and is filled with gorgeous unreal blue washed houses. Built in 15th century, its population grew quickly with Muslim and Jewish immigrants fleeing from Spain. Most of the Jewish community relocated and mainly Muslim residents are living in the old town. The town is decorated nicely and is full of art galleries, cafes and souvenir shops but somehow it still looks really authentic and walking in residential areas, local people are still living their daily life and struggle with everyday hardship of living in a place like Chefchaouen. As it is obvious from the photos, there is no way to drive in this town and alleys are quite steep. The only source of cooking and heating the houses are big heavy gas canisters and by looks of it, it is somehow women’s duty to move these beautiful looking red gas containers from the edge of town up hill to their houses.
It’s always a gentle reminder around the corner when we start fanaticizing the beauty of living in one of these beautiful touristic spots. watching women of these town struggling to move the basic essentials up hill in narrow slippery stairways under the rain.
I must admit, we expected the whole Chefchaouen to be more staged and touristic than it really was. We would definitely get back there and try to stay for few days but 4 hours was actually enough time to see around the town and enjoy it. So if you don’t have much time, a day trip to Chefchaouen, definitely worth the effort. We had a longer trip back due to darkness and heavy rain back to Fes to just pack our stuff to leave the next morning for an interesting new adventure in Morocco. I hope that I can get to the next post, way faster than I got to this one. till then take care and enjoy some more photos of the beautiful Chefchaouen below.
