After about an hour in our trusty (and slightly rusty) Land Rover, we arrived at a parking lot above the first actual city we had seen since the day we left Rabat. After checking into a pretty sweet Gite, complete with electricity, climate control, water and a warm shower, I set out through the narrow roads of the Chefchaouen. The city was founded in 1471, and it became a refuge for Moriscos (Muslims who converted to Christianity, often not out of free will) and Jews, fleeing from Spain during the time of the Spanish Reconquista. The city was occupied by Spain in 1920 as part of Spanish Morocco, and stayed a part of the Spanish Empire until Morocco’s independence in 1956.
The city is most well known for its many blue streets, which gave the city its nickname “the Blue Pearl”. It is probably safe to say that if it weren’t for its proximity to Tangier and Ceuta (a Spanish enclave) it wouldn’t be a prime tourist destination, as the town has only around 40,000 residents.
While most of the houses are painted blue, there are far fewer streets in which the ground is painted blue as well. If you are attentive, you will notice that all those alleys and pathways with a blue ground have a dead end – what an ingenious way to make navigating such a maze-like city just a bit easier!
I highly recommend to anyone visiting the city to just set some time aside and get lost. Ultimately, it isn’t too difficult to find back to the main square; you usually just have to go back downhill.
Occasionally you will come across bits of color – sometimes quite literally – that contrast very nicely to the overall “blueness” of the city.
Speaking of the “blueness” of the city – take a look at the Google picture results when searching for “Chefchaouen”. That really is a lot of blue in one place.
If you venture far enough away from the tourists, you will find roadside stores that sell everything one may need for day to day life in the city.
After my wandering through the city, we were invited by a local (who also happened to be our mountain guide) to visit him at his house, where he demonstrated to us how he distilled essential oils from the needles of the black pine tree (which, I was quite pleased to find out while writing this, is also known as the “Austrian pine”).
For the evening, a couple friends of mine and I decided to climb back up the hill and out of the city walls, so that we could watch the sun set behind the mountains that surrounded Chefchaouen. It was definitely one of the most memorable sunsets I’ve ever experienced. Once again, the dust from teh Sahara gave the sky an incredibly orange.
What a beautiful ending to a beautiful day in a beautiful city.