From Tangier, the next stop was to head south to Chefchaouen, a town name that seems to have come from a competition to name a town with all the vowels in it. If they had gone with Chifchaouen, they would have managed it – a missed opportunity. To get there meant catching the bus from Tangier CTM bus station, so the day started with a 15 minute taxi ride south to the bus station. The bus route then took us through the mountains on roads of varying quality, some of the sort of quality where it is best not to look too hard. After a brief stop in Tetouan, we got to Chefchaouen around 1pm. At this point we realised one of the (many) limitations of Google Maps – a complete lack of topographic information. The bus station it turned out was at the bottom of the town and our accommodation was near the top. What was billed as a 23 minute walk by Google was still going strong after 32 minutes ….
As we lunged breathlessly into the hotel, we were welcomed by our friendly host offering us a cup of mint tea. She is clearly used to people collapsing across her doorstep!
The town name “Chefchaouen” is of Arabic and Berber origin probably stemming from “Chef” meaning to look and “Echaouen“, meaning “horns”. This refers to the two mountain peaks overlooking the town. The town dates back to 1471 when it was founded by Moulay Ali Ben Rachid, a distant descendant of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. It started out as just a small fortress which is now called the Kasbah and this was to enable them to defend the area from potential attacks by the Portuguese who were launching attacks against various northern towns in Morocco.
We had a couple of days here, so we started out by heading off for a walk around town. With a nice sunny day forecast we headed off for a walk to the Spanish Mosque. This started well enough and we kept our heads down through the medina, but then fatally we started talking to one of the shop owners. Within seconds we had been abducted into a carpet shop and given what must have been drugged mint tea, as we found ourselves coming out 20 minutes later with a package ….. Amazing how little we have learnt about carpet salesmen in 65 years on this planet!
Having escaped and with the drugged mint tea wearing off, we headed off past the waterfall and up (everywhere seems to be up here!) the path to the Spanish Mosque. The views all the way up the path back over the town were lovely and we used every excuse to stop and rest to admire them.
On the way back down, the walk turned into a botanical expedition with Anne’s plant identification app working overtime. The various plants included a lovely one called the Friar’s Cowl and various others including Rock Soapwort, African Woodsorrel and Mediterranean Phagnalon.
For lunch we had a bowl of soup and bread (they do lovely bread here!) at a restaurant in the main square passing our time counting the health and safety violations of the scaffolders taking down the stage which had been put up to show the Afcon final between Morocco and Senegal – a controversial match (the Senegalese walked off because they thought the referees were biased).
After lunch we headed in to the Kasbah – the original fortress of Chefchaouen. Apart from being the original fortress, it has also in its time served as a residence for governors, as a military arsenal and as a prison. We had a look round what is slightly grandly described as an ethnological museum, though we didn’t see much evidence of any ethno or logic in its displays, so we wandered round the gardens and looked quickly at an art exhibition which had commissioned Latin American artists to do a picture and then they were all printed on umbrellas for display – unusual and we failed to see the symbolism, but interesting. From there we headed back to the hotel slowly – it was up all the way …..
The next day we had booked a Moroccan cooking course at the Café Clock in town, just a couple of minutes walk from our hotel. Not quite sure what to expect, we were welcomed by our chef for the day. It turned out we were the only ones on the course which was a bit of a bonus for us, but possibly not for the chef! We started off by choosing a starter, salad, main course and dessert. We chose Shlarda d l’barba (beetroot salad) as the salad and Harira (Moroccan soup) for the starter. For the main course we went for Tagine b l’khodra (a seasonal vegetable tagine) and for dessert Ghriba d l’kouk (fassi coconut macaroons).
With the choice made we set off for a wander downhill (it’s always downhill ….) out of the medina and to the market just outside. There we chose the veg for the dishes – pepper, beetroot, artichoke, potato, carrot, tomatoes. Then on to another shop for olives, chick peas, saffron, preserved lemon (apparently preserved in salt, vinegar and water), orange blossom water and cheese (though that wasn’t for us!) and finally to a lady sat on the street for parsley, coriander and celery tops as herbs.
Then back to the café and cooking …. We started with the soup in a pressure cooker, mixing together all the herbs and then adding chick peas and cooking for around 45 minutes. Once ‘pressure cooked, it was then bubbled for bit longer and gradually thickened with flour and small pieces of pasta. Then we prepared the tagine, chopping all the veg and preparing all the spices on a large plate as a marinade for the veg and onions. Then the onions were cooked for a while in the tagine and after 10 minutes or so everything was layered on top of the onions, the marinade was added over the top and the lid put on for 45 minutes or so. Finally we did the coconut macaroons – a mix of semolina, coconut and sugar all mixed into a dough with orange blossom water and olive oil.
The culmination of all of this work was to eat it – the toughest part …. Delicious …. All that was left for the day was to try and walk the feast off a little before heading back to the hotel to polish off a doggy bag of coconut macaroons!