Who says there’s no I in Chefchaouen?

Chefchaouen. It looks like a frustrating hand you might be dealt playing Words With Friends (an abundance of word possibilities, but very few letters worth any serious pointage). Only it’s not. It’s a dreamy little blue town in Morocco, set amongst the Rif mountains, roughly four hours by bus from Fes.

First glimpse of the town, already grinning

We’ve been told by our guide that the hotel we are staying at in Chefchaouen is “quite a nice place, actually.” We take that with a grain of salt because after all, we are on a budget small group tour. Sometimes on budget tours “quite a nice place, actually” translates as “there’s an absence of unpleasant, weird smells coming out of the drains in the bathroom and/or mystery hairs on your pillows, what a treat!”

As it turns out, he has quite possibly made one of the understatements of the year. We are staying in an incredibly pretty hotel, set back into the side of the mountain, with views of the town best taken in from the lovely pool area. It’s called Maison D’Hores, unfortunate if you read it phonetically but it’s so pleasing aesthetically that we’re happy to call it home for two nights.

Gateway to House of Hores.

Complimentary mint tea consumed, (a girl could really get used to this) we head down for some quality meandering. The town is about a fifteen minute walk from our hotel, across a bridge that traverses the river/ local laundry facilities.

Not so magic carpets when they need handwashing

Once we get to the Medina itself, with it’s blue chalk painted walls, terracotta roofs, pretty doorways and picturesque stairwells, I morph into one of those tourists with a camera practically anatomically attached to my face. Pretty sure I finish the day with the imprint of a Canon viewfinder around my right eye…. You know how sometimes you finally reach a place you’ve seen umpteen pictures of and think “oh, I thought the colours would be more vibrant, never mind, NOTHING INSTAGRAM CAN’T FIX!” You know those places? Well, this was nothing like that. In it’s natural, filter free state it’s just sublime!! I’m going to shut up now and let the pictures do the talking….

Were I gifted with photoshop I might colour that lady’s bag blue

Around every bend a gorgeous vista

Okay I’m going to put the camera away in just a minute…

I swear, this is the last one and the camera is going away. Just need to pap this fern over the door…

Unghhhhh, okay just one more, then the lens cap is going ON!

Okay I’m just giving into it now.

Mixing it up with some shots of the casbah

Oh, pretty… best take roughly a dozen pictures of that while we’re at it.

Main square from the tower

You’ve created a monster

Do you hear me, Chefchaouen? A monster. A colour coordinating with her surrounds MONSTER

Day 2 dawns and we’ve booked ourselves onto a four hour guided walking tour that goes up the side of one of the mountains. We kick off proceedings with a fortifying (and ultimately calorie neutral–because we’ll be climbing uphill, see?) breakfast at the hotel. Three different types of freshly baked bread (flat bread, doughy bread, scone like bread… take that, paleos!), honey, jam, olives, tapenade, cheese, an omelette and three cups of coffee and we are ready to roll.

We set off at 8:30 and begin a steady climb uphill, and about 20 mins later we reach a Spanish monastery that overlooks the town. We pause, ostensibly for a few photos, but mainly to catch my breath and allow my heart rate to slip back below 180bpm. Perhaps three strong coffees before relentless cardio was not the wisest preparation.

Righto, don’t know about you guys but I feel that’s been a solid day’s walk. Shall we head back?

Now up till this point, the path we’ve been following has been more or less stone steps and I’m a happy, if a little flushed and wheezy camper. Alas, the stone steps now give way to become shaley rock underfoot, interspersed with rocks, nay–boulders to clamber over.

I’m not the most confident clamberer at the best of times so I’m finding proceedings quite challenging. As per usual I settle into my natural position at the very rear of the pack and I find myself missing my Day Two Inca Trail buddies who were happy to languish at the back, have a laugh and basically bolster one another’s hopes of surviving…

If you look closely you’ll see my smile doesn’t reach my dead eyes, b/c I’m already thinking about the descent

We climb further and further and further up and I become increasingly fretful about the return trip because the footing is near impossible going uphill and I’m mentally fast forwarding to going down and falling, either a) repeatedly on my ass or b) down the side of a rock face. Luckily at our next informal rest stop, our spritely guide, who’s been virtually jogging up the mountain till this point, tells us between drags on his cigarette that we will be snaking around the side of the mountain and descending a different path altogether. I just about weep tears of relief, but I’m too dehydrated and don’t want to waste precious body fluids.

As we power (the others) or trudge sulkily (me) uphill, we happen upon a massive *local mint* plantation which is quite the operation. Just set ever so casually into the side of the mountain range. It’s an impressive set up really, there are hoses and even a sprinkler system all connected to an underground mineral spring… An enormous crop, but I guess they have an incredibly high demand for *local mint* there…

Import to experience local culture and I guess that includes agri-culture

In the clothes I’ll be wearing when I’m mauled by sniffer dogs on Border Security

Onward and upward and onward and upward. As we near the highest point, one of our group accidentally knocks a rock over the edge of the path and it clatters down the side of the hill, the echoes becoming louder and more ominous as it goes. Just what you want to hear as you approach a narrow section of the path that drops away steeply on one side and also slopes on a downward angle towards said drop. It’s seriously tempting to drop to my stomach and commando crawl just to be safe.

RIP little rock who plummeted over this edge

Okay when ground zero is but a sketchy blur, you have climbed HIGH ENOUGH!

I have three fairly massive and inelegant stacks (that’s ‘falls’ for the non-Australians amongst you) on the way down, earning myself a decent scratch on my hand and a large bruise on my sacrum, but thankfully no broken bones or shattered skull. I unleash some quality irrational, petulant swearing and ranting at our guide who’s a good sixty metres in front of me and therefore obviously to blame. (I did say it was irrational and not by any means my proudest moment. Downhills bring out the hissy fit in me).

Almost back, buildings now actually distinguishable, smile therefore more sincere

We finally stagger back to the hotel, and I strip off my disgusting, filthy, sweaty clothes and deliberate over whether to put them into my laundry bag or just outright burn them. I then take my disgusting, filthy, sweaty body straight up for a dip in the pool which probably has the hotel staff scowling and making a mental note to double the dose of the chlorine that afternoon.

Rejuvenated, it’s back down to the main square lunch at a place called Aladdin’s Cave, easily the tallest building in the town with gorgeous views out over the main square.

Legs barely made it up the three flights of stairs to take in this

And a small problem with bees who are after the sugar in your mint tea and will literally drown their counterparts to get at it….

Apiary mob mentality. It’s just mint tea guys, IT’S NOT WORTH DYING FOR

I demolish a kefta pastilla–meatballs, spice, and vegetables all incased in flaky pastry and topped with icing sugar and cinnamon. Yes that’s right, topped with icing sugar and cinnamon, on a savoury concoction. File it under SHOULDN’T WORK BUT IT DOES. It’s absolutely divine.

Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

After lunch we wander back out into the maze of backstreets and discover yet another Aladdin’s cave (not its official name, that would be confusing, just what we christen it)–this one full of hand made soaps, scented oils and solid perfumes. Ridiculously pretty and smells utterly exquisite to boot. We are all quietly grateful that we swam and changed clothes, and didn’t trample into their beautiful smelling store straight from our hike to completely befoul it.

The best kind of assault on the senses

Perfumey paradise

Solid perfumes

And just in case the day hadn’t been a triumph already, I purchase two (ahem, my first of many…) Moroccan cross body leather bags. I am now officially on the slippery slope that is Megan Mckay Holiday Shopping.

It begins!

So overall, I depart bruised, scratched and tender, but pretty sated. I would happily return to lose myself in its blue streets and gorge myself on pastilla and mint tea, but as always I will throw over to you, my younger brother. Chefchaouen, Jarrod, would you go there?

This could be you, here!