The city painted blue and white: Chefchaouen

blue walls and moroccan children. precioso no?
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PART THREE: My favorite city overall, we visited on Sunday Morning. Its called Chefchaouen. It’s this precious little city in the mountains, with all these canals of water running through it. Its painted blue and white 7 times a year because it is their heating and cooling system and it brings them closer to god. The sky and sea are both blue, so if their Medina is blue too, they feel closer to God. It was the most precious thing ever. Literally everything was painted blue. It felt like I was walking through the ocean, or sea world or something. Also, its hidden in the mountains so its got the hills and the gorgeous views. It was just stunning. :) I loved it. Once again, we got a whole tour of the town, and did a little hike up into the mountains. I had such fun. The views of the city, and from the mountains were just absolutely stunning... I saw children playing on one street, and then up in the mountains they have a community area to wash your clothes, and this little girl was helping her mom and grandma ( i assume) wash the clothes and letting them all dry out in the sun. We got to go to another rug show in Chefchaouen too. This one had a lot of different styles of rugs, and they were so neat. I mean, of course they all are, but it was just fantastic. They also made these gorgeous silk bed covers by hand. I wish I had a big bed to put one on. But they were the richest colors. It was just incredible... Then they gave us plenty of time to shop around. This market was definitely my favorite, it was huge, and everyone was so nice. The people here were just great. I bought a bunch of little things, and spent the rest of my dirhams. (that was the goal anyways...) But it was so fun. I bartered with a man for scarves for about 15 or 20 minutes, but the best part was I DID IT IN SPANISH! I am so proud of myself haha. I mean, the sellers here know some very basic things in english for the tourists, but they usually also speak french or spanish, or both, in addition to arabic. This guy was talking to me in english (because there is no way I can blend in as a local here... haha) and i started just automatically responding to him in spanish, and eventually he realized that we could communicate so much better in spanish, so he just gave up on his broken english, and we had a whole conversation... I was so proud of myself, that to be honest, i didn’t even care that he didn’t give me the exact price I wanted. I just wanted to buy the scarves! :) That was definitely a highlight of my shopping experience. Also I met this nice older man selling all sorts of things, and he said he travels to different cities to sell things every week, so he was all about giving me low prices. I wanted to just stay and talk to him, he was so cool! He didn’t pressure me into anything, but I asked him a question about if he had something, and he just pulled them all out for me, and we had a nice conversation, I offered him a price and he gave me two for a euro more. It was just another great experience. (After being followed around the night before I needed some reassurance! haha.) Afterwards we had a nice lunch in a hotel in Chefchaouen, and then headed for home. Boy what a long day of traveling. Another 2 + hours of driving back to the border, and hour of waiting in the line again, plus the spanish police were not as laid back as the moroccan police! They searched our bus hardcore i guess incase we smuggled some moroccan children across the border... who knows. But anyways, then we caught the ferry (this time just hung out inside and had a snack) at about 6:30, and then had a 4 hour drive back to Granada, + a stop for some “dinner” in Malaga. Wow. What a trip though. I’m SO glad I went. I got back to Granada around 11:45pm, and then took a taxi home with some girls who live on that side of town, because it would have been a 30 minute walk home for us from where the bus dropped us off. I literally passed out the second my head hit the pillow and to be honest, am, defnitely still recovering from the whirlwind weekend. It was fantastic though.

What a view!
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Overall, some things I noticed about Morocco: The atmosphere out here is different. I mean, everything is focused on the community, so much more than at home and in the US. They have community ovens, so you can make the dough for the bread at home, and walk a few blocks and put it in the oven, then come back and pick it up. They have community baths with 3 different rooms with differnet temperatures of water. They have community “laundromats” for washing your clothes. They get water from the lakes insides the mountains, and designed a system so the water runs down the hills into the city. There are community wells essentially to go and get fresh water for your house, and hell, even the houses are communities. They told us that 3 or 4 families live in one house and there is usually 5 or 6 people per family... Its so focused on the group instead of the individual. Its wonderful. On our hike there were some buses that had stopped at this little look out, and they were filled with young children I don’t know what they were doing, but I was walking by the bus, and this girl, maybe 12 years old, her head covered, knocked on the window, and I looked up and smiled. I couldn’t see her mouth, but by her eyes, I could tell the biggest smile came across her face too, and she started to wave at me. I waved back. It was the cutest and most intimate moment I had with any of the people in Morocco, and it just made me realize how far apart our worlds may seem, but in reality, how close we all really are.

The sky and sea are both blue, so if their Medina is blue too, they feel closer to God.

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I love you guys! Hope you enjoyed my essay(s) about my continent hop. haha. I miss you all. I send my love! xoxo