Fes and the road to Chefchaouen

We are parked up tonight in a quagmire masquerading as a campsite in Chefchaouen. It's raining. Heavily.

We survived Fes, in fact we enjoyed it much more than we expected. We had read and been told such negative reports that we weren't really looking forward to our time there at all but we met our guide on Saturday morning and he showed us some of the Medina (it's massive) a mosaic and pottery workshop, the tanneries, the inevitable carpet shop and whilst we felt our tour was a little rushed he was an ok guy with excellent English. So we'd go back to Fes and spend more time there I think. The medina is huge with over 28 kilometres of alleyways and has hardly changed in over a century, apparently the last big expansion was in the thirteenth century, and it currently houses over 180,000 people. Just about every trade and craft is carried on there and yet we weren't particularly hassled by shopkeepers as we had anticipated. Of course it's easy to get lost in such a maze but as it's built on the side of a hill if you just walk downhill apparently you'll always find a way out, simple eh?

This guy is working in his forge about 2m x 2.5m in the middle of the medina

Craftsmen in the pottery factory

A view of the medina from the rooftops. The green roofed building is the Kairaouine Mosque & University. The oldest university in the world.

The tanneries. The white tanks contain ammonia and the dark tanks the dye.

 

So today, Sunday, we set off for Chefchaouen by the scenic route which our maps and GPS said would take us about three and a half hours. We planned our coffee stop for Taounate which was a good choice. Instead of the usual coffee, bread, laughing cow cheese and a dish of apricot or strawberry jam something got lost in the translation today and we received cheese and apricot jam baguette sandwiches. That's cheese and apricot jam in the same sandwich which was...... interesting. Lunch was planned for in Ketama, then we read what Lonely Planet had to say: "Ketama has a notorious reputation. This is an area beyond the law. People will wonder what you are doing here and naturally assume you are buying hashish. There is nowhere to turn if you get in to trouble and little to hold anyone back who wants some. Travellers are strongly advised to pass through." Sounds like our kinda town we thought but as we drove slowly through the villages before with just about everybody shouting at us offering kif we decided to give it a miss. We pulled up just outside and stopped to make coffee and a sandwich and half a dozen cars pulled up offering more kif. Usually when we pass through a town or village people smile or wave at us, in the Rif mountains and valleys guys just lounge about on the side of the road giving us snake eyes. The weather got worse as we drove over at about 1,700 metres, fog and then heavy rain and more fog, none of which deterred the locals from driving like maniacs. The worse driving we've seen in all of Morocco. I managed to clout wing mirrors with a guy in a 4x4 who came hurtling around a bend. I've got cracked glass but apparently he came of worse according to Paul and Chris who were following me. His mirror was dangling by its cable. Fortunately the artwork on my mirror is still as beautiful as ever and bears no battle scars.

All in all it took us about eight hours to travel the 260 kilometres today and we were all pretty exhausted by the time we arrived at Chefchaouen. We parked up and looked for somewhere to eat and found a little restaurant. Sole and frites for me and Phil and calamari and frites for Paul and Chris, it certainly hit the spot. Up some ridiculously steep hills to reach the campsite which is a sea of mud overlooking low cloud, twenty minutes trying to find a pitch anything like level and I put the levelling blocks out only to roll straight over them and stopping two inches from the wall behind! We are as level as we can get and still have a list to port and a slope rear to front. And we have no 3G here which means I probably won't be able to post this for a day or two. Happy days but I'm sure things will look wonderful tomorrow. If it stops raining.

Ah, think I might have found some WiFi :)

 

Posted with Blogsy