Mountain magic
Venturing deep into Morocco’s awe-inspiring Rif Mountains, Tahir Shah finds Chefchaouen, a fortress city lost in time...
A waiter in Fes first directed me to the small town of Chefchaouen, nestled in the foothills of the Rif Mountains. I had praised a bowl of delicious harira, the wholesome soup Moroccans love to eat through the winter. He told me the recipe had been prepared by his family for eight centuries at their home in Chefchaouen. “If you go there,” he said, his eyes welling with tears, “your heart will dance with delight.”
The idea of my heart dancing with delight was far too good to pass up. I set off from Fes the next morning, driving north across the agricultural heartland, through forests of cork oaks and up into the Rif.
Northern Morocco couldn’t make for a sharper contrast from the deserts of the south. There were small rocky fields, scattered with cactus and sheep. Wizened men sat perched on donkeys, their wives wearing conical straw hats, and I saw orange groves, farmsteads, and translucent streams.
The first view of “Chaouen”, as the locals call it, sends a tingle down the spine. It sits cradled between two summits – from which it gets its name, meaning “two-horned” – above the Oued Laou valley, gleaming white in the blazing afternoon sun. Entering it is like stepping into a lost fragment of Andalucian Spain. The town was built as a secure citadel for the Islamic faith, a bastion from which the Muslim refugees pouring out from southern Spain could regroup and plan their assault on Portugal, the rising power.
It was founded in 1471 by an Idrissid prince, Sharif Moulay Ali bin Rashid, and was populated largely by Andalucian Muslims from Granada.
The town’s architecture, cuisine, and its unlikely Mediterranean feel are a result of its curious Spanish heritage. Chefchaouen was cut off from the Christian world until 1920, when Spanish troops occupied northern Morocco. The invading Spanish found a time capsule of their own culture. They also heard a form of 10th-century Catalan, a language brought by the Andalucian Jews, which had died out on the Iberian peninsula four centuries before. They also found Granada leatherwork, pottery and other crafts long extinct in their native country.
Chefchaouen provides a welcome break from the profound grandeur of the imperial cities of Fes, Meknes and Marrakesh. It tends to feel more like a big, walled village than a town. The streets are steep and cobbled, shaded by trellises erupting with clematis, the houses whitewashed or rinsed with indigo, their doors studded, their roofs tiled with terracotta. As you stroll up and down the alleys of the medina, what strikes you is the tranquillity.
It’s as if the outside world is still out there, somewhere, but you have broken free.
The first thing you notice is the absence of cars. There are almost none at all. Without them, the air is clean and crisp. Visitors amble about over the cobbles with a glazed look in their eyes, sustained by the thought they have discovered a little-known Moroccan jewel. They tour the 15th-century kasbah, clambering along its battlements and examining its dungeons. They marvel at the grand mosque, with its spectacular octagonal minaret.
The town is popular with visitors from Spain, who come to peer into their own history. There’s not a sense that the town is overrun with tourists. Instead, there’s a sleepy innocence, a feeling that the locals are happy to share their world. And, of course, the visitors snap up bargains at the multitude of shops and stalls found throughout the medina.
All sorts of merchandise is on sale, from the Andalucian-style pottery with its characteristic glazes, to the wide conical hats with wool bobbles worn by the women in the Rif. There are rugged mountain tapestries, and stalls awash with musical instruments, like ouds, goatskin tambours and giant metal castanets. In the narrow passages veering steeply down the hill, you can find delicate homemade jewellery, woollen sweaters, boxes inlaid with camel bone, and rock crystals cut from quarries in the Rif on sale.
In the heart of the old town is the plaza of Uta el-Hammam, which is lined with trees and paved with pebbles. It’s the perfect place to flop down and watch life going on around you. The cafés vie for your attention, waiters fanning menu cards at passing visitors. The food on offer ranges from succulent pastilla (a savoury-sweet pie made with chicken or pigeon), to mouth-watering tagines, such as lamb stewed with apricots, to couscous served with seven vegetables, and harira, the robust winter soup that is a meal in itself. There are western delicacies too, especially from Spain, and grilled fish caught in the local river.
In the labyrinth of backstreets that make up the medina are many small hotels and hostels, most of which are affordable. A few, like Casa Hassan and Dar Terrae, are beautiful examples of traditional Moroccan houses, with the rooms surrounding a central courtyard. There are one or two larger hotels, too, such as the Parador, which has a pool and a bar. Elsewhere, alcohol is not often served, as Chefchaouen is regarded as a holy city of Islam.
However, some drinkers are prepared to forego their tipple in light of a different vice. The Rif ’s rugged landscape has always been a hardship for those who farm the steep mountain slopes. Few crops flourish here except marijuana. The illicit crop may explain why there are so many imported foreign sports cars trundling along the open roads in the north. On the drive up from Fes, I stopped in the middle of nowhere to relieve myself and staggered into the undergrowth, only to realise I was standing amid a sea of marijuana plants, growing some 1.5m high.
The upper floors of some cafés in Chefchaouen are smoking rooms for those with an affection for the drug. Although illegal, smoking marijuana does seem to be tolerated. Visitors, however, would be very unwise to take away what they can enjoy in the town. Outside one of the smoking haunts, I came across a baby-boomer from San Francisco, who had followed Jimi Hendrix to Morocco as a groupie back in the summer of 1969. He was tall, a little hunched, and spoke very slowly, as if the forbidden fruit had taken a severe toll. He held out his arms. “Welcome to Paradise,” he said, lighting his joint, “the home of free love.”
The pace of life in Chefchaouen is so serene that you forget about the pressures of checking email and chatting on a mobile phone – for me, the test of a town’s true charm. Whether you venture there as a place to relax and regroup, or as a starting point for walking in the Rif, Chefchaouen is the kind of place one stumbles upon very rarely.
As I took to the road once again, and headed north towards the nearby waters of the Med, I thought of the waiter who had directed me to his hometown. Chefchaouen was as wonderful as he had described. And, just as he promised, it made my heart dance with delight.
(Reproduced from Ryanair inflight magazine.)
ACCOMMODATION
There are many places to stay in Chaouen, from low cost pensions, to riads and houses for let, even individual rooms in a Moroccan's home, right up to 4 star hotels such as the Parador, located in the centre of the old part of the town.
Hotel Parador (4 star)
Place El Mekhzen
Situated in the heart of the medina.
Tel.: +212 039 98 61 36
Hotel Atlas (4 star)
Sidi Abdelhamid,
Tel.: +212 39 98 60 02
Fax: +212 39 98 71 58
Web: hotelatlaschaouen@menara.com
Chaouen
Dar Mounir
New Hotel in Chefchaouen. In the area known as Derb Kadialami, 50 metres from La Place de La Medina
Tel.: +212 039 98 82 53
Casa Hassan
Rue Targui, 22
Chaouen
Tel.: +212 39 98 61 53
Email: casahassan1987@yahoo.fr
Chefchaouen is located about 1½ hours drive south of Tangier or around 1 hour from Tetouan and the Mediterranean coast.
See also, guides to the Moroccan towns of Tangier and Asilah.
and guides to the Spanish towns of Nerja, Frigiliana, Torrox and Malaga.
Medina Andalusí
New medina style complex of apartments and penthouses with lush tropical gardens and swimming pool in Chaouen.
Grupo Inmobiliario ESPMAR
International Real Estate Agents & Developers in Spain and Morocco.
Agencia Inmobiliaria y Promotora.
Calle El Barrio, 53, 1º
Nerja, 29780 (Málaga),
Costa del Sol,
Spain.
Tel. (00 34) 95 252 8424 / 2661
Fax: (00 34) 95 252 2661
email: Contact us.
Web: www.espmar.com
