When exploring our options for methods of entry into Africa from europe, Gord and i decided that taking the traditional ferry across the Straight of Gibraltar would be far more interesting than simply flying into a major Moroccan city. The "traditional" crossing however, has been replaced by a high speed cataraman service that makes the same trip that used to take four hours in an efficient hour and fifteen minutes, arriving at a massive brand new port just east of Tangiers. The Moroccan Immigration and Customs officials haven't quite kept up with the same pace of efficiency though, as each and every passenger on the ferry had to stand in line to have their passport examined and receive an entry stamp. Once the ferry had docked and we were ready to disembark, two Moroccan police officers wearing tacky white plastic jackets came on-board and checked for our stamp before allowing us to step foot on solid ground. The last step to official entry into the country involved putting our bags through an x-ray machine that wasn't really being monitored because the customs official was busy clipping his nails and chatting to a friend. Welcome to Africa.
Our taxi driver Hassan was waiting dilligently for us once we exited the building and advised us that the trip to guesthouse in Chefchaouen would take approximately two hours as we had to cross several mountain passes in what looked to be a sleezy dark green 1970's diesel Mercedes that was missing its window cranks and had a strip of leather for a door handle. We asked Hassan about stopping for a bite/bathroom break after about an hour of driving inland from the Mediterrenean coast and in a mix of English, Arabic and French he said that he knew just a spot that a friend of his owned just down the road. Now usually when someone says their "friend" has a place what they usually mean is that they will take you to a dodgy, over-priced joint where they'll earn a commission but our first Moroccan lunch was quite a pleasant surprise. The fact that our meal (grilled ground beef and goat ribs) had been hanging from a hook baking in the sun for probably a few days seemed like a recipe for a tape worm at first but now almost twenty four hours later, our guts are still stable and we haven't had to dig into our emergency stash of toilet paper.
After lunch Hassan continued to try and engage us in conversation and told us that the police roadchecks that we passed every twenty minutes or so were set up to try and intercept people transporting marihuana and hash down from the Rif mountains. It was at that point that I realized that I had been mis-pronouncing the word Rif, that it was actually pronounced reef and that pronouncing words in the English language properly can lead to some important clues about where you choose to eat, sleep and basically do business. The mountain range around Chefchaouen is called the Rif and this is where the word reefer (or big ass marihuana joint in other words) came from. The name of our guesthouse was 'Rif for Everyone". Hmmm... suddenly I clued in and told Gord that the relatively cheap price we had paid for the night might be because it was more of a hippy hostel/flop house than a hotel and upon arrival, I hadn't been that far off. Our guesthouse was not only a hippy hostel where the other guests basically sat around chain-rolling and smoking massive reefers but also a mini grow-op that supplied Terry the Scottish owner with all the weed he could ever want. This guy had outdoor plants, an indoor hydroponic lab and looked to be setting up a few more rooms to expand his operation. With no other vacancy in the area for the night we had little choice but to lock ourselves in the smoke-free comfort of our room until we could get on the bus to Fes in the morning. It was an interesting night in a town where it is easier to buy an ounce of pot than it is to get a beer and when Terry told us he had no desire to ever return to Britain and that he was too old to be smuggling drugs anymore, only one word came to mind: warrant. I'll be checking the Interpol website soon to see if I might be able to collect me a reward for turning an international fugitive in, but for now we're off to catch a bus south to Fes... the most complete walled city in all of Morocco.
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| Our lunch... "hanging out" |
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| Our lunch... smoking out any possible parasites |
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| All the buildings in Chefchaouen are blue |
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| The "garden" at our guesthouse |
