Chefchaouen & Asilah

When I first saw photos of Chefchaouen in travel guidebooks, I knew I had to come here. The entire town is painted in lovely hues of blue and reminded me much of Greece minus throngs of tourists. 

W and I took the ONCF train from Marrakesh to Tangier and then arranged for a local guide to pick us up from Tangier train station to Chefchaouen as we were on a tight schedule. 1.5 days should be sufficient to cover this charming town. 

I woke W up early in the morning at 7am just so we could wander around the streets and take photos. Now, Chefchaouen has 2 resident dogs which are known to sniff out tourists. When we passed by the central plaza, one of the dogs spotted us and was damn persistent in following us around. Lucky I was wearing jeans that day. W wasn't so lucky. He was wearing shorts. 

When W and I stood still, the dog would circle us albeit like vultures. Whenever one of us started moving off, the dog would immediately follow after him/her. We were basically walking around with the uncertainty of being bitten by a infectious dog looming over us. After a while, the dog finally made up its mind that it likes W better and was trailing him non-stop. I told W he probably looked more delicious. W retorted that it was not a good time for jokes.

I am a little ashamed of how we managed to get rid of the dog. We spotted an unwary tourist and devised a sneaky plan to pass off the dog to him. Once the mission was accomplished, we sprinted all the way back to our hostel. 

Plaza resting area where we got first spotted by the dog damn

Chilling at hostel rooftop after we ran back

Chefchaouen is 90% painted in blue hues and 10% in brown shades. The market sells different shades of blue powder which locals dissolve in some solution to paint their houses' exterior.   As we arrived in Chefchaouen towards the very end of Ramadan, we saw many families repainting/touching up their houses. The breaking of fast is a celebration and it is customary to visit relatives and friends on this day. Hence, I guess everyone wanted their house to look good.  

We saw plenty of locals going to the town's central oven to bake their pastries/bread. It smelled real good. 

The persistent dog, it is much larger in real life

After the curious incident of the tourist-sniffing dog,  we met up with our guide at 10am to go trekking at the Rif mountains. The town is really a maze and it is hard to find the right path that leads you to the mountain base without a guide. 

Love this shot

We didnt climb all the way to the peak as your truly was already pushing limits by the time we reached 20% mountain midpoint. I blame it on my asthma. It is a telling sign that I should exercise more when I constantly have to play catch-up with my guide who is 2 times older than me and wearing slippers. 

Look at the house at the upper top left corner! Must be some super fit family!

The town is really a maze

This graffiti art is pretty modern. Islam traditionally bans depictions of facial representations. I dont know if the arts scene is becoming more liberated but you could see attempts to draw some faces here and there.

Art work

Carpet weaving machine

 Lunch at Casa Aladdin which serves the BEST Lemon Tart with a superb biscuit base

Typical  Moroccan Menu

Nice building

Love this painting

On our way to Asilah, our guide brought us to see this pseudo stone hedge (see below). There is no way you could drive here if you are not local, its super super confusing. 

First time seeing straight clouds!

Small stone hedge

We spent a day at Asilah. We reached in the evening and hence didnt get the chance to go to the beach. Nevertheless, we were very impressed by the locals' artistic flair and I really liked the way some of them designed their houses (pictures below)

Beautiful Murals

Pretty houses and first church we spotted in Morocco after 2 weeks

Sunset at the beachfront and beautiful Moroccan boy (cousin of our guide)