Chefchaouen

Before you read this post, turn this song on and have it play while you scroll through.  :)

Chefchaouen is a beautiful place and I really loved it. 

 

 

  

 

This was down by the river where the women all do the washing.  This is also where we first got asked if we wanted a smoke.  It was certainly not the last time.  Tons of marijuana is grown around in the hills.

   

Then we hiked up the hill a ways to the little Spanish mosque, for good views of the city.

    

 

Pretty squeezy.

 

 

 

Kids played soccer everywhere.  Brett and I want to start an organization to raise money to give kids soccer balls, because you can’t really see the ball here, but it was completely flat, and every few kicks they’d try to blow some more air in it.

 

Spices.

 

This is the terrace of our hotel.  It was so beautiful I think I took a picture EACH and EVERY time I walked upstairs to our room and saw it.  :)

 

More kids playing soccer.

    

So the owner of out hotel was a lady from Spain who had come for a visit and then decided to stay and buy a guesthouse.  She was really funny and quite helpful.  On the morning we left, it was quite cold (it was colder than we expected when we were in the more northern cities, and it’s not like the rooms are made for the cold- luckily they gave us a space heater, but I went to bed with pajama pants, socks and sweater on (apparently I didn’t need to pack any pretty little nighties)) and she was all bundled up moving around muttering “So frio!  These Moroccans never close the doors- they’re made of stone! …mutter mutter …frio!…”  Hee hee.  Anyway, she recommended this restaurant to us because it has good food, a good price, and has a fireplace – which I sat right by and was thankful for.  :)

It was our most favorite, most wonderful meal we had while in Morocco.  Brett had a beef tagine, which is sort of like a pot roast (they say it’s like stew, but I find it much less like a stew because you can eat it with a fork), cooked in a special tagine pot (which maybe I’ll have a picture of later on), and I had a chicken pastilla which my book says is pounded pigeon or chicken, almonds, spices and creamy lemon-flavoured eggs layered in a Moroccan pastry.  Mine didn’t have eggs, I think, but anyway they have sugar and cinnamon on top and it was DIVINE.  Brett’s was fantastic too and we traded plates a couple times.  DELISH.

 

All of these pictures are out of order—these next few are ones I snapped from the car on the way to Chefchaouen.

We did some shopping- I bought a handbag and Brett bought some leather slipper/shoes.

 

And some wooden things- a little snake in a box that pops out when you pull the drawer open (Talmage was completely scared the first time we had him open it, and still won’t open it again), and a secret lock box for Jethro.  He was thrilled.

 

 

And I bought a blanket here so they were happy to let me take pictures and invited me to try my hand at weaving.  I stunk. 

 

Brett’s shoes.

 

The end.