Day 28: 420 in Chefchaouen

Happy 420 Day readers! For those of you more aged viewers out there, 420 is an unofficial American holiday celebrating the use of marijuana. It is so named, and celebrated on April 20th, because 420 was the code number used by the San Rafael county police back in the 1970's to report a "marijuana smoking in progress." (cite Huffington Post). Ironically enough, we decided to begin our trip to Chefchaouen today, commonly referred to as the marijuana capital of the world. 

Before I get into the details of our incredible day, I'm going to generally talk about Chefchaouen. As mentioned in the previous post, it is called the "Blue city" because of the color of the walls, streets, and buildings that comprise this town of 45,000. It is tucked up between two mountains in the Rif Mountain area of Morocco. The Rif is notorious as a "land beyond the law" (cite Lonely Planet guidebook). Although guns are illegal in Morocco, many people in the Rif own guns. This is because of the marijuana plantations. A whopping 42% of the world's marijuana is grown in the Rif (cite Lonely Planet guide book). Even right outside of Chefchaouen's walls, the mountainsides are covered with plantations growing massive amounts of pot. When Morocco petitioned to join the European Union, they were denied admission because they refused to crack down on the marijuana farmers in the Rif Mountains. Walking around Chefchaouen is a little daunting as a male because you get frequently propositioned to buy marijuana (called kief) or hashish. I got asked over 20 times on Friday as we walked around. Despite these facts, Chefchaouen is a very safe city and the countryside is safe too as long as you are smart.

We took two taxis from Batha at 7:15 am to the CTM bus station in the Ville Nouvelle. Round trip tickets were only 130 dh! Over the four hour drive, I read Mahi Binebine's Welcome to Paradise, a fantastic book about a group of immigrants' histories as they recount their pasts before trying to cross the Straits of Gibraltar to Algeciras. It was riveting. Fortunately, it only took two hours for me to read, so, for the other two hours, I drooled as I looked out the window while listening to live albums by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The drive was incredible; if there is one drive I recommend in Morocco, it is a trip through the Rif mountains. I'm not going to try to describe what I saw because there just aren't words for it. It will shatter anyone's preconceived opinions about Morocco because it was just so green. 

We pulled into Chefchaouen just after noon and began to climb hills. The city rivals San Francisco in terms of all the hills contained within the city limits. Rarely is there flat ground; it's all blue steps everywhere you turn. Our group of 7 was staying in two hostels:

Alice Meredith Tash and Joe were staying in Riad Baraka

Andrew Marissa and Elle were staying in Hostel Souika

We split up to find our hostels and eat lunch and then rendezvoused in the afternoon. Marissa, Elle, and I spent some time after lunch walking around, taking pictures, and figuring out how to navigate the small medina. When we met up with the others, we hung out on the terrace at their hostel to take in some golden afternoon sun and look out over the valley. We split up again an hour later because some people didn't have return tickets home yet, so, when they left to buy them, a group of us hiked 2 km up to a nearby Spanish mosque that overlooked the city to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous and we took a bunch of pictures up there.

Once the sun set, we all went back to the main plaza for some dinner. After dinner, we just hung out at the other group's hostel and talked for a while. We then went home to rest up because Alice, Elle, Marissa, and I were planning on doing a full day hike tomorrow to summit a nearby mountain and take in the views.