Morocco - Chefchaeoun

6th - 9th April 2015

We had spent our stopover night in Estepona 'Hotel Fuerte Estepona', purposely chosen for it’s location and comfort. Close to Algerciras where we were the next day to cross to Ceuta and then  on wards to Morocco. I took full advantage of a washer/dryer and high functioning bathroom. It was a shame that the weather had turned cold because the pools were beautiful and the hotel was located right on the coast.

Hotel Fuerte Estepona.

1. 2 h 57 min (99.4 km)
   via AP-7

Not the best of starts. We arrived  at the ferry in Algercirias (got a glance at the rock of Gibraltar on the way), to find our ferry cancelled. “No ferries today” was all I could decipher from the women at the car ferry check in barrier - now what?, no advice was forthcoming.

We drove off avoiding the man that had already flagged us down to offer us false advise in undecipherable Spanish for an optimistic price of twenty euro.

Luckily we tried our luck at the main ticket area were we were told it was just the fast ferries(very stormy day) that had been cancelled. So now I'm writing this on the next ferry feeling quite nervous about what awaits us - have read horror stories about trying to get the car import and car licence needed before we enter Morocco - we actually arrive into Ceuta which is Spanish (on the african continent). Heck it is so rough outside that the waves are hitting the windows(I'm pleased I took the seasick pill) - Jarvis has just grabbed for a seasick bag! Ollie is well impressed that he got to see someone on board handcuffed and police escorted.

 Later after arrival...

A very intimidating sight it was to approach the border by car from the hill above in Ceuta. We could see the border running alongside the sea and cliff, a completely manic looking space renowned for illegal importing of drugs.

Aware that we would need to find a local and pay them to help us we nervously approached.
Advised not to drive in Morocco at night time we knew we were two and a half hours behind schedule already(it was 4:30 pm) and we had a 2 hour trip after the border with a difficult navigation into Chefchaeoun ahead. We suffered from a strange mix of seasickness, self consciousness and nervous apprehension and the need for speed.

The first lot of people waved us down and we foolishly stopped. Well, we had read that we would need to pay local people to help us get through. These first people fleeced us out of some euros for a few bits of paper. Moving on we entered the border stretch and sat in a queue with no idea what was happening. Approached again we ignored offers for more bits of paper. Realising that we spoke English two English speaking men were ushered our way – our saviours, thank goodness!

I handed the  passport officer a stack of NZ passports which he stamped in his booth, not interested in observing who anyone was, the boys and Chris were sitting in the car further down the queue.

We then parked within the border and Mohamed, one of our English speaking saviours, took Chris off to try and get an import for the car. After about 30 mins when Chris still hadn’t returned, I knew something must have gone wrong. Since there was absolutely nothing I could do,  I sat and observed over the next hour. I watched an endless stream of men and women walking through the border laden down with mainly nappies and blankets. There seemed to be a real organised carnage going on, but it relied on people knowing what they were doing and we were neither this nor were we a simple case (foreigners with a car!). Observing the cars gave me a sense that we were about to enter somewhere very poor. Basically anything that could pass as a car was. People jump starting cars seemed to fit naturally into the chaos, car roofs heavy with a multitude of what we would deem ‘rubbish’ – bits of metal and wood. I felt rather embarrassed sitting within such a comfortable car with three boys in the back playing on electronic devices, but we were parked to the side away from gazes. Eventually Chris returned to take another bit of paper from our dashboard regarding ownership and to leave again with Mohamed reassuring me that we would be fine. And then he finally returned with a big smile of relief. What Chris divulged to me was that we did not have the correct ownership papers for our car and that we had been declined entry into Morocco. Mohamed and his calm and confident manner , persevered until nearly all the officials in the border had been approached and finally one stamped our import licence. On the other side we had only car insurance remaining, but out of the safety of the border I was soon swarmed with children begging for money. My goodness my head was spinning, I was so shocked by a boys appearance I handed him the only change I had on me a euro. He checked his imagine in my car wing mirror , I knew I had been fleeced again (his dreadful  appearance had been finely tuned). Still however, expecting the 1 euro to be insultingly little I was surprised by the boys reaction, obviously a lot – I had made another mistake and now witnessed an outbreak of children fighting and more begging. Mohamed and his friend came to my rescue and pushed the children away quite aggressively. Ollie, Jarvis and Lachlan in the back seats looked most stunned by the action. They boys can see many things and seem little affected but when they see children the same age as them it affects them a lot.

1. 1 h 57 min (103.4 km) 
   via ‫ط س 6‬‎/A6 and ‫ط و 13‬‎/‫ط و 2‬‎/N13

I think the impact of the border crossing muted the sights we then saw as we drove towards Chefchaouene , mainly poverty and filth, but also a whole different way of life.

With no idea of how to enter the Medina of Chefchaouene we parked our car in the only car parking building we could find and ventured in on foot.  A good idea as this proved to be the only solution. I must admit I was rather nervous about leaving our half-full car in a strange car park. At this stage of our trip I was unaware that the Moroccan people were so honest and that the country was so safe. What a beautiful and relieving site it was to walk upwards through the crooked hillside streets into this beautiful blue medina.

We had an address which proved yet again very difficult to locate, but great once we did. 'Riad Rifandalus ' was located right in the heart of the cobbled pedestrian Medina. We were shown to our room, two rooms an entrance with a fireplace and a bathroom with a flush toilet(much to my relief). Surprisingly there was a small kitchen which looked to be nonoperational, I shut the door on it quickly to prevent the gas leaking from it entering the rest of the rooms. Ignoring the kitchen, it was beautifully decorated, rugs hung on the walls, walls were heavily tiled fabrics were highly coloured. A riad is  traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden or courtyard. Riad Rifandalus had a small interior courtyard with an nonoperational fountain. It also had  a terrace with a wonderful view over Chefchaouene, once again nonoperational which was a shame. Peering out the windows it was amazing to see how close the houses opposite were, separated only by a narrow cobbled lane of perhaps 1 metre. At night this realization set in with the sound of voices continuing until 2-3 in the morning.

Riad Rifandalus

Before the 'boys'.

After the 'boys'.

So what we experienced in Chefchaouene was really our gentle 'nice' introduction to Morocco. 

Tucked away in Africa’s northernmost mountain range, the Rif Mountains, Chefchaouene  founded in 1471 by Moulay Ali Ben Moussa Ben Rached El Alami. Chefchaouene served as a Moorish fortress for exiles from Spain. 

Lachlan and I did some early exploring the first morning. We passed one of the numerous smurf-like attired men. He looked upon us rather disapprovingly from his odd box-like stall, as Lachlan made a rather large amount of noise exploring the empty lanes. On returning past him again I expected another scorn  but was surprised to see a warm semi-toothless smile erupt from face as he offered up a lollie to Lachlan. A lesson for me to not judge so quickly.
There seemed to be a large number of men with no front teeth, I never quite figured out why? Chris on returning from a run had commented that there were many people just like him running uphill, the differences being that they were in lycra , had large mustaches and no front teeth.

Lachlan and I continued on following stray cats, photo opportunities and enticing lanes. We observed men repainting buildings blue. Chefchaouene's powder-blue buildings are part of a Jewish religious tradition and are regularly repainted.

Painting 'blue'.

By mid-morning things had opened up and you could explore the shops without being harrassed and choose where to eat without too much hassle. We had started to learn the art of haggling in Dubai but here is where we really put it into practice. The basic technique : 'Ask the vendor his price before making your offer, then swiftly halve his request.  Gently edge higher until you meet a compromise, and always end with a smile and a 'shukran' to thank them.' The quaint colourful streets where full of delights. Tortoises scrambling for lettuce leaves in  plastic baskets. Bags of colour pigments. Carpets and blankets hanging on the walls, silver jewellery, brass teapots, organised stacks of tagines  ...
The whole Medina was extremely well organised, washed down in the evenings it was spotlessly clean.

A pedestrianized Medina, but some people tried their luck.

Sacks of paint pigments

 

Young boys making wooden 'Chefchaoeune door' ornaments for sale.

The differences between adult and child observations and interests constantly surprised us. Chris took the boys around a corner to see a donkey laden with gas bottles in the lane. For him this was the picture from a 'childlike dream'. He was a little surprised to find the boys only interested in the stray cats.

 

Here too in Chefchaeoune we got our  first tastes of  Moroccan food in Morocco. The first evening we sampled our first tagines, served by a boy Jarvis's age (the boys were a little surprised).

Another night we had a lovely dinner at  'Aladdin's Cave' with a view overlooking the main square and its Kasbah.

Kefta (meatball) tagines were popular with Jarvis and chicken skewers with Lachlan. I was pretty keen on chicken pastella. Ollie enjoyed everything, the more flavour the better.

We had previously had a lunch in the square we overlooked and sadly witnessed our first stray dog (in the worst condition we would see anywhere), a very upsetting sight. Poor Jarvis, he found it very difficult to see, so did I.

On the food topic, breakfasts where quite strange. I think we were just early of the tourist season so rather than enjoying a lovely rooftop breakfast as advertised, we sat in an empty guest room inside and felt rather odd. The only other guests had bewildered looks on their faces too.
We did however get our first tastes of: 

Harcha - pan-fried semolina flatbreads .
Moroccan bread (khobz)  - flattish, round loaf which features lots of crust
Msemen - pan-fried pancakes, which we topped with runny honey.
Moroccan mint tea(always made slightly differently), Orange juice (the best you can imagine)
'The Laughing Cow' french processed cheese triangles - these were everywhere, Lachlan loved them.

Leaving Chefchaeoune after two nights.

All hands on deck to get the luggage back to the car. It was a short stay of only two nights, but we managed to explore a lot of this small Medina in this time. After our horrible border crossing experience, this was the lovely introduction to Morocco we needed.

Spain - Granada

2-6 April 2015

Madrid to Granada 4:13hr

Things had been going pretty smoothly for us, so something unraveling was on the cards.

We approached Granada with caution. The Albayzín area of Granada, where we were to stay for the next four nights, would be difficult to penetrate with its narrow, long winding cobbled one-way lanes. The street we needed to access was in a car restricted area, open only for certain hours on certain days. A last minute complication was that there were going to be Easter processions through the area on our arrival which made the only window of opportunity between 2-3 pm.

Within an hour of leaving Madrid we knew we had failed, we had not allowed for the congested Easter traffic. Trying our luck at accessing the apartment was a miserable exhausting and  stressful procedure. After numerous attempts at circumnavigating the 'restricted' area trying to find an entry we eventually gave up - too much stress in an overloaded over-sized car with no visibility and cars always hard up behind us. Complete the picture with children going a bit hyper in the back after being cooped up in the car for 5+ hours.

We pulled over a long way from the desired location to try to communicate via mobile our troubles to the apartment owner waiting for our arrival, another failure(no comprendo Spanish).  The only option left we could manage was to head to an easily accessible hotel with car parking and English speaking staff who could ring the apartment owner and explain we would try again tomorrow when the processions and street restrictions had finished. What a mess, but it was a relief to simply stop! - stress levels were very high! That night dinner was near one of the main squares of the historic center.
Quite a lot of interesting observations. I had a good laugh at a dog barking confusedly  at a 'yapping' windup dog toy in a stall. We couldn't miss a man walking around with a huge colourful parrot on his shoulders amongst all the jostling crowds.


Early evening entertainment in a main square

The next morning we were much better equipped to venture into the Albayzín . Still it was pretty hair-raising stuff as we drove through the one way winding cobbled lanes which got narrower and narrower as we proceeded. We only just scraped through (wing mirrors tucked in) at one point. Spanish drivers are so impatient too. Slightly shaken on arrival, we were then greeted by a very enthusiastic fast and persistent speaking Spanish women who we failed spectacularly to comprehend at all. Eventually she gave up and we agreed to not understand each other. The apartment we had rented was within a  Moorish house built in 1500(one of the last 5 cataloged in Granada). Through the door from our bedroom window we viewed the Alhambra perched on the opposite hill awaiting our visit. Things were rather odd in this apartment, a little renovated but quite a lot not. Nevertheless the location was incredible, so much action happening all around, which in turn lead to loud nights - another Spanish city that doesn't sleep and which has overly enthusiastic bell ringing going on all night(especially on Easter Sunday, midnight on wards  to be exact - I recall it painfully). Five am in the morning prayer chanting just tops off the whole problematic sleep situation. Add on top that you could feel every spring in the mattress too.


Apartment, a bit more 'rustic' in reality.

Apartment Location in the Albayzín .

Outside our door the environment had become somewhat more bohemian than the night before. I double took a highly pierced man with a dread lock almost trailing on the ground. At night the public playground/gathering place (cleverly built over the top of the car park) transformed to a slightly weird social gathering of  bohemian youth(mainly men with a lot of facial hair) sitting around smoking with instruments and dogs.  Even so, I was happy to take the boys to the playground there in the early evening, it was very nonthreatening  and pleasantly social. Ollie and Jarvis did note that the smoke didn't smell like 'normal' cigarette smoke.

Just around the corner from the apartment was the beautifully situated St Nicolas square. We took off to see this as soon as we had unpacked.  It is from here that everyone takes that photo perfect shot of the Alhambra over the Albayzín rooftops and the chasm of the Darro river valley.



 A view that is hard to believe(from St Nicolas Square),
snow on the distant mountain tops too.

St Nicolas Square in the Albazyin(just around the corner from the apartment).
A surprisingly large number of people for April.

 Jewellery-sellers, artists, musicians and a good place to  enjoy a drink.





The bell tower of St Nicola's church(suffering from decay and fire damage during the Spanish Civil war) was too tempting for the boys and had to be climbed unveiling an even better view of the Alhambra.


All smiles from Lachlan,  unless the bell 'rings'.




St Nicola's Bell, view of the Alhambra.


The next day we headed through the Albayzín to the historic center, Chris carrying a large bag we were hoping to post back to London.
The hill where the Albayzín is now situated has been occupied continuously from as early as the Roman period. It was a bit like an open-air museum.I loved wandering through the medieval narrow winding cobblestone streets, lined with gorgeous carmens - a  traditional type of house surrounded by a high wall  and including a small orchard or garden. It survived as the Muslim quarter for several decades after the Christian conquest in 1492. In 1994, the Albayzín was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO along with the Alhambra.


Just our luck that the Post Office was shut. Chris trudged all the way back up to the apartment to drop the bag while I took the kids to visit the 16th century Cathedral (Cathedral of Incarnation). A really beautiful Cathedral, it was built in different styles over 181 years - the foundations are Gothic, the main entrance is Baroque, the inside Renaissance. By the time we came out of it my mobile was flat so I had no chance of contacting Chris, stress levels rose. I managed to find an open Vodafone shop where I could charge up and make contact with Chris again .

Now bag-less, we wandered through 'Realejo', the Jewish quarter (later to be revisited on our Segway adventure).


Street art in the Jewish quarter, Realejo.

Following the course of the Darro river we walked down the street 'Carrera del Darro' with white-washed houses to the north and the looming Alhambra to the south. I was impressed by it's beauty, it is said to be one of the most beautiful streets in the world, but frustrated by constantly get shunted into doorways to make way for buses and cars. We took one of the narrow steep routes that lead back up to the Albayzín, we did get a little lost on the way back.



The world's most beautiful street? Maybe?

Part of my mission during this whole adventure had been to not over-book things when I haven't thought it necessary, just to give us a little flexibility. This was clearly a mistake in Granada when it came to not pre-purchasing the entrance tickets for the Alhambra  - quite a surprise for April. The only option left after discovering all tickets were sold out, was to try our luck at purchasing some of the tickets held back for door sales each day. Doors opened at 8:00 a.m, we had a plan.

Sun 5th April, Easter Morning.
The Easter bunny finds a way.

An initially enthusiastic Chris, keen to have a very scenic early run, was to  run (before the boys awoke to see what Easter bunny delivered) to the Alhambra to be first in line by 7:30 am.
Poor Chris, after a couple of hours standing (not first in line at all) in a queue in the freezing shade, managed to purchase tickets only to the lesser attractions(not the Nasrid Palaces) and returned not so enthusiastic but cold and starving. Fortunately, Chris and I have been before and to be honest the boys didn't really care what they saw so after breakfast we headed off for our walk to the Alhambra.

The Alhambra is a Nasrid "palace city". It is one of the most visited monuments in Spain. It consists of a defensive zone, the Alcazaba , the Nasrid Palaces and the palace, and the gardens and orchards of El Generalife.  In the 11th century the Castle of the Alhambra was developed as a walled town which became a military stronghold that dominated the whole city. In the 13th century, with the arrival of the first monarch of the Nasrid dynasty (Mohammed I, 1238–1273), the royal residence was established in the Alhambra  .


The Alcazaba.

The Alcazaba

A little hot and tired by the time we got there (up and down two serious hills) the boys lacked any interest in anything except ice cream or soft drinks. However they did manage to get some enjoyment from the  Alcazaba with it's dramatic views(some back to St Nicolas square where we had previously looked upon the Alhambra) and it's elevated  'military' areas where they could run around playing battles, Chris included.

El Generalife

Unfortunately because of the large number of people it was a little hard to get a good overview of the Generalife,  the garden area which provided a rest area for the Granadan Muslim Kings.









It was now time to deliver, the Segway 'carrot' that had been dangled in front of the boys during the Alhambra now had to be eaten. I was quite happy as I had envisaged my freedom to explore the shops and lanes while Chris was on Segway duty.
While trying to make my escape when the boys were doing their first trials, I soon found myself on one too. Not contented with me just testing it out the boys soon dragged me into the "family team experience". Pretty fun really, even I had to admit that. So after our initial trials we went to the start point and did even more trialing, All this trialing plus the safety drill  did alert my cautious nature that it might actually be a little risky. Our guide was pretty keen to take us on, unlike his partner who admitted he was too nervous to do it with the children.

Fashion aside, I had to admit it was fun.

Off we went in a well monitored row, wearing our unattractive attire of yellow safety vest and helmets. Lachlan got pride of place at the front on the same Segway as our guide, too little to manage his own. Later he confessed that he didn't really enjoy it because he kept getting donked in the head. The rest of us had a great time. Our guide had chosen the easiest terrain for us, just a short 30min trip through the flat old Jewish quarter of Granada, the 'Realejo'. We stopped in a local's square where we could get up a bit of speed and film ourselves looking extremely dorky. It was a pretty fascinating area full of whitewashed houses and high walls that made for good canvas for the inspirational art scene. Loads of whimsical murals brightened the streets.  As our guide said "you have to get up early to see some of Granada’s best art", referring to the inspirational street art emblazoned on the shutters of various shops and businesses. The most well known artist being 'Raúl Ruiz' better known as 'El Niño de las Pinturas'. Approximately 75% of Granada's 80,000 students are art students. Not surprising then that Granada is a very artistic and edgy city.
Easter Sunday was surprisingly quite, celebrations had gone on earlier, churches had their doors closed.
I was really impressed at how well Ollie and Jarvis had managed, I think even the guide was quite surprised. Quite a lot of concentration was required in the streets of Granada, jammed full of people and bollards, darting motorbikes, cars and wonky bumpy cobbles.

It was wonderful to revisit Granada, our first visit many years ago being a little fleeting and grey in winter. A lot of restoration has happened since and Granada appears as a 'hip' youthful city with an incredibly well preserved history.