Chefchaouen: Spa Day in an Almost Obnoxiously Photogenic Mountain Town

May 16 (Thursday)
Rabat, Morocco

We’re back in Rabat, after a foray out the quiet and gorgeous Rif Mountains and the sleepy, intensely photogenic mountain town Chefchaouen.

The rough chronology, to get us (somewhat) caught up is: last Wednesday and Thursday in Marrakesh, Friday was a travel day back to Rabat. Saturday through this past Tuesday we were in the Rif Mountains/Chefchaouen area. We got back to Rabat on Tuesday night and have been here since. Yesterday we took it easy here in Rabat, doing some shopping and showing Saumya parts of the city she hadn’t seen yet. Today we just did a massive cooking session with Becca’s housekeeper so we’re all now expert Moroccan cooks (tongue = in cheek). I think she really enjoyed showing us how to cook in the Moroccan style, and I enjoyed the opportunity to stumble through broken French and mime.

Chefchaouen was awesome, and I see now why Becca said it is one of her favorite places in Morocco. We drove in last Friday afternoon, May 10. The ride took us northwest of Rabat, into the Rif Mountains. Here are some photos taken from the car window that aren’t the best perhaps because they were taken inside a moving vehicle, but you get the idea: gently rolling green hills; blooming white, purple and yellow mountain flowers; little farm houses:

Chefchaouen has the same photogenic quality I remember from places like Antigua, Guatemala and the Santa Catalina Monastery in Arequipa, Peru. Every corner has a kind of beautiful rustic simplicity and a vibrancy of color that has a hypnotic charm. I’m not great at describing it, but will post some photos so you can get an idea. The city is painted in blue and white, and the streets are like trickling streams, wandering up and down the hillside, curving this way and that, narrowing to only five feet, expanding and pooling in small courtyards or even plazas, and then trickling back to their original narrow tributaries, tucked away in unexpected corners, unexplained twists of alleys. There is a kind of chaos in the design – or the lack of design – that is both enchanting and perplexing.

First, from the roof of Becca and Tono’s riad on the afternoon we arrived:

First hammock sighting! We have come to the right place! Rif Mountains in the background, Chefchaouen in the foreground.

Chefchaouen in the late afternoon, view from Dar Lina, where we had an afternoon orange juice and mint tea overlooking the city.

View from Dar Lina at sunset.

After Saumya and Dave and I found our riad, a fine and cozy place in the typical rustic riad style, we grabbed some dinner at a local Moroccan place, Casa Hassan and called it a day.

Our second day started with wandering around the ridiculously beautiful city and heading to the hammam in Dar Lina. A hammam is like a spa with hot baths, massage, facials, etc. The traditional treatment is the “gommage traditionnel” which is a full body scrub done with a “black” (it’s really mostly brown) soap. You go into a steam room, get lathered down with the stuff and a stocky middle aged Moroccan woman scrubs off six or seven layers of skin with a brillo pad. Or something like that. Becca said to brace for the pain (“a good pain”) but I didn’t find it too uncomfortable. They actually use one of those exfoliating mitts (I think I’ve seen in the States? Spa World maybe?). After they’re done, they rinse you down and shampoo your hair. It’s all very nice. Lasts about 40-45 minutes. Becca’s boyfriend says after you are done with your gommage, you feel like you don’t need to shower for two or three days. And you certainly do feel a new kind of clean for sure, but I’m not sure I’d go that far (and didn’t test the hypothesis for the sake of the rest of our group).

Here are some pictures of the medina in Chefchaouen, which has certainly been one of the highlights of my trip thus far. It’s all blue and white, which is typical of some of the medinas we have seen so far (in Rabat and Assilah, less so in Marrakesh):

Me at the central Plaza Uta el-Hammam in Chefchaouen

That’s all for now; but the next two days we spent really out of the “city” – if you can call Chefchaouen that – and in the mountains, doing some hiking and relaxing. That’s the next post…