Chefchaouen, Morocco June 2012

Morocco - I had no plans to visit it when I began planning the trip in April.  Of course, I wasn't planning on going to Spain or hiking the Camino either.  But I saw a city in Morocco, Chefchaouen, and was mesmerized to say the least.  The pictures make it look like a city made of adobe/plaster and painted blue with a backdrop of Sedona's red rocks.  Well part of that is true.
 








     To get to Chef was a trip - figuratively and literally.  The bus stopped several times and gave us a chance to have freshly made ground beef/sheep/goat burgers.  The flies were extra!  It was amazing to see the passengers run off the bus to the butcher/cook, who would slice pieces of meat off of a hanging animal, grind it in the meat grinder, give it to a griller who would grill it for you while you waited.

Welcome to Morocco.  I wish I was more adventurous and could try such things, but not when I have to sit on a bus for four hours.  If I had my own bathroom and four days to get over whatever bug may come my way, but I don't.
  Chef, as it is called amongst shoestring travelers and lazy folk... is usually the favorite city of all in Morocco. It's small - 40,000 people.  It's not crazy hectic like Fez or Marrakesh.  It has decent food and extremely cheap.  The same dinner and dirt in Marrakesh may cost 100 d, but only 40 d in Chef.  There are mountains and in winter it is very cold.  In the summer, it's only warm, not baking, save the odd week's hot front that may sweep across a country.

    Lot's of people like Chef because it has very cheap and very accessible Kif, which is a mixture of weed and tobacco.  According to my landlord at Scotlandia Riad, who, believe me, is an expert in smoking Kif, says that the weed in Morocco is way too strong and the tobacco knocks it down a level.  I'll have to take his word on that.  The guy in the picture is from Mississippi and has been working in the Middle East for awhile.  He didn't know that he was standing in front of a marijuana plant.    He and his girl friend were in Morocco for a visit and stayed with me at the Riad.
    The owner of the Riad needed some help building a patio cover and I helped him.  He gave me a cut on my rent, which wasn't necessary, but accepted none the less.   You can see two patio/terraces.  We covered the lower level one with bamboo to be like the top one.  He and his wife and son were from Scotland, bought a house there when the market was at the bottom and then for the next seven years or so, vacationed in southern Morocco.  When the market was at it's height, they sold everything, made a bundle and moved to northern Morocco.  They now have this Riad you see in the photo above, aptly named, "Scotlandia".  The owner was about as easy going as you can get, for very "natural" reasons, I'm sure, but he would get mad when the taxi cab drivers would ask, "Where do you go?" and "he'd reply, "Scotlandia!" and they would look at him like he was crazy.  "Where?" they'd ask, and he'd repeat, "Scotlandia!   You know the Riad on the hill!"  "Ohhh...." they'd say, "Englaterra!"  Word to the wise cabbie... I you are looking for a tip, don't tell refer to someone from Scotland as being from England!"  (really bad form! Think William Wallace- Braveheart). 

      The view from his terraces was awesome.  We could see the mountains with the firebreaks cut into them.  The owner said that the king of Morocco used that for his hunting wild pigs.


It must be really beautiful in the winter when the surrounding mountains, which completely surround Chefchaouen, are covered in snow.

   We could also see surrounding homes and it amazed me how beautiful they are.  Most are even prettier inside than out.


Not a great neighborhood if you have bad knees as most of the homes are four stories high.

    I didn't know whether to congratulate this little guys mom and dad for ingenuity or call CPS.  I guess you do what you gotta do to survive.  He looks like a prisoner but that's what Moroccans must think when they see our playpenalpens...I mean our playpens.
So many times I've seen what I thought was insane in countries like Morocco - like a baby, yes a baby sitting on the top of a cormorant fishing boat on the Li River in China.  That's bad enough, but the boat was moving at about 30 mph.
   Of course, my brother and I use to stand on the back of a pickup truck to keep watermelons from falling off as my Dad drove home for the market.  It was fun... until you got a "pis" chill from going over the Wolf River!!

     As I'm hanging off of his terrace, forty feet in the air, I'm thinking, "Really?  Fall in Morocco!?  Is this something I should be doing??"  I looked down and saw huge piles of sand, gravel, and 100 bags of cement.

    They were lying next to a home that had a foundation poured.  When I asked the owner what was going on he told me that the next day there'd be 10 guys working like worker bees mixing concrete, wheelbarrowing it up to the foundation and repeating the process 1000 times.  No cement mixer - just human mixers!  They started at sun up and didn't stop till sundown.  In the South, we call that working from "Can to Can't" in reference to working from the time you CAN see, to the time you CAN'T see!  Brother!  That is a lonnnnnngggg day!

   These guys didn't stop for any smokes or drinks.  They had a couple of breaks for lunch and snack and back at it again.  Wonder what their union would say?  The next picture shows a boy watching, only he's doing more than that.  The owner said that the boys learned that the fish market needs paper to wrap their fish.  Paper that won't crumble when it gets wet.  So when the guys tear open cement, they cut it at the end, dump it out and throw it aside.  The boys run over take the bags (think crows or rats stealing something shiny, only they aren't stealing!) wash them out and sell them to the fish market.  Clever entrepreneurial spirit!!  I love it!

 

at first, the homes look, a bit blue, as if they were hesitant about painting their house the same color as someone else.






     The walk to the city from the Riad is about 2 miles and fun.  I passed thru a mini village and saw enough sheep and goats to start a Armenian dating service.  It was a good walk, and finally, a view of the valley and the town below!  From a distance, you can see that the entire city isn't painted blue... but when you get down to the city, via a steep path, it explodes with color.
   

Then.... blue....

   

 
   

Some of the kids are playing in a drinking fountain.  Being a keen disciple of Sherlock Holmes I deduct that his feet are blue from playing in the water... or he has a blue pair of Crocs on.

       They sell the paint, and it looks like the old Tempura paint that teachers use to get to mix paint.  Yes, that was before schools fell into money and teachers actually use to mix their own paint.  It probably was cheaper in the long run to buy premixed paint, because people like me, got too creative and ended up painting a life size blue whale on the parking lot pavement.  It was great - it taught kids about how to transfer from a graph, however, there were two problems: 1. every time someone drove in the parking lot, they tracked blue throughout the neighborhood, and 2. the whale eventually washed through the entire neighborhood when it rained!  It's okay, now... save for old man McGunty's driveway, which serves him right for being grumpy all the time... even before I dyed his driveway blue!!

        Whatever is not painted blue, is painted a khaki/orange color and provides a wonderful contrast to the blue.  This picture was taken from my outdoor terrace and is looking at the kasbah across the way.

You have to admit, khaki/orange is an apt description!!  Call Mr. Crayola!  I want dibs on the name!
By the way, the man who named/invented most of the Crayola crayons ... was blind... and now you know the rest of the story!

    If you don't duck, you'll join the blue parade and have a shiner on your noggin'.   I.. know first hand.  Bad habit, not looking up.


But really, was the guy who built this walk way 4 feet tall and angry at the world??

Maybe use balsa wood if you are going to build a ceiling so low!

 




  There was one section of town that was nothing short of Ridiculous Blue... (I made that color up!!)  But really, it looked like the neighbors got together and said, "Fine!  If the HOA is going to make us all have blue...when we really want cherry red, then let's make a .... a... Ridiculous Blue!!

   Can you say, Ice Blue Velva?  It was like being in a Disneyland ride.  I kept waiting on a luge to come screaming around the corner and knock me into Palookaville.









   














   



     This neighborhood needed signs posted that said, "We do Blue!" It's amazing how your brain works.  The brain said that it should be so cold that it was hot, like hot ice, but it was just plain ol' warm plaster.  

      I would have liked to have gone in some of the homes, but the ones I did go in were amazingly organized and well kept.  I say that, because some of them had goats running all over the front yard or broken buckets.  The inside person is doing there job, but the outside person is slacking!

    Apparently, exceptionally cute kids are exempt from wearing blue.  This lady saw that we were about to take a picture.  She had been gently tapping on the door and then when she saw us with the cameras, she began banging on the door. Either she got the runs and had to get to the toilet pronto or she was afraid I was going to steal her soul.   One's as bad as the other at the moment!

     However, there are kids who are exceptionally cute that do wear blue!  Another grumpy lady.  I wanted  to scream, "Would you PLEASE direct me to the person who told you that a camera can steal your soul!  I want to congratulate him for being the salesman of the year!"

    We headed up the street toward a cafe that I had heard about and the directions given to me were classic..."You head up a street that's blue..."  I always want to say, "Wow, that's really clear.  Thank you for giving me such focused directions.  Perhaps next time someone asks you for directions you could use that crazy new inventions... street names!!'   No, we never did find the restaurant.

   But we did come across a guy I had met the day before when I went into the city alone.  He, too, was a classic.  Here's the conversation:
local -  Hello!  Step into my shop.  No pressure.
me - uhhh no, I'm good!
local - I tell you my friend.  No pressure.  Just come look at rugs.
me - uhhh, noooo..... I don't have a house.  Rugs are heavy.  Thanks though.
local - Where are you from?
me - (okay, I'll bite)  USA and you?
local - Chefchaouen.  Where in these United States?
me - Arizona.
local - I have been there.  My brother has a restaurant.  I know Arizona.
me - Excellent.  you have a great day... bye
local -my wife has made beautiful rugs.
and so it went.   And the next day when walking with the Mississippi couple, he went ahead and she was with me in a shop.  We came out and we saw her boyfriend with the man and I said, "Watch, here comes the Moroccan Shuffle!"  and sure enough, he went right into the routine.  He bought a rug.  Fishing was good that day!

     Later that day, I decided to get a haircut and when leaving the Riad, I don't know what happened, but I must have stepped on some blue ice or something, and slipped and before I knew it, I had called on the marble stairs, landing on my left arm three inches south of my elbow.




 I thought it was broken and visions of going to a doctor/hospital didn't seem very enticing.  It swoll up and looked like my calf, with a huge knot on it.  Kinda like a goose egg a kid gets when he hits his head on the monkey bars...oh right...lawyers - we don't have monkey bars anymore.  But thank goodness we still have goose eggs!  This is a picture on day four.

     





      Anyway, in the best way I know how to deal with a problem - to ignore it!- I went and got a haircut.

There is nothing quite so relaxing as a haircut...okay, that's not exactly true, but it is very relaxing.  This  barber was funny.  He knew just enough English to make jokes, but well, jokes yes, good jokes, not so good.  He was fun though.

     After the haircut I met a guy from New Zealand and a guy from New York... and me from New Arizona... yes, that's typical of the barber's jokes!


    We decided to go watch the European finals between Italy and Spain.  Spain demolished them which was good because they played excellent team ball and Italy relied on a ball hog, and a hot dog.

The night before I watched the Italy/Germany game - which you can see on the TV.  Not sure that the restaurant would have passed the health inspection....anywhere.  

This was the last straw.  The last blue straw.  When you start painting trees, it's time to leave the country!!!  I was on a plane to Spain the next day!! 

Day 43 Camino de Santiago Aug 17 Cee

I awoke early, and headed over to the cafe for breakfast with a fine mist falling.   Breakfast was simple -tea, toast and fresh squeezed orange juice.   Today was 34k, another long day but one filled with great things.  For someone living in Arizona, seeing water is a great thing.
























The dam wasn't big, but it looked like a great place to take a leap off a cliff into... okay...okay... it looked like a great place to watch someone else take a leap off a cliff.

     The river had that, "I'm full of fish, and here for the takin' Steve!!"... Luckily, I know better and can hear what they are really saying.  "You don't gotta no chance, Amos!"  and so I gave up the thought of turning one of my walking sticks into a cane pole and going fishing.    Gotta keep my eyes on the prize.  If I stayed strong, I would be walking into Finisterre by about 5:00.

    Clouds were getting thicker and the mist became heavy with water.  I could hear the "Whump Whump Whump" of the windmills and they lined the way.  It's so strange to walk 30k and look back at windmills that you saw in the morning.  Those buggers can walk!!

    I had been hiking for 5 or 6 hours when I came across two women sitting  on the top of the hill/mountain. ( It's a hill if you are walking down and a mountain if you are walking up!) The older woman, Nudia, was from the Canary Islands and the younger woman, Anastasia, was originally from Russia and is Nudia's daughter in law.  Anastasia was doubled over with severe stomach problems.  I gave her some of my water and she felt good enough to walk.  I really felt like she needed a carbonated drink, like Coca Cola or Sprite.  But since they don't have vending machines on top of the mountain... I told them to walk slowly down and I would go get a drink and bring it back up the mountain.  They laughed because our language barrier was great.  They thought I was leaving so they said good bye.

I went down the hill, found a albergue, bought three drinks, left my pack, and walked "briskly" back up the mountain.  They were shocked as they saw me back on the mountain.  Anna was taking a picture of the mountain/ocean view and captured me coming up the trail.    This is where we met up in a field of heather-like flowers.  The three of us sat overlooking the ocean.

  Our first views of the ocean were like a pump of life.  To see the water was emotional, not because I really get off on oceans, but it was very near the end of the trail.  Swimming to America was not in my plan.
     The next views were of the town of Cee and Corbubion.  Cee is more industrial and Corbubion is much more of a tourist town, complete with nice white beach.    I could smell the salt.  I could taste the seafood!  I would be in Finisterre in a few hours.

   Ahhhh.... but the fly in the ointment.  Nudia's other daughter, Elena, who is a stewardess for UAE, had hurt hurt knee on a mountain the day before and had to take a taxi from Negeria to the hospital in Cee.  She was waiting for them in the hospital.
     On the way there we met a Venezuelan woman, Wilma, who also spoke Russian and is an interpreter.  She came along with us as we headed off to Finisterre.  We all realized that we had not eaten all day and decided to eat at a restaurant that Wilma knew about.

    Nothing is done quickly when it comes to eating and we sat there for about 3 hours.  Yes, three hours!!  But it was great food and great conversation.  As we left I saw some men playing a card game called "Mus", which I could not understand and they could not explain.  They did say it was the most popular game in Spain...which doesn't explain why it's the first time I've seen it played!
 

 





But now it was 5:30 pm and we knew that it was still 14k to Finisterre.  No way.  Finisterre would be packed and we would not be able to find a room or a bed in an albergue, so we got a room in a albergue on the Cee/Corbubion border.  Not bad views for 10E!  Great room, drunk landlord.  More on that later.

   Once we had a room we went for a long walk along the bay and then down to the beach.  The beach wasn't great, (think Daytona...NOT), but it was water.

     Anastasia liked having her picture taken with these classic "poses" like vogueing.  It must be the way things are done in Eastern Europe because it wasn't the first time I had taken a picture of an Eastern European who vogued.

     The bay and the clouds were gorgeous and it was fun just to stop walking and relax.

    How drunk was he??  We had just gotten into our beds and he staggered in the room, woke everyone up by yelling!  Now if my room is right on the bay, which it was, and a man comes in the bedroom and yells at 11:00, which he did, I'm assuming there's a fire or a ship has crashed into our building.  But what he was saying was,  "Hey! Go downstairs!   The cafe is giving free bbq'd meat away.  Go!  Go!  So we got up and went downstairs and had a beer and bbq'd ribs.  Very very good.
   

 

Day 42 Camino de Santiago Aug. 16 Olveiroa

What a long but rewarding day!! 34K!!  Tired hammier and tender feet.  Still afloat though!  Windy all day and at times, it was necessary to bend over almost touching my knees with my nose,as I walked, just to make any progress.  Fun!!  No rain!!







    As I left Negreira this morning, I saw the huge crane, which means more building... with German Euros!!  Ha!  I know the Germans see those cranes and say, "Octoliebah!!!  Bad spelling but it basically means, "Are you kidding me!!! What are we building now!??!"

  It threatened to rain all day.   Dark foreboding clouds everywhere.  But no rain.  The views were gorgeous, and the only cost was a steep climb up a mountain.  

     Huge storm yesterday and yesternight!  Trees were knocked down across the trail, but you know me... I watched too many westerns and immediately smelled... Ambush!!

   











  Looks like a sure detriment to pulling my backpack!  There was lots of mud on the trail, but since it was such a rare occasion, it was fun.  I saw some people with some browns spots on their knees and thighs, so my guess is that they had a different take on it being fun.

   Today's trail was very well marked.  It made walking on my own, lot's of fun.  It's amazing how lost in thought I get and "wake up" and say, "Oh my gosh.  Where is a marker?"  Then I see a yellow arrow or a shell and I'm good to go!

     It is not a good sign when you see the sky in the trail you are walking.  Made me think of the time in Africa I was riding a bus and we had to get out and push it several times.  That was mud up to my waist!  T.I.A.  can't get mad about it!

     I can see why they say Galicia reminds them of Ireland.  The stone walls are covered in moss,  That's liquid sunshine.  Except for the lack of hydrangeas, I still prefer the desert. Give me 300 days of sunshine!  I say that while it's 116 in the desert and I'm in the land of rain!!   But with the right person, does it really matter where you live?  NOPE!

     Gorgeous views today.  Galicia grows tons of corn.  Great way to put the rain to use. Off the subject, but two pilgrims were hit by a car yesterday.  Over 2000 pilgrims came into Santiago over the last three days.  That's a record.  Pilgrims have been coming to Santiago for 1,000 years and I pick the most crowded days!

    Just wanted to show you some beautiful flowers..

     Last night I mentioned about the Romans chasing the Galicians and God destroyed the bridge.  It's on all of the city signs.

    You can usually find fresh water fountains near the beginning of each city.  A bit less on the Camino to Finisterre, but here was one.  It looks like the lion in the Wizard of Oz.

     Just loved the views today.  Beautiful fields.  Abundant wildflowers.  Hard to keep walking because I kept wanting to stop and not only smell the flowers, but photograph them.

    I love these grain silos.  They use them to store vegetables.  This area has really unique ones, built on what look like giant concrete toadstools.    "Toadstool"... I don't think I've ever seen a toad's stools.  Must be kinda cute though?

    At 29K I was on fumes.  Then I saw this sign for a funeral service and managed to kick up the pace!!   What's that old saying, "If you ain't movie', you must be dead!"

     It wasn't that it was beautiful, it was that it is so rare to see a lake.  Only the second lake I've seen on the Camino, and maybe the third in all of Spain.  Lot's of beautiful rivers, however!