A new perspective on tourism

Trip Start Jan 27, 2008
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Trip End Jul 23, 2008


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Flag of Morocco  ,
Sunday, March 2, 2008

    We woke up even earlier today to get on the bus at 8 after a breakfast similar to yesterday.  This bus ride was even more winding and I stayed awake, but didn't get sick.  The scenery was really gorgeous and it was interesting to see the people in the small towns we drove through.  We went to a smaller city, called Chef-Chaouen.  Our tour guide's name was Said (sp?), which means happy.  He was really nice and explained to us that his last name, which I forget, meant that his ancestors were people who made the calls for prayers and that he sometimes had the privilege, as well.  He had grown up and still lived in Chef-Chaouen and had gone to school in (I think) Tetoaun, where he studied English and had some teachers from the Peace Corps.  He explained how the economy of the city was based on tourism and that this was beneficial, but that it also was saddening because the addition of some of the advancements diminished so many of the important things to the people of the city.  For example, on our tour he took us to one of the baths, called a "Hamam"
chef-chaouen
chef-chaouen
.  He said that there used to be many of them in the city because there was not running water in everybody's houses, so bathing was a social activity and was a real part of the culture.  Now, however, the hamams are used mostly for tourism and very few Moroccans use them anymore, so that element of the culture is dying out. 
    Chef-Chaouen was a very beautiful city and Said was a very genuine tour guide, like Abdul.  He didn't show us only the toursity parts of the city, but the elements that he thought would show us the culture of the Moroccans the best.  Most of the houses were white and there was also a lot of blue, which looked kind of scatter-edly painted.  Said explained that everything was originally white, but as part of a religious ceremony, the Moroccans would paint about 2 or 3 times a year.  It looked scattered in some places because the women were often the ones who painted and they could not reach as high, so the places where the paint was higher was because the men finally started painting, too.  He also took us to a rug/blanket store, where we had a much shorter (and I thought much better) rug/blanket show and then we got to see the man actually making the blankets.  The store owners were part of a cooperative with other weavers and sold all of the handicrafts at the store on the first store and the family lived on the second floor.   Then we had about two hours of free time.  We explored some of the city and saw some really neat stores with lots of handicrafts.
    We had lunch at a hotel in Chef-Chaouen: salad, beef with vegetables, and fruit; and then went back on our way to Ceuta.  We had another long stay at customs and then said farewell to Morocco.  We took the ferry over to Algeciras and there was no outside deck area, so I had to stay inside and try not to let the waves get to me.  We learned some Swedish card games- Ullabellapip and Ruttegg.  Then we took a very long bus ride back to Granada, stopping once for a break and arriving at about 12:30 or 1.  I slept very well that night, dreaming of Morocco.
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