Leaving Morocco on a blue note

It appeared, as we traveled north, that the power grid was more stable, meaning the electricity supplied by campgrounds was more dependable. And the Wifi at our campground in Azrou was pretty good, too, so we decided to stay put for a few days. Steven had hundreds of photos he needed to back up and I wanted to knock out that food post I’d been promising.

We didn’t do much of anything else, other than a bike ride into town. It was all downhill on a busy highway and into a crowded marketplace, so we didn’t stay out for long.

After four days we pulled up stakes. We drove south, back through the Cedar Forest where we had seen the monkeys. We were going back to find the merchant Ali, who had sold Karen a beautiful cedar tray and we wanted one, too. Score!

Soon we were winding our way up, heading toward Ifrane, a modern town located at just under 5,500 feet elevation in the Middle-Atlas mountains. Built by the French in the early 1920s, it was a popular place where Europeans went to escape the blazing heat back in the days when the French ruled Morocco. Ifrane seems totally out of place, the architecture is more European ski resort than Moroccan village. There is still a lot of building going on, but we have no idea who might be buying those new condos.

We stopped further down the road at a small Marjane grocery store, mainly to stock up on TP and hand-sanitizer. Now, when I say “stock up”, I don’t mean hoarding. We don’t have room for that, but we do carry a decent supply. Not only do we want to be prepared if one or both of us gets sick, as happened on our way to Tiznit, but also because toilet paper is rarely provided in public bathrooms, even in campgrounds. So we tend to carry some with us when we are out and about. We also got a few small bottles of hand sanitizer but at the time didn’t realize that there was a global run on these precious little bottles of goop. If we had known we might have purchased a few more.

After shopping we continued on to visit the ruins of Volubilis, an ancient Roman city. I confess, I stayed home in Bijou and had a nap while Steven went to check it out. I just couldn’t muster the energy. It was hot and just one of those days when I hit a wall and said, nope! It’s days like this that traveling with a photographer comes in handy. 🙂 We stayed the night at a remote campground not far from the ruins.

We were up and out early for the long trip to Chefchaouen, the blue city of Morocco located in the Rif mountains. The city is famous for its blue-hued, whitewashed buildings in the old town. As we approached the city, we could see the blue colors spread across the mountainside. It was absolutely stunning, There is no one specific blue color, it ranges from periwinkle to ocean blue and everything in between, but somehow these colors seem quintessentially Moroccan and difficult to emulate.

There are many theories as to why the buildings are painted blue, the most believable in my mind is the one where someone said, “if you paint it, they will come.” And they were right! The place was teeming with tourists, just as in Marrakech. The shopkeepers in Chefchaouen are much more laid back, though. Perhaps because it is the “Kif” capital of Morocco, with the surrounding area being the largest producer of cannabis in the country. We were approached several times by sellers who seemed surprised when we declined. (I’ve seen Midnight Express, no thanks!) The pungent smell wafted though the blue alleyways and every now and again we’d come across a group indulging. It wasn’t overwhelming, but it was obvious.

The old town is also overrun with cats, which to us is mostly endearing. As I’ve mentioned, cats are treated well because they keep the rodent population down. It isn’t unusual to have cats roaming around the restaurant where we were eating. It happened everywhere, but the kitties in Chefchaouen were particularly assertive.

We stayed three nights in the blue city before heading out to Port Tanger Med and the ferry back to Spain. We decided to take the western route along the Mediterranean coast and across the Rif mountains. We drove through the town of Tetouan and were surprised at how beautiful and modern the city is, it felt very European. So of course we stopped in at the Carrefour and Marjane just to check out their prepper supplies. We didn’t find much (sold out of hand-sanitizer!) so we carried on to the port in hopes of catching the 2:00 p.m. ferry to Algeciras. We had an open ticket, so in theory we could take the first ferry with room, and in this case, it turned out to be the 5:00 p.m. sailing. We couldn’t actually get our ticket until 2, so we settled in for some lunch and a nap. Right at 2 Steven got our ticket and off we went to the stops where they checked our ticket, passport, and Bijou’s paperwork before sending us off to the giant scanner where Bijou would get X-rayed. So far, so good.

You may recall on our way into Morocco we declared Buzzy Buzzandra, Steven’s drone, and left it with customs for safe-keeping. It’s awesome that the port offers this service, because drones are strictly forbidden in the country. It’s a fairly straight-forward process on the way in, but there isn’t an obvious procedure how to go about retrieving items before leaving the country. By the time we were scanned and on our way to the dock, we were in a bit of a panic, thinking we had passed the point of no return and that we had left Buzzy behind! We drove in circles, literally, thanks to the roundabouts, and spoke to every official-looking person we could find. After reading our customs receipt which we got upon entry, they all said “Number 4! Go to number 4!” Our ferry was leaving from number 4, but apparently there was another number 4. We finally saw EXIT number 4, which is the exact port exit we took upon arriving in Morocco six weeks earlier.

We desperately did not want to exit the port. Exit number 4 has 14 lanes that approach customs, so I just stopped in a free lane and sat there while Steven walked all the way to the customs building. He literally stood there for 45 minutes waiting for someone to help him. Soon all the lanes were empty except for Bijou, who was just sitting out there all by her lonesome. How is it that security never came by to see what was up? All I could think about was how were we going to get back to our dock without exiting the port and starting the entire process all over again?

When Steven and Buzzy finally made it back, I did a U-turn and took off driving the wrong way on this 14-lane Exit number 4 and headed right back to our dock. I was SURE security, perhaps a couple of helicopters and who knows what else would soon be chasing us down. I had decided to apologize and plead language ignorance, but no one came after us. At one turn, a lowly guard waved at us to stop and when he realized we don’t speak French, he sent us on our way. We came to another stop with two flimsy little cones blocking our way. We could see our dock just yards away! I pleaded for the guards to let us through, but no. I had to turn around and head back to Exit number 4. Only this time, instead of turning toward customs, they told us to take a left. We did, and soon came to a huge gate. It was closed. Damn it! Wait, here comes a guy! He’s gonna open it!! YAY! Oh, hang on, here comes another guy. He looks more official. By this time I was in full on panic mode thinking we were going to miss our ferry, which by our estimation was just about to start loading vehicles. The guy told us to turn right and go through the scanner. I excitedly told him “we’ve already been through the scanner” and I even had some hand-movements and sound effects just to make sure he understood me.

No matter. Go again, he said. Damn it! I was all wound up, but Steven was like, “Jesus, just go through the scanner again!” After that, we finally rolled up to our ferry dock and got in line in what we thought was the nick of time! Two and a half hours later we were still sitting there. Our 5:00 p.m. ferry departed at 8:30 p.m.!

It was after 10:00 when we arrived and rolled off the ferry. Tired, stressed and ready to be done, Steven reached for our passports so we could enter Spain, our last official stop.

“Where are the passports?”, he asked.
“In my fanny pack!”, I replied.
“No they are not,” he said, “and your fanny pack is unzipped and wide open!!”

We rolled up to passport control and in our best Spanglish explained that we might have lost our passports on the ferry. We had very sad faces. The officials told us to pull through and into another lane. Once parked, we began a frantic search for our passports, hoping against hope that they were not lost on the ferry. Steven started asking me the most stupid questions and I was getting irritated. When he asked what I did with my fanny pack when I returned to Bijou upon arrival, I said “I fired it over ther…. oh, wait. Here they are!” OMG, the relief! The joy! Fifteen minutes later we were parked up in the same lot we stayed in the night before our departure. And with that, our Moroccan adventures came to an end.

Next up: Steven’s favorite photographs from Morocco.

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