Chefchaouen: beautiful blue city

A few weeks ago I spent two nights in Chefchaouen, a small town two hours outside of Tangier. The surrounding mountains are lovely, dotted with small farms and olive orchards.

Chefchaouen is known for its charming old walled city, where every building is painted sky blue.

There were lots of kittens!

It was a gorgeous background for the colorful fruit vendors.

The local vendors had particularly fresh produce: figs, cherries, plums, herbs, onions from the nearby farms.

The rest of the city was pretty too, especially at night!

There is a stream descending from the mountains on the edge of the old city where people come to do laundry.

We stopped for avocado smoothies at a café right next to the stream

Chaoen had great street food, too!

The kalenti – my favorite snack in Tangier, a mixture of chickpea flour, oil, and eggs – is even better here, and there is also grilled corn on the cob and snails. I tried the snails, served with a cup of hot, salty broth flavored with anise, but I can’t say I was a big fan. They were kind of chewy.

Much better was breakfast the next morning, some Moroccan cookies.

The green one was disappointing; it tasted like playdough (How do I know what playdough tastes like, you may wonder. I think we have all had that sad moment of realization that playdough does not taste as good as it looks.). The pink was delicious though, raspberry flavored almond paste. The diamond-shaped cookie had ground almonds and a sweet jam filling, and the swirly one with powdered sugar was like a peanut butter cookie.

And really, it was all good since I was sitting at a café with this view

Lunch on the way home was a carnivorous affair. My friends ordered two plates of kefta- grilled ground beef – and a heaping plate of sheep meat.

I tasted both, and they were delicious – the kefta was like a really good hamburger, and the sheep was piping hot, rich, and salty, perfect with the fresh bread that accompanied it. However, I have a hard time shaking five years of vegetarianism, and stuck with the classic Moroccan salad.

Meanwhile, the daily delivery arrived – a dozen whole ram carcasses, brought in two by two, slung over the shoulder of a young man in a white smock.

The rest of the drive back was lovely, and I would highly recommend a trip to Chaoen for anyone visiting Morocco.