Chefchaouen: Losing the I in a Blue City

If cities could be defined by one color, Marrakesh would be ochre, Beijing would be grey and New York might flit between shades of black. Chefchaouen is a charming little mountain village nestled in the Rif mountains. It is characteristically blue. Founded in 1471 by Ali ben Rachid, it served as a hideout for Muslims and Jews escaping Spanish persecution in Grenade. I had initially planned on going straight from Tangier to Fez but I met one wide-eyed German who marveled about Chaouen’s magic and forced me to cancel my bus ticket and take the next bus to Chaouen instead. I did exactly that and found myself on a bus, next to an avuncular looking man carrying a goat in his lap as if nursing a baby. He flashed me an iridescent smile and asked me where I was going. When I said Chefchaouen, he gave me an affirmative nod, cupped his hands and sucked on an imaginary pipe. He smiled again and said “ I know you foreigner, you come for the Kif….best Kif in all of Africa.” I later learned that Kif (the word derives from the Arabic word for ‘pleasure’) is like hashish and it is grown all over the valley

I arrived as the sun was setting and checked into a place called Hotel Paradiso that had phenomenal views of the valley. From my room window I could see green hills, a mosque and farm boys running after sheep. The next day, I smoked some Kif and walked around this blue city wondering why it had been whitewashed blue. I decided that there was a story of unrequited love involved where a Spanish prince besotted and heart-broken by a beautiful Berber women decided to paint the whole city blue to immortalize his despair and wistful pangs of longing. My flight of fantasy landed very quickly as I learned from a toothless shop owner that the city was painted blue to “get rid of mosquitoes. Mosquito don’t like blue.” On learning this piece of information, I climbed a small hill that overlooked the valley and spent an indolent afternoon breaking the mid-day heat with the some mint tea and walking around the medina thinking about how Chefchaouen had all the vowels of the English alphabet except I. “Chefchaouen has lost its I” I remarked over lunch to an Irish women sitting across me. “That’s why we travel” I said “…..to lose the I.” With that thought I dissolved and melted into this blue, charming mountain village in the Rif.