Morocco Part 2 — BombassBlog

Location 1 – Casablanca

After a long, hot bus ride, I found myself somewhere in the middle of Casablanca. I was alerted by two French girls I met on the bus that the we (the tourists) had all been charged an extra 50 MAD (the Moroccan currency, approximately 1/10th of a USD) for our ticket than the other passengers. Using their French, they were able to retrieve our 50 MAD! I was very impressed, I always figure I’m just getting a little bit ripped off in Morocco.

It took a couple of cab rides and being quite a bit overcharged before I arrived at my hostel. I took a shower and went out for a terrible pizza before turning in the for the evening. The next morning, I woke up to go to the bus station and purchase my ticket to Chefchaouen, the destination I was actually excited for (Casablanca is mainly just a commercial city).

After procuring my ticket, I went for a tour of the city’s massive Hassan II mosque. This mosque was built from 1987-1993, and is thus an interesting combination of the traditional (shown in the architectural style and the heavy use of stone) and the modern (the roof splits in two and opens to the sky like an NFL stadium). After the mosque, I went for lunch and then headed for the train station.

Location 2 – Chefchaoeun

While much of Morocco is not particularly scenic (Morroco is a desert coast, and thus can be quite barren), Chefchaouen has to be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The majority of the city’s buildings are painted a beautiful sky blue. I have heard multiple reasons for this, including an invitation to the Jews of Europe after the horror of the Holocaust, and that this light blue color somehow pays tribute to Allah. Whatever the reason, it yields a tremendous sight.

The first main highlight was the town itself. I basically came to the city to walk around and take pictures. As you’ll see below, there isn’t much explanation necessary.

The second highlight was a visit to one of the town’s Marijuana farms. Pot is firmly illegal in Morocco, but is strangely tolerated by the local Police (I’m sure there’s some $$$ going around), especially in the mountainous region near Chefchaouen. It is so tolerated that tours to fields of Marijuana (only a 30 minute hike into the hills overlooking the town) are advertised in the hostel. I qualified this as a “when in Rome” experience. You’ll see as well a video of me beating something with some sticks. This process breaks the crystalline chemical structures (where contain the psychoactive chemical THC) off of the plant so that it can be packaged and smoked. It is this stuff that’s shaken off that is the “hash” that people smoke.

Location 3 – Tangier

My stop in Tangier is mainly to get to a place where I could take a ferry to Spain. That being said, I met some nice people on my way there! The trip began with waiting at the bus station, learning about Spanish from some new friends who were from the Basque Country in Spain, then I met friends on my bus who were from Colombia, who helped me to enrich my Spanish even more. This culminated in meeting Gerda, a woman from South Africa, who was using her son’s phone and was having trouble finding her AirBnb. With the help of some local kids, we found her AirBnb in Tangier’s “kasbah” area. These kids then recommended a restaurant for me, but unfortunately this food generated my second food sickness of my Morocco trip.

This night turned out to be a lot of fun, as I met more kids playing in the street as I attempted to find my way home through the winding streets of the Medina. Most of them spoke no English, but I was able to explain to them that I was a traveler by showing them pictures from my instagram (@bombassbreads).