Morocco- Moulay Bousselham, Chefchaouen and Tetouan

Before heading to the campsite at Moulay Bousselham we headed 30 kilometres north on the motorway to Larache. We went to Lixus, another site of significant Roman ruins in Morocco, which we found after some circling of the area (ambiguous and poor signage). It is free to access but has onsite 'security' (two guys one with a jacket with security on it). Ok, well maybe that is a good thing right? We were pointed in the direction of a path we should take which leads up from the fish salting plant to the amphitheatre, then up to the top of the hill. There is beautiful scenery- the site looks out onto a lagoon and Larache.

Unfortunately for some reason which will forever remain a mystery to us one of the guards kept watch on us the entire time. He generally kept his distance but it still made us feel quite self conscious. The problem started when we had walked from one end of the site to the other. 

The guard started to point where we should go, which annoyed me and I planned to walk back through the site so I ignored him. However half way back he got insistent but i stood my ground and managed to get back to the amphitheatre. However after a minute or two there the 'guard' got very unhappy and I (Dale) ended up in an argument with him. With him insisting for some reason we must walk back over the hill and down the other side, while I'm insisting I want to walk back the way we came in via the fish salting vats (neither of us speaking a word of the same language). We had just given in when his colleague arrived (he was tailing the other foreign couple on the site, for some reason Moroccans were left on their own) they discussed the crazy tourist (me) and suddenly we were allowed to go where I wanted. We were pretty much fed up and left as fast as possible at this point. I guess they have a job to look after the site or something, but it was thoroughly annoying as at Volubilis they leave you be and it actually has stuff of value and their only protection is a rope. There is nothing but stones and weeds here, and unless we arrived with a spray can and shovel in hand we were unlikely to do any damage.

I later read in the guidebook that about 15 years ago the site guardian's son dug up a mosaic in order to sell it. There is also Moroccan patch up work to put some of the stones back together which does not look like authentic Roman building work (more typically slapdash Moroccan style). You know how sometimes in the West reconstruction is done so it stands out from the original, here you could just tell cause it was crap. The guards presence really baffled us and actually made it a rather disappointing experience. We have had a couple of instances in the north like this and has made us think that the people in the south are much friendlier.

We enjoyed some down time at Moulay Bousselham and the weather was pretty good. An English couple whom we met here at the start of our trip turned up the night before we left so it was really nice to catch up with them and hear about their trip.

Next stop was Chefchaouen in the Rif mountains. Again there were positives and negatives. The positives were that the town is extremely picturesque with it's white and blue houses and the surrounding countryside. Just superb. The negatives for us were the people. The service staff (campsite and restaurants) were unfriendly and you were badgered by touts that wouldn't take no for an answer. As it is squarely on the tourist trail they seemed to be exploiting the tourism there to the max. The campsite was expensive by Moroccan standards given there was no hot water. We went to a couple of restaurants both of which had poor food and very rude service. The touts in the main square were also ludicrous. One approached us 5 times in the space of about 30 minutes. After being here nearly 3 months, we really struggled to just say 'no, thank you' and we let them hear our anger a couple of times. I (Dale) would say they could do with bucking up their ideas a bit as being a somewhat attractive town (just okay by European standards) may not be enough to keep the tourists coming. We for example would not return for a second visit next time and would follow the motorway south.

We did meet up with our friend Gabrielle again which was great. We enjoyed a day walking around the town with her and shared a grand taxi up to one of the doors at the entrance of the town. She also got henna done on her leg and hand which was fun to see.

In the Grand Taxi

We were planning on staying three nights there, but gave it two before moving on. We just couldn't face another day of touts annoying us basically.

Oops and I forgot another negative. The Rif mountains is where they produce a large quantity of the world's marijuana. So as you can imagine, a lot of people are trying to sell it to you. I was going to list reasons for not buying it here, but instead I will just say that it would be a stupid thing to do!

So we headed to Tetouan which was only 1.5 hours north on our route to the Tanger Med port where we will catch the ferry in a couple of day time. To be honest Tetouan, didn't offer anything particularly special for us- there is a medina (which is UNESCO) and souks, a nice Spanish church and a pedestrianised street named after a previous King Mohammed V. There is a convenient car park in the city for 20 dirhams (1.80 euro) for 24 hours, which is a little difficult to get into as the markets seem to spill out onto the access roads. Again we were accosted by touts here spouting the usual lines 'what are you looking for?', 'where are you from?', 'I am on my way home, I will show you the way' and our favourite 'there is a Berber market on today, it only happens once a month'. 

The Royal Palace

The Spanish Church

After Chefchaouen, we really just wanted to be left alone to explore for ourselves. One tout approached our van in the car park even claiming he worked at the car park. He said he finishes work soon and would be going to the Berber market to buy gifts for his 3 sons, if we wanted to join him. When he came back to the van about 10 minutes later I asked him if he had finished work. He said he had, so I replied that we wouldn't want to hold him up as he had earlier advised us that the market would be closing soon. The offended and annoyed look on his face said it all as he sulked off. It has gotten to the point here in the north that we can't trust anyone, whilst in south we found people much friendlier.

From Tetouan we headed to the coast, which is full of Spanish style resorts. We are chilling here for 2 nights and working on our plans for Spain, Portugal and France before we get on the ferry tomorrow. We have loved Morocco- we have had fantastic weather, seen some nice sights and managed to stay here for an average of 23 euros a day (for both of us and including our return ferry from Spain).

One last story, we are chilling in a deserted car park and today we have observed a handover of some sort of shall we say 'smuggled product'. A car turned up, there has been a handful come and go but then another car turned up and parked right beside and now between the two cars there were about 7 young men. After a while I noticed they were taking a lot of interest in the first cars engine bay. A couple of bits of cardboard and perhaps tape were cast aside and suddenly shrink wrapped parcels about 2 Litres in size were being extracted from cavities in the engine bay and transferred to the boot of the second car. Once they had thoroughly checked that they had got everything both cars left, the one now carrying the parcels being bump started across the car park.

Au revoir Morocco!