Chefchaouen

The drive to Chefchaouen was picturesque with many white beach-side hotels and palm trees. The town itself was also beautiful with blue walls all throughout the old town.

The men wear djellabas with pointed hoods.

The Kasbah in the plaza has beautiful arches and lanterns

and from the tower, there’s a good view of the town.

Women were getting henna tattoos on their hands and arms.

And cats were everywhere.

The day prior, it was a public holiday and the locals had been sacrificing sheep. We saw the remnants of this throughout the town, with many sheep heads being cooked in fires, and horns and legs being hacked off the carcasses.

The smell of burning meat permeated the air. As I took some photos, a piece of flesh came flying towards me and landed at my feet.

I was on cook group duty for the next three meals (dinner, breakfast and lunch) and surprisingly our group had a challenge trying to find meat as most of it had been sold, and many butchers were at their homes resting. With the help of some young children, we managed to find some minced meat, and then also bought tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, zucchini, bananas, and bread. We’ll also be using some ingredients already on the truck.

Dinner was a vegetable stirfry (cooked in a massive wok),

baked beans for us vegetarians, and minced meat with garlic, tomatoes, and onion (Graham gave me a snorkelling mask to use for cutting up the onions as tears were streaming down my face – it doesn’t normally happen but when you’re cooking for 25 people you use a few more onions than you normally would!)

Kristy made a birthday cake of chocolate balls covered in coconut as it was Shaun’s birthday and naturally there were lots of jokes about everyone enjoying his salty, chocolate balls.

Many of the boys decided to play ‘wizard sticks’ for Shaun’s birthday. Essentially you tape your first empty beer can to your hand, and then add new empties to either end until your ‘wizard stick’ is as tall as you are. Three of the boys bought djellabas in town and looked even more like a wizard dressed in them.

All of them were successful though Shaun finished first, followed by Gerrett.

Note that wizard sticks impede one’s ability to flap the dishes dry.

Apparently they also make going to the bathroom a tad more difficult.