Riads and road trips along the north coast of Morocco

H igh in the Rif Mountains, my sister, my mother and I carefully tread the unfenced edges of a mountain highway road, trying to capture pictures of the blue panorama in the Chefchaouen Valley before sunset. It's the only chance we have thanks to a tight schedule on a three-day road trip along Morocco's north coast. Getting here is a five-hour drive from Casablanca, where we earlier sat admiring the walls of one of the world’s largest mosques. No matter how much my family want to hang about in this industrial city a little longer – mainly dreading the “primitive” highway that my sister makes us sceptical about embarking on – I’m eager for something more adventurous. Despite my sister’s warning, I soon find myself wondering how a country with a desert niche can be so lusciously green. It’s thanks to increased precipitation along the north coast, our local driver, Mehdi, tells me. As three women travelling together, we never considered taking the train because we had been warned about getting harassed; besides, hiring a private chauffeur cost us nothing more than the rental, petrol and a modest wage of US$70 (Dh257) a day for Mehdi, who ended up being our bodyguard, translator and photographer. We have trouble finding any remotely familiar first-world comfort food at service stations, and are stopped by flocks of livestock and their herders at least three times on the way. But I relish time in a world still untouched by globalisation and international franchises. ------------------ If you go The flights Etihad ( www.etihad.com ) flies from Abu Dhabi to Casablanca from Dh3,350 return, including taxes. The hotels Rooms at the Gray Boutique Hotel in Casablanca ( www.grayhotelandspa.com ) cost from US$125 (Dh459) per night, including taxes. Rooms at Riad Sakina in Rabat ( www.riad-hotel-rabat.com ) cost from $63 (Dh231) per night, including taxes. Rooms at Riad Dar Sababa in Chefchaouen ( www.darsababa.com ) cost from $50 (Dh175) per night ------------------ As we drive up a valley, I’m baffled by a docile wedding procession along a highway. The bride, whose face is covered by a net, looks solemn and nomads around her are chiming words as if at a funeral procession. I impatiently ask Mehdi to pull over and try to take a photo, but I’m sternly averted by one of the men. I feel like we have invaded their bubble. The air gets rather dry as we drive up to the landlocked city of Chefchaouen, within the valley. Scruffy-looking children playing football in a descending, orange-lit alleyway leer at us, out-of-season tourists, as we wait to be guided to our riad on foot. The different shades of turquoise – and sometimes purple – have us in a trance. Locals paint their houses blue to keep away mosquitoes, Mehdi tells us, which explains big bags of powdered paint at souvenir shops. Unlike the luxury examples in Marrakech, the riads here have a primitive, cave-like feeling. I start chatting to the desk clerk in French, only to be stopped and told that Spanish is the main second language in the uppermost northern region of Morocco. The next day, we sit on the terrace of a riad that serves food, warming our hands with our teacups, watching a teenager being paraded by police, as the townsfolk converge in the main square below us. It turns out that he’s a suspect in a murder case, and we watch the townsfolk gather around as the man is ushered from one cafe to another re-enacting the night of the crime. Behind is a spectacular panorama: the mountain range so near that we feel like we can touch it; the peach walls of the old colonial fortress in front of us; the view of the medieval-looking town below us. A Christmas-style tree about 10 metres high stands tall in the middle of the square, dwarfing the green plains behind it. ------------------ See A road trip along Morocco's green north coast - in pictures ------------------ We marvel at the different shades and flowerpots filling the ascending and descending staircases every few metres, thanks to the city being built on a mountainside. We’re gripped by one painted ice blue, telling Mehdi exactly at which angle we want our picture taken, as a frowning boy shields his brother from our lens. The staircase in front of us offers a view of the green valley in the distance, juxtaposed against brown shutters and blue walls, but again, an old man in a hooded cloak carrying groceries shields his face from us as we take photos. Luckily for our photo collections, a bread boy carrying a wooden tray of dough balls on his head isn’t able to do the same. A staircase between houses in Chefchaouen. Photo by Samar Al Sayed On the way out of the pedestrian world, we pass the bustling weekend vegetable market. Cloaked Moroccan men and women haggle over piles of tomatoes, eggplant and greens, as the mountains and mist towers above them. I want to sit there and do nothing apart from watch people go about their day, but we need to make it out of the mountain roads, not for the spectacular views, but for fear of driving on winding roads at night. It’s midnight in Rabat. Rain pounds onto our windscreen. My sister resents my insistence at staying at a riad even in the capital city. I soon discover that the old city where our accommodation lies is a bit of a ghetto, not an enchanting, self-contained haven to rival the likes of Essaouira, Marrakech or Chefchaouen. Back we come to the modernised world, where homeless people sleep in alleyways and locals are nowhere near as friendly as in the rural villages. The riad we have booked to stay in is nothing like the ones we had previously seen either. This is majestic, with high ceilings designed for French colonialists. It has four bedrooms upstairs with a single balcony, all with wooden doors, and four on the ground floor, along with a blue, mosaic fountain in the middle. By the time we check out, we have five hours to tour the city before we have to hit the road to Marrakech in time to meet other family members at the airport. With limited minutes, we try to ration our time within the 11th-century fortress walls of the Kasbah of the Udayas, but we can’t help stopping to take photos of the tiny neighbourhood full of locals living inside the white-and-blue painted alleyways of the Unesco World Heritage-listed area. We head to the end of the Kasbah through a fortress door, and onto a terrace that offers a panorama of the old medina dotted with white Andalusian-style houses and surrounded by the ocean. This is the view I have come for, I tell everybody. We cross the road to an old souq. The handwoven carpets and wooden wall hangings suspended from the shop doors keep us wandering for hours. From the exit, we can see the green valley extending all the way to the Mohammed V Mausoleum a short drive away. Roman pillars line the courtyard outside. Inside, tourists take photos of the tombs of the late king and his two sons. The mausoleum extends far beyond the tomb area. We have an extensive photo shoot in front of a rustic copper door beneath green-peaked roofs, tiled fountains and domed sills. Outside the courtyard, two uniformed soldiers, atop horses, guard the fortress. The rest of my family is too exhausted to explore the Chellah necropolis (admission 10 Moroccan dirhams [Dh4]), so I head there by myself. Although not well-maintained, the area offers a different vantage point to the green valleys seen from the Kasbah of the Udayas. The Chellah, which is a medieval fortified Muslim necropolis in Rabat, the capital of Morocco. Photo by Samar Al Sayed I see ruins in the distance, but I don’t venture that far down to save on time. We have already decided to head back to the souq to pick up a wall rug that we regretted not buying during our initial visit. My mother and sister might be moaning about the fast pace of the trip, but these quick glimpses of discovery and fascination, from one city to the next, with the feeling that we have to take in everything in finite moments, culminate in a real sense of the wider country. The journey along the coast had taken us past weddings and scandals, weekly markets, flocks of livestock and a land so primordial that we felt like we were on another planet. Despite the enjoyment of afternoons lounging and bonding in front of Atlas Mountains views, the bustle and momentary encounters in Rabat and Chefchaouen were undoubtedly the highlight of our trip. salsayed@thenational.ae

Riads and road trips along the north coast of Morocco

A three-day adventure along Morocco’s north coast, taking in dramatic scenes and primordial landscapes.