The good, the bad and the ugly

Chefchouen is an interesting place and we've had some interesting encounters with the people here, ranging from genuinely friendly, people just looking to make a buck, and downright threatening.

When Adam, Jack and I first arrived to Chefchouen (Adam and Jack are cousins from Oregon who I met in the port of Tangier and we ended up splitting a cab to Chefchouen) our first encounter was with a guy wanting to first be our guide to our hostel and when we declined that offer, wanted to sell us hash. He pretty much descended on us as soon as we stepped out of the car. We said no, we don't need a guide, we know where we're going and have a map and a reservation. So we start walking, and he begins asking Jack if he smokes and wants to buy some hash. Adam says no, he doesn't smoke and doesn't want to buy anything. After a bit more fruitless pestering, he moves on to Adam. Adam gives him the same spiel, no I don't smoke, none of us smoke and we don't want to buy anything. But by this time the guy was getting desperate and would not leave us alone, saying we were bad people and if he caught us smoking hash we had bought from someone else he would make our time here miserable.

Well we manage to make it to our hostel without buying anything or giving him money, but unfortunately that wasn't the end of him. Later that night we're having dinner, and he must have spotted us (we were sitting outside), because as soon as we leave the restaurant he immediately latches onto Adam again, only this time more persistent, asking for more money and threatening violence if we he didn't buy. The situation had us all a bit rattled so over the next several days we devised alternate routes to avoid the plaza in the evening and Adam started wearing a scarf on his head to hide his blond hair.

On the other end of the spectrum, there have been people who are genuinely friendly to us. After returning from one of our hikes, we're walking back to our hostel and pass some school kids walking with their teachers. On seeing us, they immediately turn, start waving furiously and yelling out "hola, como esta," and laughing and smiling the whole time particularly when we wave and say hola back. Then the other night at dinner we walk into this restaurant that is for the most part empty. There is one kid eating in the back, who appeared to be the son of the owner. We walk in, sit down and immediately the owner and a waiter come over, lean forward with their elbows on our table and start going into an in depth explanation of the menu switching from spanish, french, english and arabic, talking about a mile a minute, simultaneously and gesturing and pointing like mad. When they are done with their explanation (somehow we manage to get the gist of what they said), they stay exactly where they are, arms firmly planted on the table, leaning into us so they are directly in our faces and staring expectantly. After a few moments of awkward silence we manage to convey to them that we need a couple of minutes to decide. They jump up in flourish, the owner runs off into the kitchen and the waiter just sort of stands back a few feet. A couple of minute later we place our order. The whole time we're waiting for our food, the waitor (who can't be more than 15 or 16) keeps looking over at us, sometimes just laughing, other times trying to make conversation. Then we hear some sort of commotion going on outside and suddenly the owner comes running in full speed, runs over to our table and makes like he is hiding behind us. The whole time, the waitor is just cracking up. After that, which startles us to say the least, the owner apologizes profusely, shakes all of our hands and does the whole double-cheek kiss thing. It was very bizarre, and we never did figure out what was going on. Finally our food comes. The waitor sets it down in front of us, steps back maybe about 6 inches and proceeds to stare at us while we eat, until the owner yells at him to leave us alone. Then as we are leaving, we pay our bill, and the owner starts asking me in French how long we're staying, etc. He says hold on bc he wants to give us his card. He goes running back behind the cash register (if you haven't figured it out yet, everything here was done at full speed) and is scrounging around for a business card. The waitor is still laughing his head off at the whole thing. He can't find one and motions for us to come over. So we do and the guy starts scribbling down his info on a napkin. Then he starts asking us questions, and it took us awhile to figure it out, but he wanted our names and phone numbers. Very confused at this point, we give him our names only and head out. The whole thing was very bizarre and definitely the most hilarious dining experience I've had in awhile.