Anyone who has ever traveled knows what it feels like to get lost. If you've wandered the streets of Europe trying to read streets signs in foreign languages, you know what I'm talking about. There's one place in Europe that has no competitor in this category: Venice, although in recent years, they've made it substantially easier to get around with signs that will, at every winding turn, at least point you in the direction of the Rialto Bridge or Piazza San Marco. The difficulty in navigating that city, however, makes sense as it was built for boats. If you think Venice is hard, imagine this: take that feeling of being hopelessly lost and intensify it in every way. The signs? They don't exist. The language? Nothing like any romance-language where you could at least guess at a word. The merchants with shops? They not only don't leave you alone to browse their windows, they make it virtually impossible to not go in and buy something for fear of offending some unknown uncle somewhere who thinks you owe it to him to buy something since you looked at his items for sale. The narrow corridors which make you more confused than a drunk rat in a laboratory maze? Triple that amount. The smells? Around any corner could be a dozen animal carcasses sitting in the 100 degree heat or, if you are lucky, there could be a pastry shop with the sweetest, most delectable aroma of roasting nuts and honey. If you pause for a split second to take a look around at any point, you will have half a dozen people approach you immediately and offer to be your guide, an excursion which is sure to end up at their cousin's or uncle's shop. All of this while having no landmarks, no ability to see the sky or having any concept of which direction you came from while pouring sweat in the Saharan heat...now, you are in a medieval medina in Morocco.

While many travelers visit Morocco, that doesn't mean that navigating its' medinas is easy. In fact, the medinas get larger and more complex the bigger a city is. The Arabic word "medinah" simply means "city" and now describes an old, distinct neighborhood in an otherwise modern town. The walls are so tall and narrow that shadows are cast all but a few minutes per day when the sun is directly overhead. Deliveries happen all day every day, and the streets are so narrow that you often have to press your back flat into a wall so as to not get pushed over by a mule pulling an overloaded cart of goods or not get run over by a motorcycle delivery with a laughable tower of precariously balanced boxes. Since the medina's streets are car-free and the locals know the inside of the medina like the back of their hand, there are no signs, or at least none that are useful to tourists; they just need to attempt to navigate the multiple winding roads on their own. Mostly, this just means that the main activity is to get lost. It is your duty as a traveler to get lost, as lost as you can. That is the fun of it. It really is quite fun to not even try to keep track of where you are, to just keep turning corners, following your nose and the colorful scarves blowing in the wind and see what you find. Sometimes it will be a delight; other times it will be far from it. Such is the case when you are in the city of Fez and the stench of the tannery starts to infiltrate your nostrils. It is hard to imagine anything smelling worse, but then you realize that there are men who have to stand in the big vats of rank dye with their pants rolled up to their hips as they press pieces of leather down over and over with their bare feet to help soak up the brilliant colors of dye. The smell is definitely worse for those men. When you finally find your way out of the medina's confusing corridors and spill out into a square, you can finally see the sky and smell the aromas of spices and cous cous simmering in a tagine and reward yourself for making it out of there by sitting down for a bite to eat. Besides, you'll need the energy to do it all over again in order to find your riad (a traditional Moroccan guesthouse) and retire for the night.

The city of Chefchaouen, however, is different, and it was not solely because of the incredibly brilliant blue walls that are painted in every shade of blue you've ever seen. It is known to be an extremely relaxed and welcoming place, and we found it to be exactly that. It is a great place to go after spending many exhausting but exhilarating days traversing through other Moroccan cities. When we arrived in Chaouen, as it is known to the locals, we could actually hear birds chirping. The air was fresh and no one hollered out to us to begin the cycle of chaos as we tried to find our riad. Men sat on benches and chatted, women walked by quietly with children, and, as promised, there were no hassles as we winded our way deeper and deeper into the medina. By the time we had actually arrived at our riad ten minutes later, we had even been nodded at a few times without so much as an offer to come into a store. It felt very relaxing and almost like a vacation from Morocco to walk through this medina after a month of being in the bigger cities where tourists are like fatty tuna in a shark tank; even with my hair covered and Chris' long, full beard, we had not been immune. Morocco is advanced-level travel. Being left alone in this new city like we were so used to back home was very refreshing. So began our encounters in "Chaouen".

After a brief rest upon checking in to a quaint and sunny riad, we strolled the streets of the medina passing by colorful wool blankets, bright leather purses, and silks of every color. The endless blue walls continuously put us in a state of awe--the stairs, the walls, the doors, and even the sidewalks were completely doused in different shades of blue: teal blue, turquoise blue, periwinkle blue, cornflower blue, baby blue...It was incredible to see such a simple thing as paint tie an entire city together to give it a mystical air. Only one merchant asked politely, as we walked, if we were looking for anything in particular. We declined, saying we were just enjoy looking around and walking, and he told us to enjoy our walk with a smile. That had never happened before in Morocco! We strolled on, and did a double-take after passing by a tiny, closet-sized wood working shop where a single man was at a lathe shaping a spindle. Chris motioned to me that he may have a small piece of wood that I could use as a hairstick to replace mine (I had purchased my first hairstick in Laos 2 years prior and it had just broken--a hairstick is simply a stick that goes in your hair to wrap it into a twist and is a female traveler's dream accessory...it can be used on wet or dry, dirty or clean, straight or frizzy hair in under 5 seconds and make you presentable enough to have dinner with the Queen (well, almost). I am very passionate about hairsticks). We peered inside, and the man noticed us and put down his spindle to come to the doorway to greet us. We said hello to him with the best Moroccan Arabic accent that we could muster, and Chris played charades with his hands and spoke a few words of French to ask the man if he had a leftover little piece of wood that we could buy. The man looked confused, so Chris pointed to the smallest chunk of wood on a shelf that he saw. After the man handed it to Chris, Chris gave him a thumbs up and then asked to use the sandpaper sitting on his workbench. The man must have been so curious at this point as to what these two Westerners wanted that we probably had his head spinning as fast as his lathe. He handed the sandpaper to Chris then watched him briefly sand the roughest splinters away. Chris handed the sanded stick to me to see if it would work to put my hair up. When the man saw what we were doing, he got that look of "Ah-ha!" on his face. He rummaged through his collection of wood and selected a new stick, then placed it on the lathe and began shaping it into a decorative style, digging tools into it this way and that way. After just a few minutes, a basic stick of wood had turned into a thin, pointed, decorative hairstick in front of my eyes. I had never seen such a thing of beauty, and certainly had never had such a thing made for me without even asking for it. We thanked him excitedly and asked him what we owed him to which he replied with a completely fair price of 20 durham (~$2.50). No need to negotiate or haggle which had always, until now, been the standard M.O. in Morocco. I whipped up my hair off of my hot neck and repositioned my head scarf to keep the modesty before we sauntered down another corridor.

We traded one pleasant experience for another as we explored further. It was a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively, to walk around Chefchaouen and then venture out of its walls and into the hills of the Rif mountains. There is an absence of light pollution in Chaouen which makes the constellations glisten brighter than ever as you take an evening stroll underneath the stars. With the sound of a river that flows through the city accompanying the serene mood set by locals and tourists alike, Chaouen was a respite from the dizzying bustle of pandemonium of other Moroccan cities. I wouldn't skip either, and I would recommend visiting and experiencing both extremes, but it would be a wise move to soothe the soul and stay an extra night in Chefchaouen and experience Arabic hospitality at its best.