Chefchawin and bargaining to visit Moulay Mashish

Chefchawin

After a four-ish hour bus ride we make it through gorgeous mountains to the town of Chefchawin. And yes it is charming with all of its postcard views of the turquoise blue streets.

We make it to our hotel in the old city (with some assistance of course) and then try to come up with a plan. We are close to the burial place of Moulay Abdessalaam ibn Mashish, the man who was Imam Shadhili's shayk ( may God have mercy on them both). So I came with the intention of visiting him. That means taking another one and a half hour ride out in a chartered taxi. A friend who has been out to the site gives me the number of a driver who has taken him. I call him from my room as the hotel manager sits in the courtyard below my room smoking hashish out of a pipe. We are in hashish country here, it is grown and smoked throughout the region and the smell is ever present in the streets ( and apparently also inside the hotels)of Chefchawin.

I get the taxi-driver on the phone and he tells me that it will be a whopping 700 Dirhams to drive us to the burial site of Moulay Mashish and bring us back. To put that in perspective the bus ride from Fes to Chefchawin was only 80 dirhams. I am in shock and try to talk some sense into him, he is willing to go down by 100 dirhams, but says that what he quoted me is the going price, take it or leave it.
Masha'Allah. We decide to think about it a bit, I try to talk my friend into driving a rental car there ourselves but she is put off by the windy mountain roads and the aggressive way Moroccans drive. We decide to go for a walk around the town, get some second opinions and then figure it out inshaAllah.

We go for a casual walk through the town through the town-square and down the steep streets of the old city. My mind's eye notices the religious comportment of the shop keepers. Many are obviously practicing and some posses a certain spiritual air to them. I walk past a shop where one man is sewing and other older men in Moroccan jilebas are sitting around him. One man is reading from a book. They look as if it is a spiritual discussion. Later we walk past them again and I hear them talking about different Sufi brotherhoods, tariqas in the area.

In looking for a cyber cafe, we come upon a fruit seller and accidentally interrupt his dhikr ( remembrance of God) to ask him the price of grapes. He puts down his prayer beads carefully, so as not to lose his place in order to talk to us, and when we ask if we can taste them before buying , he breaks off two grapes then runs to the back of the shop to wash them off before handing them to us with a "Bismillah."

So now off to dinner and to figure out how to get to Moulay Mashish and how not to get contact "highs" from the ever present stench of hashish.

Peace