Have you ever dreamed of standing in the middle of a huge field of marijuana? Inhale the magic smell of millions fresh growing plants? Surrounded by breathtaking mountains and deep silence?
There is a place, were all this can come true. I mean, at first it can be quite difficult to inhale while seeing breathtaking beauty of the nature. But it is possible, you will see.
I travelled for one month to the rif-mountains in the north of Morocco. At first I arrived at Tanger airport, to take a taxi to Chefchaouen, also known as the blue city. I didn’t read up too much before I went there, to have not too big expectations. All I knew was, it is an old town, completely painted in blue. It was a beautiful ride, I could see mountains, often with lots of big green fields on it in the far distance. I was wondering about the good agriculture, as it was very hot and dry, but there were so many green fields.
Just when I did my first step into this beautiful blue town, instantly some guys came and offered me to guide me to my hostel and, to my surprise, sell me some hash. It was super nice quality and very cheap, so I ended up with some hash in my pocket in the same moment as I arrived.
After moving into the hostel I discovered this beautiful place a bit and made lots of friends, travelers but also a lot locals, who are very open and friendly. But something followed me everywhere since my arrival and also appeared everywhere: hash. It felt like everyone had it, travelers as locals.
So why is there so much of it? Because this green fields you can see everywhere in the mountains are hectares of marijuana.
After some days in the town I met a local guy, who offered me to show me a hash factory and some big fields. As I was very curious and a traveler-friend who I met there too, we just said yes, lets go there.
So we did this one thing, were we all learned as children to not do it. We went with a guy we barely know, into his small bus. There was a friend of him waiting already. So we ended up driving in a bus with two local guys into the mountains of Morocco.
My mind started racing: “What am I doing here!? This tour can be my end, I don’t know these guys, I don’t know where we are or where we are going. Congrats you naive idiot, now you fucked it up!” But my thinking became even more paranoid, as the guys suddenly said: “Please close the curtains of your windows, so no one can see you, it’s a risk to take you there”. Okay, we followed their introductions and my mind became more crazy. We drove along some small streets, going up higher and higher. After a while we left a street to continue on dirt roads.
Some minutes later the guys informed us, that, “We are now arriving at the business-street, here are just farmers and people who want to make business”.
We were already surrounded by huge fields and then finally stopped. My worried mind stopped racing: “Everything is fine, we will just have an amazing and interesting time here, I was just paranoid. Just too much manipulating movies about criminals in my life.”
The guys showed us the Moroccan way to produce hash. The farmers often are families, who are doing this already since centuries. Everyone helps growing the plants, even children and grandparents are involved. It’s the traditional healthy way of farming, but in this case not with tomatoes or apples, but with marijuana. They mostly use plants with old genetics like Moroccan, Pakistani or Mexican instead of modern super plants, which are just made to have a lot THC and big crop. These old genetics have very balanced active components instead of just high THC as the modern plants. They are watered with fresh and clean spring water from the mountains. The plants get energy of the strong and energizing sunlight.
At this point, let’s make a quit break and talk about tomatoes.
Have you ever eaten a fresh tomato out of the garden, which became just sunlight and good water?
Have you ever eaten an industrial produced tomato out of the supermarket, which is full of chemicals and was growing in a greenhouse with artificial light?
As you know then, there is a big difference in taste, vitamins, color and so on. The tomato out of the garden is full of pureness and energy, while the supermarket tomato seems to be a bit dead already.
It’s the same with every other plant. Also with marijuana.
So what the Moroccan farmers are doing, is growing traditional seeds under pure and naturel conditions. They don’t use chemicals, machines or overbred seeds. Just nature and handwork.
After the tour over the fields, we went into a small house, what they called the “factory”. There the plants are getting dried after the harvest and chopped up when they are ready.
Now the farmers take bowl, tighten a silk scarf over it and put the plant material on it.
Then, a tarp is tightened over it and the farmers start drumming on it with bamboo sticks.
The active pollen are falling through the scarf into the bowl.
While this presentation we drank mint tea and another guy from the farm joined us.
Then the guys showed us lots of hash they already produced, of course also trying to sell some. It’s one of the best qualities you can find in the world for sure, but we told them already before, we are just coming to see, not to buy. Unfortunately, from now on it went difficult. One of the guys told us: “I like you guys, you are not like other tourists. You know, normal tourists pay 150 euro per person for this tour, but for you it’s just 90 euro” We were quite surprised, because until that moment no one told us about such high prices. So we ended up in a long discussion. The paranoid thinking came back: “Now we are with the guys in a small house in the middle of nowhere and they want a lot money from us, more then we actually have with us. This is finally the end.”
But of course it wasn’t. We discussed for 40 minutes about this problem and ended up paying 20 euro each including some “free” hash, as an excuse for the problems.
After this tour we came back to the town with a huge new knowledge and experiences but also nerves which went through an emotional rollercoaster from “We will die.” to “This is so mind-blowing, so interesting, amazing, oh my god yes, hamdulillah.”
In the days after I started hiking tours into the mountains. After some walking you always end up in huge fields, with farmers and the best quality possible for the lowest prices you can find. So the guided tour was not even necessary but nice for learning. Every farmer I met was super nice, they invite you often for mint-tea, to talk, relax, and of course also trying to sell. Especially the farmers are one of the most relaxed but also deeply thinking people I met, maybe because of their nice herbs they grow.
If you are interested now, travel to the rif-mountains and ketama-mountains and enjoy the crazy adventures. I don’t advice you special places to go, just go there and find your own ways. Travelling is making your own adventures and ways instead of blind following the paths of other travelers. The mountains are full, that’s what I can tell you.
Inshallah.
Now let me know, do you like the article? Do you want to know more? I focused on a big part of the agriculture, but there is so much more to say about this part of Morocco and the culture, specially the berber-culture. So for sure there will follow more articels about my adventures and experiences in the rif-mountains.
Also I am very interested to hear about experiences you had.