Trevor Huxham

Last week, I came across a lovely photo post by longtime Spain expat blogger Cassandra Gambill. But because she was entering the annual Capture the Colour photography contest  (sponsored by the British website Travel Supermarket), her blog post showcased five pictures from her travels over the past few years in which the colors (spelled without  a U, thank you very much!) yellow, red, green, white, and blue featured prominently. For whatever reason, I was hesitant to throw my hat in the ring until Cat Gaa of Sunshine and Siestas “tagged” me in her entry for the competition this morning. Guess I don’t have much of a choice now! Anyway, I hope y’all enjoy these photos. Yellow: Petunias at the Patios de Córdoba festival Flickr link I first visited Córdoba back in dreary December and, while I did enjoy the city, every Spaniard I talked to about it insisted it was “worth the pain” ( vale la pena ) to go back in May for the Patios de Córdoba  festival, a ...

My trip to Morocco for Easter vacation was one where I went outside of my comfort zone a lot —even if it was with the help of the tourist trail. I had to manage daily life with a language I barely spoke (French) and one I didn’t at all (Arabic); there was absolutely no question I was a foreigner, being Christian, white, and non-fluent in any of Moroccan’s languages; and I basically winged transportation day by day, be it trains, buses, urban or interurban taxis. Douche et Bain Barakat, Chefchaouen (“Barakat Shower & Bath”) One of the things I wanted to do to push myself out of my comfort zone and to *ahem* immerse myself in Morocco was to bathe in a traditional hammam , or public bath. Ideally, I wanted to try out a hammam in each of the three cities I would stay at (Fez, Meknes, Chefchaouen), but because it’s such a time-consuming process and I didn’t have much down time in the first two cities, I didn’t end up bathing (I did shower, though!) until I got to Chefchao...

To finish off a warm, spring week in Morocco this past March, I spent two nights in the city of Chefchaouen, a cozy place set on a hillside about an hour or so from the Mediterranean coast. While researching for the trip, I kept coming across stories and pictures of this town that made it seem like a fantasy world, painted all-blue everywhere. Blue is my favorite color, after all, and wandering through a city completely blue sounded super cool, so I put it on my list. City panorama Pronounced “shuf-SHAH-wehn” [ʃəfˈʃɑ.wən], Chefchaouen was settled in 1471 as a military town to counter the Portuguese, who had been invading the region from the Mediterranean coast (think Ceuta ). Because of this (and perhaps because of its location in the mountains), the town was hostile to non-Muslims up until the mid-20th century, when the Spanish came in and colonized the country. Today, Chefchaouen is a fun and safe city to visit that welcomes tourists Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Its medin...