Before I discovered a passion in portraiture, my photography developed during my travels. Lonely Planet: Morocco makes mention of this small town in the Rif Mountains called Chefchaouen. My curiosity sent me over to Google Images, at which point I was determined to see this place for myself.  The town is painted blue and it reminded me of an Arabian Alice in Wonderland. I read the Tales from Arabian Nights as a child, so my (already active) imagination ran wild.

Turns out that it was a rickety 2-1/2 hour bus ride into the mountains from Tangier (where we arrived on a boat from Spain). An aggressive bunch of profit-seeking cab drivers offered to transport us for a mere $100 (US). But for $5, we took a public bus. All we had was a backpack each and I had an Arabic language cheat sheet on a scrap of paper in my sweaty pocket. It was August and not only was there no air conditioning in the bus (which I really didn’t expect anyway), but the windows wouldn’t open. So it was a balmy 100 degrees in there. My backpack held in my unwelcome body heat. Once we got to the bus station in Chaouen, it was a lengthy uphill walk into the town.

This place was a total explosion of culture. We had mint tea with a shop proprietor, fended off rug salesmen and watched as everyone shuffled into the mosque when the call to prayer bellowed out of the minaret.  I felt so voyeuristic. I took more pictures then I can count and it was difficult to choose a few for this blog post, but here are a few:

Oh and here’s a travel tip if you ever plan to visit Chaouen: The Moroccan dirham is a controlled currency which means you’re not supposed to exchange it or bring it out of the country. So when you get to Morocco, get the smallest bill denominations that you can. We thought we did do this getting the equivalent of $5 bills. In Chaouen, $5 is a bill most street merchants can’t make change for. Bring plenty of coins and singles – things just don’t cost that much…….unless you cave to the rug salesmen.

Firefly Photography is now booking appointments in  VT and NH (Brattleboro, Keene and the Upper Valley and beyond) for dreamy maternity, baby,  child, family, seniors and couples portrait photography.  

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