I took a detour today. To the town of Jabugo. I knew nothing about Jabugo other than it was not far from Galaroza, where I was staying overnight. A doable short walk. All uphill. I walk into town and the first thing I see is a Jamón processing plant. At the fork in the road I am presented with an option between an asphalt road or cobbled one typical of serrana villages. Down the cobble lane I go. It’s quiet. Not just the serene peacefulness I am getting accustomed to in this rural area of cork trees and whitewashed villages lost in time. Barren streets type of quiet. No people.…

It’s 9:15 pm. I poke my head in the restaurant. “Está abierto?” I ask the server. “Si,” he replies not looking up from his phone. I had been waiting for the restaurant to open while having a drink on the other side of the small plaza with an English couple I met at my Posada. I give them a thumbs up before tucking inside. The floor of the restaurant is made of the same black and white cobblestones throughout the village. The rustic heavy door that separates the bar from the restaurant looks like something out of the Middle Ages with large metal bolts and hinges. A soccer game is…

Cadiz feels like a seaside town. Jutting out into the ocean you are never far from water. It’s almost like an island. I could see from the train the narrow land passageway to enter the city, the sea within arms reach on both sides. The landscape was like a wetland in contrast to the dry arid land on the journey from Sevilla. This is sherry country as evident from the silhouettes of well known bodegas on the hilltops: Tio Pepe man and a classic bull (Osborne). Walking out the train station I immediately smelled the breezy sea air. The main square by the port is lined with palm trees. The buildings…

The buildings in Sevilla are laced with ornate trim in warm shades of oranges and yellows and fancy iron balconies and light fixtures. It reminds me of a beautifully decorated cake. This is only one layer of the city. With the complex history of Sevilla I appreciated how my tour guide Maria (Devour Tours) simplified the narrative into bite sized pieces. She gave our small group this sweet history lesson while we were standing in front of two Roman columns. The original Roman columns, carved from a single piece of granite, were tucked into a recessed courtyard (like a hole in the ground) off the side of the street (ironically…

One of the first exercises I learned in a writing class was an exercise of memory: remembered moments. With a series of prompting questions I had to list as many details as I could to recreate the scene (for the class it was a childhood car trip). The more details the better: the people I was with, what I was wearing, any conversation or other sounds, the texture of my seat, my mood. The idea is to transport yourself back to that moment. For the exercise I could only close my eyes and do my best to recall these details, but a journal or a photo are a great help…