Okavengo Delta, Zambia November 28, 2010: Wilderness Camp, Okavengo Delta, Zambia Tonight, Julius—a guide so experienced that he is mentioned in one of the books I read to prepare for this trip—was walking me back to my cabin with a flashlight after dinner. I was making small talk, embarrassed to have to be walked to … Continue reading
“Hyena!” November 26, 2010: This morning we were driving across the savannah when Robert, our guide, stopped the Land Rover and pointed to the left, slightly behind us. “Hyena,” he whispered. We hadn’t seen a hyena yet. We all turned to the left and got out our binoculars and searched the fields. “Where?” we whispered … Continue reading
Disembarkation, Chobe River, Botswana November 24, 2010: Baobob Camp, Chobe, Botswana Camouflaged Bird’s Eggs, Chobe River, Botswana Evening Today out on the river we came across a lily pad with four camouflaged bird’s eggs in it. Mat explained that the eggs in this species are nurtured by the male and that the one who built … Continue reading
Baboon Mother and Child, Zambia, Africa, November 2010 November 20, 2010: Johannesburg, South Africa It’s been a long trip. With a 13-hour layover in Heathrow (luckily four of them in an airport hotel bed courtesy of the travel agency), I’ve been traveling for close to 38 hours. The only reason I’m still vertical is because … Continue reading
Ourika Valley, Morocco September 20, 2010: Ourika Valley, Morocco It’s our last day in Marrakech, and we drive out to visit a Berber house in the Ourika Valley of the Atlas Mountains. As we’re leaving the farmhouse, I see a mirror in a shop that I want. I’ve been looking at these Moroccan mirrors ever since I … Continue reading
Marjana Argan Cooperative The Law of Unexpected Consequences, Exhibit B King Mohammed VI had a problem. Most rural and nomad women were illiterate, they were restricted to the home, and they were often pledged to arranged marriages even before they “became a woman.” They would be auctioned off, sometimes not meeting their husbands–often decades older—until the … Continue reading
Oasis, on the Road to Ouarzazate Dust storms have eaten away the faces on the reliefs carved in the courtyard’s walls. The desert is blue with ghosts. Mica shines for an instant like glass, then the desert buries it again. This must be what the seabottom looks like a thousand fathoms deep, yellow sand shimmering … Continue reading
Tree, Fes In the afternoon I rest under the branches of a giant tamarisk tree, searching the sky like the locals for signs of rain, chewing on a blade of bamboo. I am silent for a long time as the afternoon slouches by. The valley soaked with rain looks unhappy. Ibrahim says “In Morocco it … Continue reading
Past, Present, Future, Rabat, Morocco Preface Three months after I got back from Morocco, the riots in Tunisia began and within days, it seemed, the government fell. Friends who knew I had recently been in northwestern Africa wondered if Morocco would be next. “No,” I said. “The Moroccans love their king.” And then I would … Continue reading
Aqueducts, Meknas, Morocco Preface On March 15, 2007, I made a vow to spend the next ten years studying anything that caught my interest, doing everything I wanted to do, reading everything I wanted to read, seeing everything I wanted to see, traveling everywhere I wanted to travel, and writing my way through the process. … Continue reading
