Marrakech is not so far away as one might think, yet it is a world unto itself. Having arrived at dawn on an antique train, I was besieged by smells and sights that flooded my senses; and I was not sure what part my imagination was playing, or would come to play.

I had come here, to be simple, out of the sheer desire to take in the exotic. There are places in the world whose secrets are passed along, whispered from one traveler to another; when it is shown that you seek something hidden and real, and tend to make much of it. Travel books make for nice convenience, and those who read the same books find each other in the same places. Once your expected, the truthful illusions you seek are replaced by untruthful ones.

Some days before, in the south of Spain, I sipped sangria with a tanned gypsy from the Northlands, he would not say which lands exactly, only “Northlands”. He told me about a mighty waterfall in the high desert of Morocco, near the lower Atlas Mountains, that thundered its water from heights of 100 meters. There were monkeys there, and daredevil cliff divers who climbed partially up its crumbling sides into the wide pool at its base. Nearby was a farm where the divers lived, and all the keef you could smoke…if you dove with them. If they liked you, you might be invited to stay overnight, beat on drums and be well provided for with smoke and drink and ceremonies older than Mohammed. He told me this, he said, because he could see in my eyes that I searched for such things. I did.

The Northlander, whose name is so strange that I wouldn’t know how to write it, drew me a map on a napkin, made me memorize it, and then put it to flame in the candle that burned between us. I left for Algeciras the next morning, took a ferry at afternoon, arrived in Tangier by evening, and left on the overnight train to Marrakech; having just enough time to stop for bread, cheese, tomatoes, figs and olives, and to buy a pair of slacks and have them tailored, not wishing to be on the wrong side of modesty.

There is absolutely no order, no rhyme nor reason to the layout of streets in the cities of the third world. Local maps are only good enough to tell narrow streets from wide avenues. One must orient the map and use a compass, counting the number of small streets to the big ones and make a turn based on that count and hope for the best as you defend and attack other drivers. There are no lanes, but cars aplenty on all sides. It is madness, but it can also thrill a man. Once you leave the city behind, you look for the names of towns to see if you have taken the correct way out. Fortunately, some are in French, and I choose well.

The drive was long, three hours through an unforgiving desert and on to uneven roads that kick up a storm of dirt that I breathed in behind my scarf, wetted and wrapped all around my head in the local custom. My manner was all but Moroccan, but I was told throughout my time there that my eyes were Berber, and this afforded me great liberties. Read More...