Sunday, March 16, 2008

A Series of Minor Kidnappings



It has been almost two months since we embarked on a little trip to Morocco to visit a dear old friend, yet I still don't quite believe many of the things that happened actually occurred in real life.  It's too much to recount all of the incredible details of the (sometimes harrowing, though always memorable) adventures we experienced, so I will be concise.

I walked the streets of a city that was built in 800 AD (which I can't imagine looking very different, even 1200 years ago).  I ate kefta burgers at night on a roof that overlooked the Medina and drank coffee in a cafĂ© with a bright orange sign.  I shared the back seat of a taxi with three of my friends for the 9 hour drive through the Atlas mountains until we reached the Sahara, where Mama Africa and the black desert sky provided us with a blood-red lunar eclipse as a welcoming gift.  I rode a friendly camel away from our casbah and slept in the tents of nomadic Berber people who fed us tagine and gave us good water to drink.  I felt the stillness and peace of the Sahara at night and ran along her gracefully sloping dunes (which, incidentally, felt like marshmallows beneath my feet).  I left feeling new.  (And also, quite queasy thanks to my faint-hearted American digestive system's unfavorable interactions with Moroccan sanitation policies.)

xo