My second night in Morocco we slept on the edge of the Sahara on top of rugs that looked suspiciously like magic carpets, ready to take flight should you dare to drift off into sleep. I want to surrender to this country and to the magic and mystery that lurks beneath the surface everywhere.
It was a whirlwind trip — a winding ride over the Atlas Mountains, the elusive Timbuktu beckoning just beyond the jagged sandy edge — a long, long bus ride punctuated by sandy sleep, camels, nomads and sensory souqs in Marakech.
We were fortunate to have a world class novelist, Ruth Setton, sailing with us this summer. She’s the author of The Road to Fez — a beautiful tale set in Morocco (I highly recommend it). I finished her book Marakech. Born in Morocco and raised in the USA we share that first generation experience. We’ve bonded over the hyphen (I will explain this later!) and she’s going to be a mentor of sorts for my American portraits project. Meeting and befriending Ruth has been one of the best parts of this summer for me.
This is a brief blog entry, not doing justice to the magic and mystery to be found in Morocco. But I will return to this place, and I will venture into the desert and stay a bit longer this time, watching that sunset and sunrise over sand dunes.
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And to see the official Semester At Sea audio slideshow click on this link:
http://www.ise.virginia.edu/video/A10/morocco.html
