Author: Grubb

A rolling golden-brown sea of sand all the way to horizon.  The sun, hidden behind a thin cloud cover, is beginning to set.  Outside of a few voices in the distance, behind some dune, total quiet.   Earlier, down in the camp, Bashir pointed to the west in the direction of three large sandy hills.  “I meet you at…

We pulled into the Perle du Dades around six o’clock last night.  The Perle, located in a green oasis near Dades, is an enclosed resort style compound done the Berber fashion.   As we stepped out of the Land Cruiser, a thin man in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans wearing a white turban slid by giving Ali an imperceptible…

As our train pulled into the Marrakesh station I overheard the taller of the two American guys standing in front of me turn to his friend and say, “This will make 22 countries we’ve visited.” “22 countries and all the continents,” his friend added. The man in front of them turned around and said, ”I’ve…

We took the morning train to Marrakesh out of Fes through the high-rises of Nouvelle Fes, and then rolled by the disadvantaged burbs: unfinished ravaged apartments, weatherbeaten dwellings with paint peeled away in patches, shantytowns behind low concrete walls looking like they have been created out of landfills.  After that, the flat brown landscape parceled into…

Succumb to the maze of the Medina, get a whiff of an unusual spice, rub up against a certain lamp, and it’s possible a spell has been cast and your belief in dreams has been enhanced.  Take my Berber doppelgänger, Ali Baba bin Berzerki Berber.  Bin Berzerki has often dreamt of owning a Picasso.  So today he exits…

Yesterday our driver, Zamir, took us to Volubilis, the site of Roman ruins dating back to the third century BC.  Built on a hill looking out onto what was once probably a much more fertile valley, the settlement appears to have been as large as Pompeii.  It has the stamp of empire with the columns and the…

Sunday, while we were wandering through the shoulder-wide walkways with Hakim, it became clear that calling Fes a walled Medina referred to more than the exterior fourteen-gated rampart surrounding the town.   Inside the Medina, whether we turned left or right, there was always a seamless wall two-to-three stories high on either side of us.  This wall…

As I shuffle into my dotage, I’ve become an aficionado of slippers.  I’m forever in search of the perfect pair, and I’ve always wondered how a curled pointy-toe pair of yellow Ali Baba specials would feel on my feet.  Where better to rub the magic lamp and see if my wish might be granted? Mohammed kept having…

Yesterday, when we got off a full-to-overflowing train from Casablanca (it’s the beginning of a week-long holiday for Moroccan families), we followed the crowd over the tracks into the taxi parking zone where two Moroccans were heatedly screaming at each other.  No blows were exchanged, but at one point they hung fire when one of them,…

I haven’t had a drink in years, and yet it was unnerving, in a city of millions where the busy streets are filled with activity, to walk block after block without seeing a single bar or liquor store.   Where were the beckoning neon signs, the glistening bottles behind glass, the beer joints catering to the Bukowskis…

Flying in: lots of leg room; flight 2/3 full; caught up with some movies, the best being Trier’s “The Worst Person In The World.” Landing at the extensive airport outside of Casablanca in a murky early morning mist to join a long snaking line of entrees at passport check-in.  Colorful group!  The Lagos contingent in their long…