Ceuta wall

On the violence of borders

I recently visited Ceuta, a piece of the north African coast that belongs to Spain and is hence part of “Europe”. It was a very strange and disturbing experience to cross that border so easily just by showing my British passport,…
Chefchaouen

The “blue town” of Chefchaouen

Usually I try to tie my posts to a topic or theme, or expand my travel observations into an essay. This post isn’t like that. It’s just some photos of a town that’s blue. The town is called Chefchaouen, and it’s…
Road sign in Africa

The pull of the road

Back in the year 2000, Genie and I took our first trip together. We were living in New York City at the time, and we rented a car and drove up to Montreal. After a great long weekend there, it was…
Dunes near Merzouga

In a desert state of mind

We’re now more than a month into our trip around Morocco, and I have lots of things I want to say about it. But I’m struggling to formulate those thoughts exactly. I think what it comes down to is that…
On the road in Morocco, New Year's Day 2017

Living on the road

People have been asking me where I am living these days, so here’s an update. In early 2015, Genie and I started living on the road. We gave up our rented apartment in Crete, sold most of our stuff and…

“Allah’s Garden” by Thomas Hollowell

This is an interesting book about a conflict that has been going for decades and yet rarely grabs the headlines. When Western Sahara won its independence from Spain in 1975, Morocco laid claim to the land and sent thousands of…