Skoura Oasis from the roof above our rooms We found lodgings in the midst of the massive Skoura oasis, some 30km east of Ouarzazate, where we took a suite of rooms in the Kasbah Ben Moro, a mud-walled fortified 18th century dwelling surrounded by date palms that spread to the distant horizon. We walked among the palm groves, where clean alleys were bordered by hand-patted mud walls, and...
Headed into the Drâa Valley It was in the Atlas Mountains — and beyond — where we would find the Glaoui’s most enduring traces, and so we set out in a rented car and ventured into their traditional domain. I decided to start at the fringes and work backwards, bypassing their stronghold of Telouet and driving straight to the gateway of the desert. Aït Benhaddou The Drâa Valley is the...
T’hami el-Glaoui’s Marrakesh palace The dizzying chaos of the Marrakesh bazaar existed in opposition to the serenity of the riads, those old village houses that present their blank doors to the street. From the alley, every house looks more or less the same. It’s impossible to imagine the world that exists behind such plain walls: two or more stories of wandering passageways linking...
Lost in the maze of old Marrakesh The souk was an overpowering lungful of two-stroke motorcycle exhaust, human sweat, sizzling food, and the pungency of a tannery that seemed to soak into my clothes and permeate my skin as I navigated passageways clogged with bicycles, donkey carts and tightly-wrapped humans who strode with determination rather than shuffled along. For the newly initiated...
Steve Kilbey We’re rounding out the year with a conversation that’s different from everything else you’ve heard on Personal Landscapes. Until now, I’ve spoken with or about writers of travel literature. But this time, I’m talking to a songwriter. It’s also an excursion into one of my own personal landscapes. Getting some backstage writing advice (Buffalo, 2009) Steve Kilbey is the singer...
Gordon Peake [Photo by Steve Morris] Gordon Peake’s first book — Beloved Land — was a memoir of life in Timor-Leste, one of the world’s newest and least visited nations. He followed it up with another ‘residency’ book, this time on Bougainville, an island off the coast of Papua New Guinea that hopes to become an independent country. Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation will be published in early...
Did you miss my live stream conversation with writer Lawrence Millman on Tuesday? I heard there was some sort of election in the US. Surely you weren’t watching that instead?! Don’t you want to know what drink pairs best with bird droppings…? Aren’t you curious about how he scared away a mother grizzly and her cubs by flashing his genitals at them…? Do you really mean to tell me you don’t want to...
I went back to Canada for a couple weeks in October to visit friends and family. This journey required six flights — three in each direction — every one of which was delayed. I traveled on three airlines: Lufthansa, Air Canada and SwissAir. All failed in multiple ways despite charging me far more money and delivering far less than in the past, with the exception of physical discomfort which...
Edith Durham, Albania’s ‘mountain queen’ When I hiked through the Accursed Mountains in Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania last June, I met older Albanians who still referred to Edith Durham as their “mountain queen” for her staunch advocacy of Albanian independence and her love of its people. I’d stumbled across a copy of her 1909 book High Albania while preparing for my trip, and...
Bayonne, where tall half-timbered buildings reflect their greens and reds in the Nive I spent my last Basque days in Bayonne, where tall half-timbered buildings reflect their greens and reds in the Nive and Adour rivers. The riverside has a Middle Ages feel about it. It’s easy to imagine those same narrow buildings gazing down at the water traffic that made the city such an important commercial...