Matt Feldman Photography
It’s awful. Really. So impossible looking is this, well, thing, that seeing it in person has served to shatter the mythical tales of its triumphant use.The legendary Trojan Horse is probably the most ridiculous looking thing I have ever seen.
Death was imminent. I was sure of it. It was so humid that the word “air” could be used only sparingly. And it was so hot that there may as well have been an onion on my head and a tomato in my mouth: I was being roasted alive. The thermometer pegged the temperature at 72oC (162oF).
The first bombs fell about 10 pm. Their arrival was no surprise — journalists left the city two days prior. Residents gathered in Cold War-era shelters as the air raid sirens wailed and radio reports warned of the need for gas masks. The state-run television station blinked out. Explosions erupted around the city and the lights went black.
Morocco has been officially rocked. Aboard the ferry to Spain, I spent my last Dirhams on insanely cheap Smirnoff and candy bars. It was quite a way to go out.
I was in the line to visit the ship’s Moroccan immigration officers when I noticed the guy in the line beside me. He looked, well, Moroccan. And in his hand was a Canadian passport. After reading wild tales of hucksters and scam artists, I was keen to know if the ship’s currency exchange rate was decent.
Casting off for an extended voyage is a paradigm shift in the experience of usual, brief sojourns. I cherish the basics: Having only beginning and end points to a trip. The freedom to think of time as a minor, abstract detail — able to move in any direction, to capitalize on any moment. Spontaneity. Serendipity. Experience. As for so many travelers, these themes have become my very definition of escape.