The Rock of Tariq
They say Morocco is like an island, separated from the rest of the world by two vast oceans - the Atlantic and the Sahara - and by the straits of the Jebel al Tariq, Gibraltar.
The minaret of Koutoubia
Markets of Marrakech
Rooftops of Marrakech
The view from Ait Ben Haddou
It's a borderland, an eternal frontier. A frontier of Africa, a frontier of the Arab world, a frontier of Europe. An eclectic garden carved by a turbulent history, by the Orient meeting the Occident, mating.
It's the Garden of the Hesperides, or Atlantides, living in an other world; secluded behind their father Atlas, far behind the pillars of Heracles. The garden of Jonah vomited by a whale, drifted by the Atlantic currents. The garden of Phoenician navigators, of Roman consuls, Arab warlords adressing God on the shores of the Atlantic, the garden of magnificent Berber kings and European colonists and the Istiqlal.
A corner of land both shaped by - and shaping - the wider human history; from Guadalete to the halls of Algeciras and the wilderness of the Rif to the borders of Algeria and walls of Western Sahara.
A wadi separating the old ksar from the modern tourist infrastructure
The geometry of Tin Mal, the ancient cradle of the Almohads
Moroccan kings fancy their tombs. The mausoleum of Mohammed V. and Hassan II., Rabat.
A watchtower of Essaouira
The old walled coastal town of Essaouira
The port of Essaouira
It's a cliché to talk about a land of opposites, and Morocco is full of clichés, a pastiche of it's own identity offered for sale.
Tourists are flocking, ravaging the proud old Fez, the playful Marrakech, those giant open-air museums bordering on theme parks. Filmmakers from all over the world are coming to celebrate distant lands, setting their Gizas and Tibetan plateaux here, their universal arabesque travesties.
But deep inside, deep under the glittering baubles and orientalist fairtytales, Morocco remains a garden. Perhaps a walled one, pampered and protected in the middle of the desert, a Roman, Mauresque palatial patio, but a garden still, reflecting a piece of paradise on Earth, an oasis, a garden of Eden.
On the frontier
The "Fantasia" in the Atlas foothills.
In the Atlas
Streets of Tinghir
Rooftops of Marrakech