Category: Travels
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A Tale of Very Old Water Tunnels, Dying Palms & A Police Citation
[One of the many towns we encountered on our way west…toward Marrakesh. Photo is mine.] Traveling-it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. ~~ Ibn Battuta The Great Dunes are behind us. My dream of riding into the largest desert in the world has been fulfilled. I have no regrets, except for the…
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I Ride A Camel Through The Dunes And Ponder The Shape Of Things
Midnight at the oasis Sing your camel to bed… ~~ Maria Muldaur Midnight at the Oasis I did it. We did it. We were shown our camels, and without any instruction at all, we road off into the dunes. Our destination was our Dune Camp. I volunteered to be first to mount the dromedary assigned…
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Nothing Prepared Me For The Medina Of Fez
Leaving our hotel in Fez is an experience. We left our room and walked down a flight of stairs to a sitting room, a sofa with cushions. A baby grand piano is in the next room. Portraits of men in Fezs’ and women in veils. Soldiers with carbines and horses with elaborate saddles. In the…
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Paris Inhabits Me, But Must Free Me To Wander The Dunes
[A Gargoyle contemplates Paris from Notre Dame Cathedral. Charles Laughton, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1939, says to the figure: “Why am I not made of stone like this statue?” Source: Google Search] “Paris…is loath to surrender itself to people who are in a hurry; it belongs to the dreamers…” ~~Julian Green “We’ll always…
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I Will Learn to Speak Camel
[Source: Google search.] The desert is a natural extension of the inner silence of the body. ~~Anon On September 23, 2024, give or take a day or three, I will say “Bayokav” to a camel. The odd-shaped creature will stand from a kneeling position. I will be sitting, hopefully in comfort, on the gentle beast.…
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yes I said yes I will Yes.
[James Joyce. Source: Google Search.] Yes, I’m perfectly aware that the title I’ve chosen for this blog is the final sentence in the wondrous novel, Ulysses. Written by James Joyce (shown above) and considered one of the most seminal books of the 20th century. I am also aware that the quote is from Molly Bloom’s…
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Heart of Glass
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~~Anton Chekhov [Our glass horse from Murano, Italy. Photo is mine.] Sometime in the ancient distant foggy and shadowy history of human existence, someone discovered how to make glass. This is thought to have occurred around 4,000 years ago.…
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Last Thoughts From The Cathedral Crypt
[One of the many small chapels in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral. Photo is mine] I’m sitting with Mariam in a small chapel in the crypt of this amazing Cathedral. There are several reasons why I’m sitting here on a small very hard wooden chair. One is that the temperature is probably close to 65º…
patrickjegan 