Travel

AJ

Spring Notes

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As though in the blink of an eye, winter out here has somehow slipped away, the halcyon days of pleasant twenty-five degree mid-day weather and leisurely late evening walks replaced by mid day temperatures in the low thirties. Whilst not truly hot enough to be unpleasant yet, the days leave one with a sense of borrowed time, a fleeting, finite block of time to be enjoyed before harsh reality hits. To make the most of it, and prepare myself for the long slog ahead, I pack the lightest bag I have and catch a flight back to London. Heathrow seems the same way it has always been – functional, frenetic, and increasingly arranged around minimising human contact. Trying to get cash from the ATMs for my taxi raises the spectre of having to pay a withdrawal fee for my UK debit card. A rude shock, and a first for me, if my memory serves me right. A mix-up with the telephone number they have on file for me means we spend the better part of twenty minutes trying to find each other, the blasts of cold, wet air a reminder of the stark difference between here and there. Several phone calls to the taxi company later, he gets my correct number and we find ourselves for the twenty minute ride home via the M25.

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Taxi rides for me have always been one of the understated delights of travel. They are simple: two or more people, stuck in a man-made machine and beholden to each other by a transaction for a finite amount of time, have to make small talk, unencumbered by the weight of knowing and being known. Invariably, the driver is an immigrant or visible minority of some sort, which being what I am tends to create a certain element of shared experience. This trip, I get someone of Pakistani extraction who, when he finds out where I am coming from, proceeds to regale me with stories of a year he spent there working. He rode a taxi there too, his days spent ferrying military contractors to and fro airports, bound for Iraq in the days of the surge. I learn he has a daughter who is studying to be a Chemical Engineer, a wife who spends too much on henna and that he is planning to take his son and father on the Umrah next year. For my part, I nod sagely at the daughter who is studying to be an Engineer – I am after all that guy who thinks STEM is everything to an extent – and smile uneasily at the complaint about the wife. I suspect that in any other setting, this is not information that would be shared but being almost perfect strangers bound together for a brief moment, white lies and unverifiable anecdotes help pass the time.

**

The cul-de-sac on the banks of the Wey has changed quite a bit since I was last here. The houses which lay empty along the way now have occupants; a lady with a strong Geordie accent and her Swedish beau – both ex Airline folks, a Ghanaian couple two houses down and a Hong Kong repat amongst others stand out. The days are spent taking in what little sunshine peeks out from behind the clouds as I take leisurely walk along the Wey with podcasts for company, ferry L to and from nursery and catch up on sleep and TV when I get the chance. As with all days spent chilling they pass all too quickly. All too soon I find myself in a taxi speeding back to the airport and the onward journey of return. On the other side of the trip, Ramadan starts, and with that an extra hour of work without trips to the coffee stand to break the monotony.

AJ

Under the Surrey Sun

Time as a trickster of sorts is a theme I find myself coming back to again and again, the key motif being how in the moment life and time can seem like drudgery, but when viewed from the vantage point of hindsight it can seem compressed, like a video watched at 2x speed. My thoughts as I packed up my bags and began to prepare for the short hop back were very much in that vein, not helped I suspect by the long hard year I had had. Between L, her boundless energy and various work related niggles, I was running on empty for the final few weeks before I left. Awaiting me on the other side – in addition to reintegrating myself back – were a big house move, and the mother of all Nigerian parties on the other side of town. If there was any anticipation, it was hope that I would finally get to sink my teeth into a juicy burger, indulge in all the bacon and sausages I could manage, and hop along to the odd Parkrun. As it turns out, all of my fears – and none of the things I was looking forward to – materialized.As is its wont, Reality and expectation never quite matched up.

Besides the physical reasons (being in places quite some distance from where I needed to be), the disruption to my routine was a key reason for the sense of disconnect between the expectation and reality. A slightly different time, not being able to escape to work, and having to drive quite a few less miles to the shops all differed from my lived reality of the past fourteen months. That was disconcerting in some way I am yet to fully understand.

One of the understated joys of living in this corner of the world where I return to from time to time is the lush greenery, always never more than a few hundred metres away. On previous returns, I have had the time, the space and the energy to take it all in – morning runs, afternoon saunters to the shops and the odd city-centre meet up with a friend. On this occasion however, I found myself perpetually short of time. This is also a theme, I am finding. Life and my time as I know it seems gone away for forever, now permanently centred around S and L and all the things they need to get up to.

The year of being forty-two is slowly winding down. Forty-three needs to come with a big reboot switch.

AJ

Theories, Tea and (Future) 10ks

Image Source: Tara’s Multicultural Table

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The difference a few degrees makes never ceases to amaze me, a small mercy I have recently found to my advantage as the morning temperatures, dipping as they have below 30 degrees for the first time since April, have allowed me go for short runs and brisk runs again. Between stress eating in South Yorkshire and not being able to rack up those 10k steps, my weight has ballooned by a cringe worthy amount. In a sudden fit of resolve, I downloaded the NHS Couch to 5k app and have now completed one week. Hopefully, that along with some portion control, gets me back headed in the right direction. Frankly though, I would settle for being able to complete a sub 24 minute 5k again, seeing as the chap who ran Parkruns for fun in the ‘Deen seems like a whole different person now.

Another small mercy, or delight really, was making a pit stop at a tea spot a few days ago in the middle of a long journey up north. Between the very short notice to grab my gear and head out – the call came during the morning meeting and I had all of twenty minutes to grab a coffee, defer some other stuff and head out – and the long drive (over three hours and then some of 120km/hr driving each way), making a pit stop to drink in the distinctive flavours and grab some much needed caffeine from a cup of Yemeni tea was a blessing in disguise. Thankfully I didn’t do any of the driving, though I did feel for the guy who did. It must have been shattering to do all those miles!

The other thing that came from being cooped up for so long was a deep dive into some conspiracy theories: 9/11, ISIS and the West’s complicity in the travails of the region all came up. Politics and religion are two things I steer well clear of out here, given the different notions of liberty and freedoms that rule the roost out here, so I did most of the listening, throwing in a few questions here and there to appear interested. I am not sure what to make of the Afghanistan debacle, with the Taliban making great gains in the aftermath of the US withdrawal, though the parallels with Northern Nigeria/Chad/ Niger are not lost on me. Sadly hope, which seems to be all we can do for the Nigerian situation, is hardly a recipe for stability or a solution there.

On a brighter note, our little adventure up north has nudged me closer towards being open to explore the vast expanse of this country. I do have to buy a car first, but with my first year behind me and a semblance of slowly settling in, I am finally mentally able to see myself out here for more than a year.

AJ

The Diary: Jacqueville By The Sea

This has been sitting in my drafts for several months, so I thought I’d try to finish it off and post it here as a means to making use of the time I have on my hands.

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If there is a silver lining to being a terrible sleeper it is that I usually manage to wake up in time for things, typically before my alarm rings. The blips on that record are increasingly regular –  and spectacular – like this past weekend when I slept through multiple alarms. When I finally woke up (having failed to do so to the alarm on my phone and on my watch), it was ten minutes before my taxi was due, cue half-brained rushing about to splash some water on my face, brush my teeth and grab my travel bags. By the time that was done, there were already two missed calls from the taxi driver and the company on my phone. There was, I thought, a hint of irritation on the driver’s face when I finally emerged. All of that disappeared once we were on the way, and speeding, to the airport.  The usual chit-chat revealed he had passed through the corner of West Africa I was headed for many years ago, and that he was Latvian, not that anyone could have guessed from his near-perfect Aberdonian accent. Scrambling for change at the airport, he waived the additional £1.20, helped me with getting my bags out of the car trunk and then promptly disappeared for the next gig. Bag drop and security took ten minutes at that time of the morning, by which time I was barely lucid and grateful for the cup of black coffee I poured myself once I was into the lounge. I was the first of my work party to arrive, which gave me some time to settle in and breathe a little, before the incessant chit-chat and mindless prattle began. It was a good thing I managed to catch my breath because the chit-chat, when it began, focused on the prospect of my leaving for greener pastures – being a traitor to the cause was the good-natured accusation thrown about. In those days before the oil price tanked, there were stirrings of growth and opportunities and I was only the latest in a long line of folk who had either left or were in the process of leaving. To cut costs, we had somehow engineered a tight connection at Charles de Gaulle, our turn around time being a grand total of ninety minutes plane to plane which left us hands full, running almost full pelt through the airport. We made it with some time to spare in the end and were delayed by a further hour for reasons unknown to us, all of which left me internally cursing the necessity of the awfully early start. We found out in the end that the delay was due to a deportation order being served on someone, cue police and immigration and all the malarkey that comes with those.

The flight itself was unremarkable, except perhaps for the opportunity it provided to catch up on some sleep and a small moment of which I am ashamed in which I relocated a very pregnant woman’s bags to ensure I’d have access to mine during the flight. Not my finest hour I’ll admit, though I’d point to my being less than mentally optimal from the loss of sleep. There was food, some movie of some description to pass the time and then podcasts to drown out the noise around. The Bamako pitstop was just that, though it added an extra hour to our travel, meaning we arrived at Abidjan just after 5.30pm local time. Customs was a breeze, the one advantage of arriving on a flight that disgorged the majority of its passengers in Bamako, which meant in just under an hour we were through customs bags in hand searching the gathered crowds for our assigned driver. H and I were at our hotel by 7pm and having dinner by 7.30pm, before turning in for our early morning helicopter flight offshore. That set the tone for the week: early starts, late nights and plenty of helicopter flights, meetings, getting frogged on and off remote platforms, and largely being visible. By the time Thursday came around, the days had begun to blur into each other, the situation not helped by terribly slow internet which was the result of issues with undersea cables off the West African coast.

These trips take me down memory lane, to a time and place in which I was the young, exuberant national engineer with expatriate advisors doling out dollops from their vats of wisdom. Back then, I felt like I was kicking against a glass ceiling and would never really hit the heights I wanted to. There is after all, a perverse incentive structure here; the expatriate is by definition highly paid – better remunerated than in his (and it typically is a he in these parts) own country, waited on hand and foot and holds a lot of power by virtue of his perceived expertise. His approval is thus something of great significance in the local power structure, and when given sparingly can drive behaviours of subservience in the local engineer. There is also the small matter of the expat boys club and the propensity to err on the side of supporting the hegemony in the event of a potential threat to that power. After all, every member of the club benefits, and the more the perceived requirements for their expert service persists, the more the local engineers are made to feel and look incompetent. Nationalisation schemes attempt to address the skills gap by demanding quotas for nationals in these companies – whether they work is a different matter altogether. The irony is not lost on me though, I too am out here because of a perceived superiority of expertise – I too have become part of the White-Saviour industrial complex, to borrow a construct from Teju Cole.  I can only hope that with time, at least some of the bright, young people I meet on these trips can hit the heights their exuberance and energy deserve, and opportunities to grow and learn come their way.

We spend the last day back on land, a day visit to Jacqueville being the objective. It is one of those little outposts big (or medium-sized oil in this case) manages to find, the small pump station on the edge of the town being the most important thing of economic significance in the area. The road there, usually impassable in the heights of the rainy season, has recently been graded and is thus somewhat passable. Graded or not, it is a bumpy ride, our convoy of 4×4’s leaving dust in our wake as we bounce along the final stretch of earth road. Palm trees line the earth road, tricycles dot the roads and in the distance, boats bob about on the sea as fishermen go about their daily business. At our final destination, we carry out an impromptu inspection of some work which is planned for completion in early March with several strong words exchanged at the state of preparedness (or not). Part of it is a manifestation of that industrial complex, and the resultant lack of agency of the national engineer in charge. Lurking beneath the surface for me is that it is my last time out here. Although, I have been involved in this place for all of three years. I’d like to think I’m leaving it in a better state than I met it. Even out here, in the middle of nowhere, plastic shrouds the roots of the trees.

AJ

The Diary: Malta

 

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4 am on a weekend is far too early to wake up, particularly when it is the next day after a late-night flight, but given my flight the next day is a 7.30am one I have to suck it up. The next day, having rushed through a shower, completed final bag checks and double-checked I have my passport, we find ourselves in a taxi speeding away on the A3 a little after 5am, barely lucid but glad I don’t have to do the driving. At Gatwick, we find lengthy lines bent double on themselves with baggage handlers thin on the ground. That EasyJet, that famously lean airline, deigns to apologise over the state of affairs is perhaps all one needs to know about just how dire the situation is. Thankfully, we make it through baggage drop and security just before 7am; just enough time to grab a Shake Shack breakfast bun and start frantically eyeing the departure boards for signs of our flight. It ends up delayed, no surprise there.

It is almost mid-day UK time when we catch our first glimpse of the islands as we begin our final descent. The first thing that strikes me is just how small it looks, bringing to mind memories of our last jaunt a few months ago, Madeira. Passport control is a breeze (not for much longer given Brexit I suspect), finding our coach to the hotel takes a little longer but all told we’re at reception checking in to our hotel in Qawra just over an hour after our flight lands. The rest of the day is spent catching up on sleep and getting our bearings in the positively baking 17 deg C heat, a shock to the system given the London temperatures we’ve just escaped.

With time – three years and counting – a method has evolved around these holidays: a catch up with the official tour representative to get the lay of the land, followed by a hop-on/ hop-off tour of the city and then a few official tours with free days in which we do our own thing as we feel like. At our travel agency briefing we find out about shared connections – M is part Maltese and grew up in North London before upping sticks and relocating to this corner of the world. As for tours, we sign up for a day trip to Gozo, a guided tour that takes in the old capital Mdina, Mosta, a craft village and Valletta and the Christmas day special. We also sign up for the hop-on/hop-off tour of the south of the island to take advantage of the 3 euro discount.

There is a certain symmetry to the beauty of quaint European cities: narrow cobbled streets, old buildings and magnificent cathedrals around which each village/city is centred which, after you’ve been to a few, can begin to blend into each other. Undergirding what we see though is how the intersecting interests and intrigue over millennia have shaped the present. Thanks to its location, and perhaps climate, Malta has seen more than its fair share of conquest with imprints of pre-historic peoples, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, The Aragonese, Sicilians, Knights of Saint John and the British all there to see. These were all sights we took in in bits and pieces over the 8 days we spent out there. Most surprising for me though is how the Arabic influence has persisted, most notably in the spoken language. That tension between the past and the present remains visible in the form of cranes and spruced up facades sitting often next to the tired and worn limestone ones of other buildings.

We had the pleasure of experiencing two power cuts during the period of our stay, the causes of which we never managed to understand. That, and the chaos we seemed to just manage to avoid (read late departures for tours/ frantic phone calls by our travel agency rep to confirm tours were still on), brought shades of Lagos to mind. Back to the power situation: at the fishing village of Marsaxlokk we spotted a tanker delivering LNG to the power station visible across the bay and not very many wind turbines. Given the high winds we experienced – which threatened to toss someone’s weave into the sea as we waited to board the ferry at Sliema – the absence of wind turbines was interesting.

The ornately decorated insides of St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta and St Phillips in Zebbug caused me to cast my mind to sacred spaces and how their design can inspire a sense of wonder in the worshipping faithful. This is something our Pentecostal spaces would do well to learn from I think, given their typically more spartan outlook.

Being able to wander the streets, thanks to long paved promenades at St Julian’s, between Qawra and St Paul’s bay amongst others was a positive, particularly given the temperatures which were just warm enough, staying mainly in the 15 to 17 deg C range for most of the time out there. On one of those walks, we came across a game of bocce and stayed a few minutes to watch. Given it was our first time we had no clue what the objective was besides, as a German tourist who also stopped to watch put it, old people passing time 😊

One of the reasons for sticking with Europe this time was to try to get into the Christmas spirit. Nativity scenes and colourful night-time displays dotted the landscape. Running into several other black faces was a welcome change from our previous travels – even as it included running into friends of friends.

For all the things we planned and did, two things defined this holiday for me, both unexpected. A wander into St Paul’s Bay on which we chanced upon a tiny church which supposedly marks the location of Paul’s shipwreck and the introduction of Christianity, and a boy who took to the piano in the airport and proceeded to delight us all, to sporadic applause now again – the perfect, unscripted ending to a season of chilling if ever there was one.

P.S: More pictures here (on Google Photos), if those are your bag.

AJ

Christmas…

Snowed in on my first Aberdeen Christmas…

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As I write this I am slouched in a chair, head banging and eyes sore from the remnant of a cold, the only hint of Christmas out here being the podcast I am listening to, profering explanations for the Star of Bethlehem. In my head though, I am back to my first proper Aberdeen Christmas from which this picture comes, the enduring image being one of snow, bitter cold and loads of time for introspection. Many years ago, when I still was in children’s Sunday School in the University Chapel my family attended, the carol service and reeling off lengthy passages committed to memory were most looked forward to, alongside rice and plentiful chicken. At one of those, I played the Magi with Myrrh, in addition to the scripture memory. Since then, the story of the Magi who bearing gifts has always intrigued me, particularly as it relates to the moving star.

At the linked podcast, Justin Brierley, Mark Kidger and Gillian Straine ponder the physical evidence for an event observable from the earth as a moving star and the theological implications of a natural explanation. Well worth a listen if that kind of thing is your bag. Merry Christmas regardless….

AJ

Pula Notes

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There is something infinitely fascinating about a gaggle of Brits suddenly transposed from their dour, grey climes into warm, sunny 24- degree weather. Once the coats and jackets begin to lift, the noise levels increase. I suppose nothing says ‘your holiday begins now‘ more succinctly than being hit by a wall of hot air.  On this occasion though, before the holiday properly begins, we have to navigate the small matter of customs and passport control at Pula Airport. Thankfully, it is a lot less painful than  before, thanks to new passports, and good timing – just before the rush of traditional holiday season.

Giancarlo, our Croatian guide with an Italian name, does a good job of finding everyone on our bus in time, and keeping us entertained with useful tattle as we make our way to the various hotels to drop folk off. The views from the window of our coach  – red earth, plenty of greenery and (mainly) quaint, boxy buildings  – suggest this is a place very much in its own image, yet to become fully subsumed in serving a tourist culture. That does not spare it from the long arms of globalisation though, the Lidl store not far away from the local Plodine underscoring some of the pressures behind the Asda – Sainsbury tie-up. Our hotel, the Park Avenue Histria, is the last stop, a walking distance from the Verudella marina. At first blush – grand facade apart – it doesn’t have the spanking new look of the Movenpick from Marrakech or the King Evelthon from Paphos, but once we are settled in, it feels like a good enough compromise between price and location, given what views of the sea we can see from our windows. The rest of that first day is spent catching our breath, having been up at 4.00 am for a 7.00 am flight from Gatwick (which ends up significantly delayed).

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The next day, having been suitably energised by a good night’s sleep – and a hefty breakfast  – we made a beeline for reception, where we found a walking tour of the city just about to set off.  A wizened widower, returning for the first time since the loss of his wife, a retired banker who had taken up writing as a second career and his wife, and a couple from Montenegro now living in Berlin were in our group as well as a couple of British couples and ourselves. Our guide was yet another Croat with an Italian name, Romeo. The first stop on that tour was the local market where we mingled with the crowds eyeballing fresh fruit, vegetables and cheeses, with the smell of fresh fish from the adjoining fish market following us around. It was here we saw our first black face, in one of the stalls selling cheese. We did the thing, that barely perceptible nod that black people who find themselves interloping in the middle of a sea of other faces do to acknowledge each other. Once done with the market, our walk took us through the Golden Gate (more properly the Arch of the Sergi), then up steep, narrow side streets toward the maritime museum. Highlights of the route we took were James Joyce’s residence in Pula (click here for the fascinating story behind that) and the great view of the harbour with a few semi-subs in for maintenance. The shops along the way all had football shirts – Croatia had two players on the Real Madrid team which won the UEFA Champions League final, and will play in this year’s Football World cup. Football also came up in conversation with Romeo, when it came to light that we were Nigerian. The most breathtaking aspect of the tour was the old arena, its magnificent facade towering over that section of town – it is supposedly the most complete/ outstanding amphitheatre outside Rome.  Once done, our group broke up with quite a few folk wanting to have a wander about the insides of the arena whilst others wanted to press on elsewhere. We made mental notes to return to the arena and the maritime museum later in the week.

***

It was a good thing we did the city tour when we did as the next two days ended up being miserable and wet, ruining our plans to go out on a boat tour. The silver lining from those days was running into Romeo at reception, alongside the writer and fashion buyer couple from our second day. At his prodding, we headed off to the sports facilities to golf in the rain and afterwards enjoy a mini table tennis tournament. When the rain let up on our fourth day, we visited the nearby aquarium, housed in a re-purposed Austro-Hungarian fort. The grey, boxy fort brought back memories of Vienna, and the Haus Der Meeres – housed in another re-purposed military installation.

The rest of our stay served up much better weather, which we took advantage of with a couple of packaged tours. The first of these, the flavours of Istria tour which we booked via our TUI representative, took in a number of the main tourist cities (Medullin, Vodnan, Bale, Porec and Rovinj) as well as a few out the way places (Zminj & Grzini from memory). Lunch was at an agro-tourism restaurant in Zminj (the Familija Ferlin) where we had a soup (manestra) for starters, hand made potato dumplings in a ragu sauce for the main and some fritule for dessert. Although our guide compared them to doughnuts, the more pertinent association in my inner Nigerian mind was to puff-puff. The second was a boat ride out of Medullin with a pit stop at caves for the more intrepid divers to explore and a grilled lunch aboard.

***

The long and varied history of the Istrian peninsula – from being first populated by an Illyrian tribe through various conquests and interactions with the Greeks, Romans, Franks, Goths, French, Venetians, the Austro-Hungarians, modern day Italians, Germans, and being part of Yugoslavia – was on display all through the whistle stop tour in the arena, numerous temple ruins, Rovinj with its colourful buildings down to the edge of the water, old church buildings with detailed murals and paintings, forts and military installations. This  is a region of Croatia which has clearly been enriched by its various interactions with people over its history. How that history has affected the demographics of the region is a subject I cannot pretend to know enough of from a few days spent here but amidst the clamour of voices suggesting it has been good for the region there was the odd voice of discontent praising the central region for never being subsumed into the Venetian republic. Tito’s legacy was also another subject that spurred vigorous discussion. For all the vitriol lobbed in his direction in the West for being a dictator, I got a sense that he was venerated in many quarters in Pula. As one guide put it, even now we struggle to paint the things that Tito built. 

AJ

Marrakesh

 

Marrakesh,  with its ochre-coloured buildings, towering minarets and bustling souks is quickly becoming a distant memory, the joys and delights of roaming its streets being progressively replaced by a sense of having returned to drudgery. Although the three weeks of work I have gotten under my belt since my return have provided fertile ground for that feeling to fester, the seeds were sown in Marrakesh, everything from passport control and its lengthy queues, an hour and a half spent waiting for a bag to turn up and even more queues at the body scanner as we waited to exit the airport all setting the tone for what seemed like running a gauntlet.  Once through all of that bedlam and outside the airport, the smell of smoke – somewhat like the linger of the remains of a thousand spit roasting fires – was a warm welcome of sorts.

Having gotten to our hotel – the Movenpick Mansour Eddahbi  – quite late on the Saturday we arrived, we spent the next day getting ourselves familiar with our surroundings, mainly to work out where dinner could be had close by, and where we could get bottled water – thankfully the Menara mall was handy for both. On our first evening out we had the good fortune of running into an English woman, her daughter and her Moroccan son-in law, who were kind enough to suggest a few lower priced places close by.

The days went quickly with visits to various places, all on the beaten path. The in-house botanist at the Argan oil factory we stopped at as part of the Ourika Valley tour impressed with his knowledge of a number of herbs and their use in alleviating various maladies from diabetes to psoriasis, albeit as a precursor to a hard selling session. There was also the hike up a precipitous rock face towards some water falls which at various times felt like flirting with death; no regard for health and safety one of the quintessentially English – and aged – couples on the climb pointed out as they dropped out halfway along the climb. The Yves Saint Laurent Museum was one of the most sought after places, lengthy queues guarding the entry on both days we tried. We braved the consequences at the second time of asking, being rewarded by what was a truly fascinating experience centred around the YSL oeuvre and his connections to Marrakesh.  Elsewhere there were pit stops at the Koutoubia Mosque and the gardens close by, various places in the old Medina, including a tannery, the Saadian tombs and the Bahia Palace.

We opted for a trip to the Chez Ali fantasy show on our last night, joined by a motley of other folk – an Italian couple, an Indian family of five, an older French couple and a trio of dark skinned French speaking folk. The facade of the venue was imposing, framed as it was by a large gate, ochre-red walls and a guard of horsemen lined up either side. Once through body searches and then allowed to go in, we were seated around round tables in a tent for the meal – a legume based soup as a starter, lamb dates and nuts as a second course and then a bowl of couscous to wrap things up. There were tricks by the horsemen, what looked like a demonstration of military tactics in which the mounted riders charged at the crowd and set off their guns into the air, and then a belly dancing session. All of that made for a far more sedate experience than clambering over rocks in the Ourika valley just a few days ago. The weather was much warmer – and drier – than London, the low twenties and high teens being a welcome escape from the sub-zero temperatures in the Northern England city we would have been in if we hadn’t gone to Marrakesh. Here are more  pictures, hardly done justice to by my iPhone.

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I found shades of Lagos in everything; the relentless, in-your-face hustle of people trying to sell everything from tours to bottles of Argan oil, the laisser-faire approach to driving and diving through junctions, roadside bus stops with people spilling into the roads and the police checkpoints a few of the more obvious similarities. That mopeds were everywhere, and more than a few ancient Peugeot cars didn’t help ameliorate that festering feeling of being on edge, of always being only a few misaligned bits of Swiss cheese away from a monumental cataclysm. I suspect I was far more concerned than I should have, but on these travels I am finding that rather being away from home, I carry shades of home with me; warts, joys, near dystopia and all.