Category Archives: North Africa and Middle East

Suspended reality

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Sometimes you just want to go somewhere where everyday life feels far away. Where things are not quite real. I get that feeling when I’m in Dubai – which is also known in my head as Arabic Disneyland. It’s all so clean and shiny and sparkly and unreal – and that’s just the airport…

There are many elements of the UAE that don’t sit well with me, like their environmental degradation and poor labour laws, but I seem able to ignore those when visiting friends for a luxurious couple of days. And a surreal balcony vista like this helps make my daily stresses feel very distant.

Dubai's motto: build it and they will come? The marina awaits its floating tenants.

Wandering through winding alleyways

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If there’s an ‘old town’ section in a city, you can be sure I’ll make a beeline for it. I’ll happily spend an hour, or a day, getting lost in a maze of lanes too small for anything larger than a donkey. The further off the tourist trail, the better.

The vivid blue of the lower part of the walls in the Kasbah des Oudaias in Rabat is a treat for the eyes; a calm contrast to the dazzling white above.  (Rabat, Morocco, 2003)

What's behind that brass-studded door?

“Pinch me” moments

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I love, love, LOVE those moments when you’re in another country and it hits you: “I’M IN PARIS!” – or New York, or on a glacier, or 35,000 feet above Turkey and making a phone call from my plane seat, or….

I adore the goosebumps I get when in front of me, for the first time, is something so iconic, it feels totally unreal. It looks just like it does in all those photos! Whether my travel companions find my excitement and enthusiasm endearing or annoying, I don’t know – but I hope I never lose it. My stomach is feeling all squirmy just thinking about these moments, right now :-)

The first of many images in this category: Cairo, Egypt, 2010.

Glimpsing the Pyramids for the first time. I'M IN CAIRO!

Perfect light off the tourist trail

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Looks a little like that game where you see how many wooden blocks you can pile up before it tumbles...

Is there anything better than getting lost while wandering around in a new city? I spent a day walking around Cairo before joining a small group tour of Egypt and my North American tourmates were horrified that I’d been exploring what can only be described as a crazy, noisy, exhilarating, crowded and heavy-on-the-culture-shock metropolis on my own. Not once though did I feel unsafe, and exploring local neighbourhoods and stumbling upon a building like this was one of the many memorable moments.

This apartment block stood separate from the others, bathed in sunlight that struggled through the city’s modern smog and ancient dust.  (Egypt, 2010)

Double takes

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Makes sense when you realise Arabic is read from right to left...

 

Sometimes when I am exploring a new place, I’ll notice a small detail that will stop me in my tracks and make me laugh. I’ve seen knock-off brands like Tommy Holfiger and Roflex in markets around the world, but this motorcycle just outside the Djemaa el Fna was a first.  (Marrakech, 2003)