In this entry, I would like to talk about a recent news article I read in the New York Times about Morocco. The journalist who wrote this article recently went to Morocco and went up Mount Imlil in the Atlas Mountains. Throughout our readings and whirlwind tours in tourism geography class about the geography of a region or planning a trip, very rarely do we get brought to the region in imagination through story. At times it is nice (if you even have leisure time for recreational reading) to sit down with a cup of tea and be allowed to see a place through an authors eyes. In the recent article Under Morocco’s Spell one can actually get a feeling for Morocco. The author, Rachel Donadio writes about her experience hiking in the mountains with her guide who nick named her “Fatima,” who I believe is the goddess of fate:
Soon we were joined by Ali, a small, sprightly man with a tonsure haircut, who rode with our luggage on his mule. In my honor, Lahcen and Ali sang a song about a Fatima who wanted to pack her suitcase and go to Agadir, a town on the coast (page 2 of the Web Site).
Whether or not travel geography theorists would deem this experience authentic; I could not be the judge. The four-page story also included a little box where one could click and see a kind of slide show of the pictures taken in the region traveled as well as hear the author narrating about her experience there. As I do not get to watch TV very often, I realized that this may be something I could do quite often to brush up on my current travel news.
Direct address to NYT article Under Morocco’s Spell - http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/travel/22Morocco.html?pagewanted=2&ref=travel?8dpc
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