The Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.

Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.

There comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest.

The rain of Madre de Dios is similar to that of the Amazon, but there is a petrifying aspect to it, as if it seeks to wound rather than to nurture.

The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.

A little imagination goes a long way in Fes.

For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.