The backstreet cafe in Casablanca was for me a place of mystery, a place with a soul, a place with danger. There was a sense that the safety nets had been cut away, that each citizen walked upon the high wire of this, the real world. I longed not merely to travel through it, but to live in such a city.

I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.

It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance with which ancestry is held in the Middle East and North Africa.

A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you.

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

In Morocco, before you even get to the matter of the sale, you have to coax the owner to sell.

Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood.