ATLAS DREAMING
MY GARMIN IS TELLING ME TO TURN LEFT, ONLY there’s no road, just the faint outline of a dirt track leading into a vast expanse of copper-tinged mountains. Surely this can’t be right. I take out the old tattered map I was given in Marrakech to double-check. There’s a small, but clearly defined road showing.
“… MY EMOTIONS ARE DIVIDED: I AM LONGING FOR A HOT SHOWER, something of a rarity in the mountains; equally I don’t want the ride to finish...”
It dawns on me that I have two choices: turn left or turn back. Engrossed in thought, pondering what to do, I fail to notice a bedraggled donkey, laden with towering bundles of grass, ambling towards me. It’s only as it draws nearer that I discover it’s accompanied by a diminutive figure dressed in a traditional djellaba wandering behind.
Upon seeing me the old man’s crumpled, leathery face breaks out into a warm, toothless smile.
