That Long And Winding Road

by shz

There was a sudden urge to dig old pictures of Morocco when I saw it so beautifully shot and captured in The English Patient on TV the other day. Photos I never published or thought unworthy to be shown other than what I posted up here and here. I can’t even remember what year it was, 2005 or 2006. Maybe it was 2006 as this was right after we all finished our degree.

I don’t think I had ever written about the journey to Sahara Desert (edge of, actually) from the city of Marrakech. Probably because the main memory I have of that journey was being sick or trying to get comfortable seating positions next to two Americans with one childish enough to make fun of the other’s sleeping face with mouth gaping open. That and the lunches at the Kasbah, the river we had to cross to get to the clay city of Ait Ben Haddou, the cool air as we got higher up on the Atlas mountains, the camel that brought me down..  It was actually the longest ride of my life, 10 hours to be exact, along those winding road through Ouarzazate, Agdez, Draa Valley to reach Zagora.

But now I want to remember again.

Life’s truly picture-perfect moments come few and far between, but you can capture several of them at one time in magnificent Sahara. Although truthfully our camera lenses could not do proper justice to the beauty of the sea of sand dunes set against shimmering gray, yellow, orange, and red light. Quite honestly you could find more worthy pictures of Sahara on the Google than these..

Its perplexing how I feel differently about a picture when looking back at it after these many years. Now that Morocco seems so out of reach, I feel more appreciative towards shots that were taken spontaneously, badly composed or shot without having much thought on it. It feels nostalgic and revived all sort of feelings I felt at that particular moment in my life when experienced it, despite it not being the best set of pictures from the trip.

I think am gonna start digging more archives again.

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