Journal

UNESCO records Gnawa as beginning with people taken in the slave trade. Morocco is where the Sahara met the Atlantic, and its heritage list says so plainly.

Morocco is Amazigh and Arab, and both languages are official. Knowing which greeting, which hand and which moment to photograph is most of what a visitor needs.

Morocco marks its year with moussems, harvests and horses. Tbourida and the cherry festival at Sefrou are both inscribed by UNESCO in their own right.

A tagine is the pot, not the dish. Moroccan cooking runs on slow braises, bread used as a utensil, and mint tea that arrives whether you asked for it or not.

A fortified earthen village on the road from the Sahara to Marrakesh, inscribed in 1987. Its communal buildings include a caravanserai and two cemeteries.

A fortified Atlantic port laid out on a European military plan in the 1760s, inscribed in 2001, and called by UNESCO the Port of Timbuktu.

Founded between 789 and 808 and inscribed in 1981, the Medina of Fez is a working city of some hundred thousand people, not an open air museum.

Founded in 1070 and inscribed in 1985, Marrakesh gave the country its name. Its medina covers 700 hectares and its square is inscribed in its own right.

A 42 hectare Roman town on the edge of the empire, inscribed in 1997, that was an Amazigh capital first and an Idrisid one last.

Cyclones from November to April, cool dry highlands from May to October, and an east coast that rains all year. Timing a trip to Madagascar.

Madagascar was settled from Borneo and from East Africa, and Malagasy people were later enslaved and shipped across the same ocean. A double history.

Ancestors are present, fady are local and binding, and a good speech is an art form. How Malagasy society works, and how to be a guest in it.