One of the highlights of the Morocco trip my wife and I recently took was staying with La Baraka Auberge just outside of Merzouga, on the border of the Sahara, about 100 km’s from Algeria. Our host, Hassan Outaleb, was a film-star cum philosopher Berber of nomadic heritage who has run La Baracka for several years.

Rather memorably – if not because it was highly rehearsed, he would impart his own cultural wisdom onto us between meals and volleys of mint-tea ‘Berber Whisky.’ I think the point he made most strongly was ‘what’s bad for the rest of the world, is good for Berber.’ Primarily – at the heart of it, he was referring to the perception (more…)