New Year's Eve, 2007 finds us at the gateway to North Africa: Tangier, Morocco. A sin-city only a generation ago, Tangier is now poised between the charm of yesteryear and the promise of modernity. Elsewhere in Morocco it was hard not to be conscious of the events of centuries before, but Tangier's heyday was in the late 19th and 20th centuries, and we wandered the narrow streets mindful not of ancient sultans but of the Beat Generation's Usual Suspects.

The best memories of travel are of the people we meet along the way. This is, after all, why we travel: because we learn as much about ourselves as we do about others, but what we learn about ourselves we learn through others' eyes. In that spirit, one of my fondest memories of Tangier will be of Mustapha Cherqui, the caretaker of St. Andrew's Church.

Touring Morocco means spending long hours looking up, because the Islamic architects that crafted Morocco's most dramatic cities carried their talents high up into the sky in the form of splendid minarets. In fact, were looking up not so dangerous - it seems like every time I lifted my head I narrowly escaped being run over by a donkey bearing goods down the cities' narrow streets - I would have spent more time admiring the delicate craftsmanship that makes Moroccan cities such a pleasure to experience.

To my right was a taciturn gentleman hunched into the corner, to my left a young man clutching a folded paper sack, and then a dark haired woman leaning against the window on a hand with a large silver ring. Across from me were an older woman dressed in an elegant, tiger-print djellaba whose hands were so hennaed they looked like lace gloves, a younger woman in jeans and a head scarf, as well as a woman with silver-framed glasses and her hair loose. After a couple of silent kilometers and polite nods the young man opened the sack, revealing roasted cashews and pistachios, and offered them around. In Morocco we found ourselves traveling amidst diplomats in the true sense of the word.

Tea in Meknes with

Two cubes of sugar,

Sunlight fading against the

Old city wall.

The year is 1248: North Africa has been Islamicized for six centuries and Fes has grown under Sultan Idriss II to become a center of learning unparalleled across the Eastern hemisphere, and a place of spiritual importance third only to Mecca and Medina. It is into this particular moment we plunged when we entered Fes, the most complete example of a medieval Islamic city: narrow cobbled streets, souks (markets) shuttered under awnings of sewn rushes, wooden bins of clementines, flat breads, and dates, stunning zellij tilework and calligraphy.

We toured the Mosque Hassan II in Casablanca and found it to be remarkable, built almost entirely from materials produced in Morocco, from the cedar to the granite. The lighting was soft and natural, and most impressive of all (to me) was the fact the mosque was built partially over the water, because according to the Koran, God's throne is over the sea. So the God of Islam is a naturalist: delightful.

Marrakesh's Place Djemaa el Fna was the best place on earth to eat. Around the edge of the square were the restaurants serving warm couscous and stewed meats, and the ubiquitous sidewalk cafes serving mint tea and steaming black coffee. But across the rest of the square every stall was a new delight: heaps of walnuts, almonds, and salted cashews, dried apricots, fresh prunes, figs, and dates. We liked to settle down at one of the long wooden benches for a local specialty, Soupe a la Moroccaine, a tomato bisque full of vegetables and spices served in a deep ceramic bowl with a wooden spoon the size of a small ladle. In the cold, mountain air, nothing was more satisfying. Well, perhaps one thing.