Fear of the unknown. Moroccan Sahara. 2024
The stony, desert rubble is punctuated at intervals by the desiccated carcasses of camels. Pausing at one, I adjust my pack, gazing at the flapping hide, the desert’s ultimate memento mori, and judge that only an hour of light remains. I feel intensely alive amidst this desolation, but there is lingering anxiety too. I plan to camp on the shores of a temporary lake near the town of Merzouga, and doing so will break my own rule of wild camping: don’t set up in an open plain, on view to all.
When I reach the water it has an unnatural chemical hue beneath the strange intensity of the white sun, so near to disappearing yet still so bright. Stunted, dying trees abound near the water’s edge, and wading birds lift off in chaotic flights. Otherworldly is the only word. More comforting are the little groups of Moroccan men lounging around near their parked bikes. But they soon leave for home, and I am left alone amidst a buzzing congregation of flies. As I pitch the tent in gloomy silence, my mind considers the oncoming night. Without companion or phone signal what comfort will I find in this void?
As soon as the tent pole is up, it is taken down in haste. I retrace my passage in near total darkness to the safety of the town, find a bed for the night, and in the embarrassingly pleasant courtyard, look up at the stars, wondering if this condition of wavering between wildness and safety is inherent to mankind, or simply my own peculiar way of travelling.
Fear of the known. Accursed Mountains, Kosovo. 2023
Hemmed in by the steep, boulder-strewn banks of a dry mountain stream, and unnerved by the loud snapping of branches underfoot, I ascend the valley. Topography which has narrowed the trail narrows the mind also: in such close quarters no sweeping vista lifts the spirit to abstract meditations, no birdsong dispels the solitude. A snap of twigs behind. A heavy footfall. Immediately I know it is something to scramble away from. Glancing behind, there is a flash of brown fur, loping legs – a brown bear. I heave myself up the right bank, and it scrambles up the left. He’s off on his own panicked exit, I think, but I still want out. In a state of ordered frenzy I move through the scratchy undergrowth, bear scat everywhere, towards the dirt road.
Strange that it takes only a few minutes of deep breathing to consider again the prospect of the trail with something like excitement, and I retrace my steps. Further progress is abandoned when I realise that, despite running away, the bear had rejoined the river-bed trail somewhere downstream, then followed me in silence.
It was only the sound of the cracking branches which had helped me avoid a set-piece encounter I was bound to lose.
Fear which comes from nowhere. Fez, Morocco. 2023
Cresting a slope and hitting the tarmac road, I’m met with a barrage of garbled hoots, high-pitched squeals and whistles such as I’ve never heard before. Indistinct at first, two shepherds become visible, wiry men with long faces, perfectly camouflaged against the sloping hill opposite, arms spread in the classic make-yourself-big defensive posture. They are like tribal people who, robbed of a shared language, have only physicality to warn the prying anthropologist off their patch. I have the impression they are capable of anything.
The fact that the countryside behind me had been so well cultivated and unthreatening only heightens the sense of bewilderment. Whether because of the wind or because of their rising pitch, their hollering intensifies as I slink down the valley, legs stumbling on muddied slopes, an afternoon expedition torn in two by the incomprehensible hostility of strangers.
Someone else’s fear. Peruvian Andes. 2017
It was a scream recognisable from horror films – high-pitched, an unambiguous howl presaging some awful event. Short in length, perhaps female, but so long ago it’s tricky to recall. But it woke me with all the rudeness of a violent blow in my hostel bed in Cusco. It was the very early hours, and the hostel door was locked at night, perhaps to keep out the very people capable of eliciting such sounds from human lips. All I do is look around dumbly, allow the silence to excuse me from any further action, and fall asleep.
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