Snow in the High Atlas

Author Jeremy Rumfitt was trekking in a remote valley in Morocco’s High Atlas mountains when he came across the plantation. Row after row of terraced bushes stretching as far as the eye could see, It looked like tea, but was it. Days later, in a hotel bar in Marrakech the tourist was offered a line of snow. "It's good," boasted the Arab. "It's locally-grown". The tourist rolled a fifty Dirham note and inhaled. It was as good as the best he’d ever had. The tourist shook his head. ‘Locally-grown? Nobody grows cocaine outside of South America’. ‘Why not?’ said the Arab, ‘if the climate and the soil conditions are right?’. ‘The Colombians would not allow it’, said the tourist. ‘The cartels would close the operation down. It could get very messy.’ At dawn the next morning the Arab was dumped in the middle of Djeema el Fna, Marrakech’s fabled central square. His throat was slit from ear to ear. The cartels had claimed their first victim.
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