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    noticed that a high, barbedwire fence surrounded the entire hotel. The shuttle dropped me off. Crossing the walkway to the hotel entrance was like crossing a moat into a fort.
    A man in a uniform searched me again when I entered the hotel. As I walked to the reception desk, I looked up and around. The hotel was new, modern. I could see all the way up to the tenth floor from where I stood in the foyer. But something was missing. I filled out the registration form, gave the woman my credit card, then looked around. That's what was missing— people .
    I scanned the area looking for the stand containing pamphlets and flyers for tourist attractions, the kind commonly seen in hotels. That was missing, too. I motioned to the woman behind the counter, an attractive darkhaired woman in her early twenties.
    "I suppose there are no day tours?"
    She shook her head, avoiding my eyes.
    "I was hoping to look around," I said.
    "I'm sorry," she said.
    She turned and walked away. I took the elevator to the ninth floor, let myself into my room, and flopped down on the bed. I wasn't a guest in a hotel; I was a hostage in an almost empty fort. There was nowhere to go, and no one to meet. I looked around the room. There were no tour books, no magazines, no guides to this city. I walked to the
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    window and opened the curtains. I could see a small speck of harbor through the tiny window. I had now traveled halfway around the world to sit in my room.
    Shots rang out, shattering the air outside the hotel.
    Maybe it's for the best, I thought, closing the curtains.
    I called down to the front desk and scheduled a massage. When I arrived at the health club, the young woman sitting behind the desk directed me to a large room off to the side. I went in. A girl, maybe eighteen, stood in the corner.
    "I'm here for my massage," I said.
    She just stared at me.
    "Do you speak English?" I asked.
    She shook her head.
    "Massage?" I said.
    She just looked at me. I started making rubbing gestures at myself, to try to show her what I meant. I started rubbing up and down my arm. Then I rubbed my shoulder, and my legs.
    Her eyes widened in horror.
    "Massage," I said. I continued rubbing at myself, trying to establish communication. It wasn't working. She edged around me, then began backing out of the room.
    This has gone far enough, I thought. I took off my clothes and lay down on the table.
    After a skittish massage, I walked around the hotel for a
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    while, then returned to my room. I turned on the television. There weren't many choices for stations. I turned it off and started paging through an English translation of a Middle Eastern newspaper I had picked up at the airport. I read an article about the latest fatal act of terrorism here. I also read with some interest a story about governments of other countries now allowing journalists and priests to act as spies.
    Hmmm, I thought.
    I thumbed through the rest of the paper, then put it down. I sat on the bed for a while, then sat on the chair for a while, then went back to the bed. I looked at the walls. I looked at the furniture. Then I picked up the phone and called Wendy, back in the United States, the woman I work with.
    "How's the magical mystery tour going?" she asked.
    "The only drama I'm going to find here," I said, "is a grinding internal one that lies somewhere between jet lag and menopause."
    By the time I hung up the phone, it was getting dark outside and cold inside. I was acutely aware of my aloneness. What was I doing here? What had I possibly been thinking of, coming here? A strong wave of selfloathing and selfcontempt replaced any sense of adventure, any sense of feeling right about being here, and particularly any sense of being guided.
    When I had told Nichole I was writing a book about
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    how to stop being mean to yourself, she had just smiled. "Oh, I see," she said. "It's going to be a mystery."
    Well, she was right. It was a mystery. So was this trip and what I was