Approximately a mile and a half away a large hacienda complex sat on a low rise.
"You see mile after mile of factories just sitting there rusting, idled," said one diplomat.
Some ten miles from the city a man was sitting by the riverbed, rubbing red clay into his hair.
In the near distance sits an old ruined casbah, overseeing miles of arid land and an oasis crowded with date palms.
Less than 20 miles downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
A mile inside the country, 600 refugees sat in the squalor of makeshift shelters, with little water or food.
Seven miles from Telluride's quaint streets sits a $1 billion satellite community called Mountain Village.
Forty miles away four men sat silently in a small room, their eyes closed and their minds open.
Some ten miles from my palace sits a great stone obelisk five hundred feet or more high.
Four miles beyond the bore Joe Harman sat at the mouth of his small tent.