Marco Polo Swimming Pool Game In my new book The Marco Polo, Odyssey I describe the origin of game played in swimming pools called “MARCO—POLO.” Marco Polo tells of his travels across the most desolate desert in the world called the Taklimakan. In translation it means desert from which one never returns. The following is Marco Polo’s words: “The truth is this. When a man is riding by night through this desert and something happens to make him loiter and lose touch with his companions, by falling asleep or some other reason, and afterwards he wants to rejoin them, he then hears spirits talking in such a way that they seem to be his companions. Sometimes they even hale him by name. Often these voices make him stray from the path so he never finds it again. And in this way many travelers have been lost and have perished.” You can easily see how the game of Marco Polo mimics this story. It is a game of tag in the swimming pool. One person, who is “it,” and closes his eyes and calls out MAR