Sahara, Part 2

After riding camels into the desert at sunset, we arrived at our auberge, had some mint tea and a Berber style dinner (which consisted of a communal plate of some kind of tagine that we all just used bread and our hands to eat), then listened to some rather sad attempt at music next to a camp fire and looked at the stars. Even though we had to get up early for our sunrise camel trek back to Merzouga, I opted to go with a couple of camel guides and other people to climb a big dune for the view. That sounded like a good idea at the time, but maybe not so much in reality...

About halfway up the dune, I remembered that my knee is bad. I told the guides that I wasn't going to be able to make it and that I'd just go back to the camp since I could still see the campfire. Instead, the guide wanted to take me to another tent where some Berber friends were living. So, I wound up wandering through the darkness in the desert with this camel guide to a Berber camp. We hung out for a bit while they talked in Berber (which I can't understand for the life of me), then walked back through the darkness to our auberge... During the walk back, the guy seriously started to get fresh with me - esp. considering this is a Muslim country. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot to be done about it given that I was out in the middle of the desert and could no longer see our campfire. Long story made short, all worked out well (I tried to keep him talking about Moroccan-Algerian border relations...in Spanish); however, there was definitely some creep-factor in my Sahara experience.

After our sunrise camel trek, we had breakfast back in Merzouga and then dropped off half of the group at the taxi depot in Rissani. (Some people opted to catch a grand taxi from Rissani to Fes instead of taking the tour roundtrip to Marrakech.) We then pretty much halled balls to get back to Marrakech before midnight... When we drove through the high desert approaching the mountains, we got into a pretty decent-sized sandstorm that had the minivan buffeting around a bit. Then, once we could really see the High Atlas mountains, I could tell we were in for trouble...

Considerable snow had fallen in the mountains since we'd passed through two nights before. I could see snow blowing off the ridgeline, and recalled that they'd had to shut down the pass for several days before we got through. As we started ascending into the mountain pass area, we got stopped at the last little town. The police were out and we were told that they had, indeed, shut down the pass due to snow and ice. We sat stuck in the van for a couple of hours while some brave/poor souls finally made their way down the mountain behind a snowplow. It was hit-and-miss as to whether the pass would reopen - and I honestly didn't expect it to. (People at my hostel in Marrakech who'd been on the last tour before they'd previously closed the pass got stuck in the mountains overnight; I figured we were in for the same.) As luck would have it, though, they reopened the pass to let us through for the last trip of the night. It was pretty treacherous - and was certainly more snow than my Californian ass has seen in many years. Not only were those of us on the tour snapping pictures in amazement, but so was our driver; he snapped away with his cell phone camera and couldn't believe it. Eventually, we did make it back to Marrakech - but it was one hell of an adventure.

Ironically, in addition to traditional Gnaoua music, the song that most ingrained itself into my memory of my Sahara trip (from sheer frequency of radio play) turned out to be Akon's "Right Now". ;-)

Sahara, Part 1

I left for a 2-day/3-nt tour to the desert at sunrise on Sunday morning. The group was about ~70% Spanish, so English wasn't the dominant language but it's all good. My travel buddy became a beautiful Spanish guy who was traveling with his friends as a "third wheel". There was some broken communication along the way (he spoke no real English, and my Spanish won't win any awards - esp. among Spaniards); however, I'm positive he offered to buy me for the price of a camel at some point along the way... ;-)

Back to the real story... We drove threw varied landscape that reminded me at times of New Mexico and, at times, Switzerland (not that I've been there). On our way out, we saw a lot of snow at high altitudes in the High Atlas Mtns; however, we made it through the switchback passes with no problem. After a little side trip to see Ait Benhaddou (the place where they filmed movies like Gladiator and The Mummy), we stopped for lunch in Ouarzazate and then continued on to the Dades Valley where we stayed the night at a little hotel at the base of a gorge, listened to some live Berber music and froze our butts off overnight. The next day, we drove to the Toudra Gorge, stopped off in a Touareg village (where I got hastled by a guy selling Berber carpets), and then continued on to the Sahara so that we arrived in time for a 2hr sunset camel ride to reach our auberge.

The Sahara is absolutely amazing. So peaceful, so beautiful. I saw more stars there than I've ever seen in my life - including a shooting star. I'm so glad I did this trip!

Did I mention I almost impaled myself on a rusty camel harness?? ...almost, but not quite. It ripped through the thigh of my heavy jeans but, thankfully, didn't get the skin.