Travelogue: Morocco - Journey to the Sahara Part 2
Posted on Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Last post for Morocco! Day two of our tour and we drive and drive, and finally reach what is known as the Erg Chebbi dunes, the history of which a very rich family was buried under these dunes because they refused to give food to a poor lady and her daughter on a Friday, which is a special day in the Islamic calendar.
The red clay sand of the Dades Gorge finally turned into whitish-yellow sand, more resemblant of what we perceived the Sahara Desert to look like!
Dunes in the distance!
Transport for the day! Not as smelly as I thought they would be, and really cute! Except when they come up from behind you and try to lick you, leaving brown saliva behind. Justin bravely volunteers to go first on the camel. Getting on isn't the problem, it's when the camel sits UP that lurches you forward and backward holding onto the handles for dear life, and, it's really high up!!
And we're off! We have two friendly Moroccan teenage boys leading the camel to what will be our camp for the night!
Hello, Kate! She and her husband are from Switzerland and are 1/3 of our mini tour group. The scenery looks exactly like the pictures, but the scale and depth of the dunes are amazing. Taking pictures while hanging onto a bumpy camel was hard, but we had time to get it right as we went deeper into the Sahara.
As the sun began to set proper, we got off our camels and went to climb this GIANT dune to sit and see it better. It was no joke because the sand was so soft! We found ourselves panting as we finally reached the top.
We still had a bit of a journey to our campsite to make after the sunset. There was still light, but it was going fast.
But not before we took a ride down the dunes on a mini carpet!!
It's a pity I didn't manage to get a proper photo of our camp site. There was a tiny village of 6 large tents made of camel hair set up in a valley of dunes. There was a main eating tent where the boys cooked food for us, Tajines of course, but delicious, warm and much needed. We had a drum party after that where they played and sang traditional music, and we gave a try at playing the drums too. The boys were really lively and even told us really silly jokes that were actually funny!Justin and I had our own tent with a mattress, and 3 thick camel hair blankets that were SO HEAVY because it gets very, very cold in the Sahara at night. Even Justin was shivering, and he walks around in 11 degree weather with just a t-shirt -.-
When everyone went to sleep, we ran up a dune to stargaze!
Tried a noobish picture of the stars with my DSLR, which ran out of battery just as I was getting the hang of it.
Uncomfortable truths about the Sahara - there's no running water. Obviously, we couldn't bathe, AND we had to go the toilet in random spots behind the camp site to freeze our poor butts off. Luckily it was just for a night, and the trip was worth roughing it out!
Making our way back to civilization! The sky has a pretty pinkish glow in the morning, but it's really cold, and I still grip onto my camel tight through the whole journey. It's incredibly bouncy, and it's a miracle i got any photos out of it!
And so after this, you can imagine it was a relief to go back to our Riad and take a good long shower + our best meal in Morocco! I wish I could have stayed an extra day to explore the Medina more. I did badly want to see Majorelle Gardens, where Yves Saint Laurent had his ashes spread, but I guess this just means that one day i'll be back again!
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