The Desert

The stars last night were brilliant. You could see them shine and twinkle with no lights to interfere. I didn’t think to get a photo. But I have it in my eyes.

I had woken up at 2:10am from sleeping in our small complex of traditional desert tents but with real beds and crisp white sheets. About 6 miles or 10k from the nearest town, it sported showers and flush toilets. Wahoo! We spied the other more posh tents nearby. They seemed rather antiseptic.

We hiked up the dunes to catch the sunset before dinner, but alas, the clouds foiled it. It was nice to trod barefoot up the soft, soft sand. On the way down, I found a full nearly-purple snake skin.

The tents were kinda hot at 10 when we crawled in to get some sleep; however, the momma kitten and her four babies had other ideas. They were definitely cute, but we didn’t want cute kitty pee all over our bags, so we attempted to flush them out. We were aided by this nice young man in a kaftan. I was only in my cloth tank top and shorts for sleeping, so he got quite the eyeful and then preceded to crawl around our beds (Gail and mine) to remove the critters. We joked that this is the only Moroccan man who will be in our beds this trip!

(Afterwards) I soaked my tank top with some water to sleep. It cooled me down nicely. Somewhere later in the night we heard the jackals howling.

I woke up in time to climb the dunes again to see the sunrise at 6:34am. Mr. Sunny did not disappoint. He turned the beigey pink sand into an orangeish glow.

After breakfast our bags were taken by jeep and we took the 10km back by camel. Mine was called Hamama. He was a good camel. At one point, too good. I was stuck riding behind one of our tour members who has been kind of a pain. She had a hard time staying centered on the saddle and the stress of it made her need her inhaler. She couldn’t get it out of her bag so the camel guy had to stop, get her off the camel and fix/adjust her saddle. When her camel kneeled down, mine did too. I was glad I was holding on cause otherwise I would have been tossed in the sand. She still couldn’t ride straight so I spent the last 20 minutes worrying (as did the camel guy) and telling her to straighten up. Oy.

That was yesterday and this morning. Thursday we stopped to visit a family of Macaques. They seemed to have a fairly decent gig with tourists feeding them peanuts and other things provided by vendors. These displays of wild animals as roadside attractions makes me sad.

Mohamed, our tour guide took us on a short but fast hike along a river that was mostly dry. I didn’t get much of a chance to stop and look at birds, but it was nice to stretch my legs and work a little. This is a familiar place for Mohamed and you could see it in his gate and body. This was home.

Another local guide took us through the grounds of the mosque. Same as always. Beautiful and peaceful. We had Berber pizza for lunch. It was good. Top and bottom crust with either a vegetable or meat (beef) stuffing. Nice change from tagine and couscous dishes.

Our lux hotel had a lovely and not too cold pool. I spent my morning swimming and birding (with limited success but lots of fun).

Overall, in spite of the heat, I’m loving the desert.Read more