MERHABA (WELCOME) HAPPY? HAPPY? WELCOME....

I think that those above words were Mohktar, desert man extraordinaire's, favorite words.
But wait, you don't know who Mohktar the desert man is...so guess, at this point, I should back up a bit and explain who Mohktar is and how he came into the picture.

One of the days I was lazing about in the Cascades d'Ouzoude drinking my 20th cup of mint tea for the day, a blue robed, black turbaned man showed up with a Swiss girl and was sitting around chatting with a blue robed, blue turbaned man (turned out to be none other than car crashing Saiyd). The never missed question of whether I had already been to the desert or not came up and I got to (innocently) chatting with the three. I blindly assumed that they were all together and that they were there on holiday (Swiss girl had come out for a wedding). I was hoping to gain a little information on which part of the desert was best to visit. The big debate was between Erg Chigaga (300m high) outside M'Hamid and Erg Chebbi outside of Merzouga. Merzouga's dunes are small at 150m high and also supposed to be more touristy and visited than Erg Chigagi in M'Hamid. The bonus for Merzouga though is the pictures still looked quite spectacular and it appeared to be much easier to visit. Blue turbaned Saiyd was quite keen on Merzouga and had all sorts of plans and thoughts and input about heading out into the desert and gee gosh, he knew just the right person, but, well, we would talk about that later. Black turbaned man (Mohktar) did not say much at all on the subject but when Saiyd left and I pressed a bit more, out came the business card and sure enough, Mohktar was a guide in the desert area outside Erg Chigaga and should I wish, should I happen to get to M'Hamid, he would be happy to take me on a trek out there - for a good price as well! With that, he fished in his robes and out came a business card. This is all he said and even later when we sat with him to listen to the music and have a cup of tea (#25 or so for the day), he said nothing until I prompted, "see you in the desert" and he replaid "ensha allah" (god willing). I figured that was a pretty good sign as Saiyd and several others pestered me to set up trips with them for the next couple of days. I had also seen the pictures from the Swiss girl of her trip and learned that she had just spend two weeks with Mohktar and his family and was out for the wedding. All pretty decent signs to me that he was not your usual scam guy trying to take you in for tons of money. Besides all of the others quoted rates up in the $75 a day range, which was a bit much for my taste. It also turned out that Saiyd and Mohktar had absolutley nothing to do with each other - another bonus after the car incident.

So, off I went back to Marakesh, as you know already, which is where I met Wyonetta, a NZ girl. She was also quite keen on heading to the desert and so we decided to head out there together - I belive I may have mentioned this already. In any case, we did a little research about companies and who had good prices and nice trips and ended up agreeing to go with, none other than, Mohktar the nomad from the Cascades. I was a bit sad to leave Marrakesh as I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the place, just wandering around the souqs, drinking the mint tea, watching all the chaos and the colors flash by my eyes. Oh, and one cannot forget the fabulous little cocunut cookies that were being sold by street kids (and adults) all over the place. At first glance you swore they would be hard and cruncy and not so nice but boy, they were crunchy on the outside, slightly gooey as they pulled apart in your teeth and then soft in the center...so yummy. A couple of the days I managed to squeeze in four of those little suckers. At 1D each you really cannot go wrong either. The problem is that they are being sold everywhere so it is hard to pass them up. Now (I am in Fez) my problem is that I cannot find them anywhere and would absolutely love one!

However, I digress...back to Marrakesh and being sad. While Hostel Ali was not the top place in the world - the staff was absolutely horrible and you could stand in front of them for ages without them even aknowledging you (I think I might be a ghost) - it was a decent place to crash and had a fantastic buffet dinner and good breakfast with eggs, crepes, bread, honey, jam and, of course, tea for only 100D. The cockroaches in the room didn't even eat too much and as they were small, could pretty much be ignored. I hope my family is sitting down at that statement, yes, I actually remained calm and collected as the cockroaches crawled across the floor and walls (wait, the bugs get even bigger in the desert!).

Our last supper before jumping on the overnight bus to Zagora was had in the open market in Djema el-fna. As I mentioned before, late afternoon the entire square is converted into a giant restaurant with various stalls selling everything from steamed/stewed snails to the tajines and couscouse. Smoke rises from every corner and the waiters call out from every corner, "miss, here, lady, I have the best food for you, tajines, couscouse, escargot, tea..." the list goes on. The hard part is really trying to figure out which place to eat at as they all look fairly similar and all look good. Wyonetta and I pretty much decided to go with the stand that pestered us least and enjoyed our last supper under the stars amongst the horns, drums and castanets of the street performers.

Our bus was conveniently late - two and a half hours - so we did not go anywhere until 2:30am. By then we were quite tired and well, it was a good thing we were getting on the bus as I think we both would have fallen asleep on our bags in the street if it did not show up soon. Of course there was a lady in one of our seats and she refused to move so we had to deal with one of us getting stuck in the back row without a reclining seat. We did get lucky though and no one else tried to sit in the very back so Wyonetta got two seats to herself to curl up on and I jumped in next to the grumpy lady who wouldn't move for us and proceeded to whip out my blow up neck pillow, ear plugs and eye mask. Wyonetta gave me a sleeping pill and off I went for the majority of the bus ride. Apparently grumpy lady next to me couldn't get comfortable and moved about much of the night trying to settle in. Guess she gets what she desrved for not moving as we were both comfy, well, as much as you can be on a bus. There was a Lithuanian couple in the back row as well and the man was so tall that he ended up sleeping on the floor across the entire back with his girlfriend curled up on the two chairs across from Wyonetta. Overall I think we came out OK and when we arrived in Zagora at 10:00am, we weren't in too bad of shape.

The minute we stepped off of the bus, we were attacked by shop owner saying that gee, they would help us get a taxi to M'Hamid and help us give Mohktar a call to meet us, just stop in for a cup of tea. I am always up for a cup of tea so we agreed to check out one of the places and suck down a tea before we headed on. The tea process is far from short here and so it meant waiting for about 1/2 hour before we even got our glasses and also meant looking through many a photo album and testimonials from other travelers about what a great camel trip they put on. We got the tea but we never did get help with the taxi or with making the phone call. In fact, help making the phone call meant showing us the phone booth and when I kept getting disconnected from Mohktar, showing me again how to put in coins and that the phone did in fact work. I was none too pleased after the phone had sucked up 15d (almost $2) and I still had not figured out what in the world Mohktar was talking about. At best I got that some guy Lassen was going to meet up somewhere and help us get there.

Fortunatley for us, Lassen was a crafty guy and we were easy to pick out with our backpacks and he picked us right up and took us to his shop for, guess what????, more tea! Yes, I know, you are in complete shock and awe that more tea would be offered but alas, it was. We politely sipped the tea while they chatted to us about their camel trip (hmmm, trying to steal business from their mate...not sure that is so kosher) showed us many a carpet and sort of arranged for our taxi. We finally had to just get up and say "OK, we are going to get our taxi" and at that point, the mini bus we were reserved on (supposedly), magically appeared. It was quite long morning trying to get out of Zagora and on our way to M'Hamid, which was another 1 1/2 hours to the very end of the road at the edge of the desert. There is a sign somewhere in the city that gives the number of days it takes to reach Timbuktu by Camel but I didn't see it - belive it was supposed to be 56.

As we pulled up into the small, dusty town of M'Hamid, we were greeting by Mohktar, looking very much the same as he did in the Cascades, all dressed in his blue robe and black turban. He helped us get out bags and whisked us across a (dry) river to a the hotel of his cousin (they are all related somehow through something or someone). We were quite pleased with the place as it had a lovely room, hot shower and nice ambiance. After we were settled, Mohktar took us out for a stroll through town and to the edge of the desert to watch the sunset. It was one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever seen and was like walking through a Maxfield Parish painting. The sky was dusty pink and blue initially and changed quickly into deep pinks with grey edged coulds, the light shinning gold through their edges. It didn't hurt the image either to have Mohktar in his turban and robe standing looking out at the sunset with the vast desert in front of him. A lovely image.

When we returned to the hotel, we headed to the restaurant for dinner. Unfortunatley the dinner in the restaurant was not as nice as the rest of the hotel. We started with the harira (always seem to) and I really wished that I would have stopped there and eaten another bowl of it. After that we were served the ususal tajine, although this one seemed to be made of nothing but onions, prunes and lamb neck bone. I am sure all that know me well can imagine what I thought of the lamb meat neckbone thing that was in the center of our dish (you share the tajine plate). Basically I tried to ignore it and sopped up the sauce and onions around the pathetic, grisley, boney hunks of whatever in the middle of the table. Wyonetta was a little more adventurous and actually tried to cut some of the meat off. It was no use and she defaulted to dipping bread as well. Desert was "seasonal fruit". Translation of that is orange slices with a sprinking of cinnamon. The oranges here are damn good though so I didn't mind that at all and ate them down happily. I think that I have had more oranges in the past three and a half weeks than I have had in 10 years. They are just so delicious and juicy here I cannot seem to get enough.

Here is where our evening got a little bizzare and resulted in me sending a something panicky (I hope not too bad) email to my family with clear details on who I was traveling with and what hotel I was leaving from. As soon as we finished dinner, we were joined by one of the nice young waiter guys. Just wanted to chat and speak english with us, which he did not do very well. Shortly after that, Briham joined us (Mohktar's brother) and he informed us that he was going with us in the desert. Then Hassan, the hotel owner, showed up with a bottle of wine and started pouring that. Then Mohktar arrived. Then some other man, whose name I have forgotten, showed up along with one of the other waiters. Before we knew it, Wyonetta and I were sitting at the table with about five nomad men all drinking wine. The wine thing was more the issue than the number of men as Arab men are not good with alcohol and seem to get a little funny once they have had a glass or two. Wyonetta and I held our ground and stuck together at one side of the table and chatted away working out our escape back to our room. However, before we knew it, a little arguement seemed to errupt at our table. There was a lot of back and forth and some heated, raised voices and before we knew it, Hassan was asking us if we would like to go camp in the desert that night. This was a bit odd as we were scheduled to spend the next five nights in the desert so I could not possibly figure out why we would want to go out that night at 9:00 only to come back in and go out again the next morning. So I asked, "We are going to the desert tomorrow with Mohktar, are we not?" The answer was not clear.

More heated conversation took place and Mohktar sever times leaned over and suggested that we depart to discuss the itenerary of our trip. He was well looped after only a couple of glasses of wine, which made for even more concern on Wyonetta and my part as we weren't sure he was in any shape to discuss anything. Also, any time he tried to leave or talk to us, a big conversation errupted. Finally we just said that we were going to bed and that whatever needed to be discussed we could do tomorrow. The plan was to meet at 7:30 for an 8:00am departure. Mohktar gave one last attempt at coming with us to explain the schedule and was duely followed by Hassan and another huge conversation ensued outside our door. Turns out that Mohktar made the deal with me to go on the trip but was not sharing any of the spoils with his family members who all also had businesses of desert treks. They were all trying to get in on the action while Mohktar was trying to keep them out. The statement of "business is business not family" came out a couple of times.

We both went to bed a little confused and concerned that we would not be going anywhere at all or that we would be going somewhere but without any supplies that we needed and that we would end up lost in the desert. Clearly this did not happend but the desert trip story will have to wait, as now, it is time for some harira, couscous and a little seasonal fruit. MERHABA!