After escaping the drunk bickering arabs, Wyonetta and I, safe in our room, debated whether or not we were actually going to be heading into the desert the next morning and who we would be heading in with and if we would even have food. At one point we were told that Mohktar had not yet organized anything - hence the strange email to my family with all details on the hotel and who I was traveling with. Pictures of Wyonetta and I stranded in the desert with groping, grabby arab men certainly flashed through my head as did the question of, if that happened, how the hell would we escape and where to! The desert is quite vast and my directional skills when there is absolutely nothing around are pretty bad. Think I missed the star reading course back in college but damn was I thinking that might just come in handy now.
The next morning when we peeked out of the door, no one was to be found...neither Hassan (thankfully) nor Mohktar. Hmmm, what to do now. However, about 10 minutes later, Briham (Mohktar's brother and one of the guides) showed up to take Wyonetta off to buy cigarettes for the trip and a few minutes behind him was Mohktar asking for our bags and running them out to two very loaded camels. This is impressive we thought as we really believed that absolutely nothing had been done to prepare for the trip. Bags loaded on the camel, we were off heading across the dried out river bed into the Sahara sands. We looked like quite the little band, us two girls with our two camels and three nomad (Tuareg) men dressed in their blue robes and turbans. We learned later in the day that our two camels were named Tomsaier and Zurich. Tomsaier turned out to be the nice quiet, docile, sweet camel while Zurich grunted and groaned loudly whenver anyone came anywhere near him with a bag or box. He was also quite the pig and when not grunting and shouting at us, was trying to grab bits of whatever shrub or bush he passed - belive me, in some spots there were not a lot of shrubs but boy did he manage to find something to eat.
I guess that the easiest way for me to give the rundown of the five nights/six days of Sahara trekking is to do it the same way I did the Nepal trek.
Day 1
Late start of around 9:00 when we finally left the hotel in M'Hamid, the end of the road and the beginning of the desert (post pannic email to family about should I not return...) Headed off into the desert - direction straight into the middle of nowhere -light hearted and light footed with our three decked out nomads and two well loaded camels. Travel was fairly easy over sandy, slightly rocky areas. Various camels, nomads and donkeys pulling carts were sighted off in the distance and in a few instances one of our guides would wander off for a quick chat with somone about 1km away and then suddenly reappear by our sides. They seem to be super fast walkers.
About mid-day, we stopped and had a rest under the shade of a tree (we had not yet hit complete desolation). Blankets and cushions were pulled out and Wyonetta and I were set down like princesses. The men set about making a fire and slicing and dicing things (we couldn't see but could hear and were much too busy lounging about to care). About 1/2 hour later, two lovely cups of mint tea appeared followed by an entire platter of fresh cut tomatoes, onions, green peppers, cucumbers and olives. All of this was, unfortunately topped off by some type of canned fish (definitely could have done without that) and accompanied by bread. Fortunately the fish was not in vast enough quantities to taint the entire platter and I was able to pick about and get the good stuff off the plate without much trouble. It was quite the spread and both Wyontta and I were in awe that they could create such a feast. Post lunch was siesta time and we all settled down to naps, books and chit chat. Think we post-lunched a little too long as when we came to, and were ready to carry on, the wind had picked up and the sand had started to whip about creating a haze on the horizon and dimming the sun to a dull yellow color.
We got all packed up and ready to head off but by then, the dust was pretty much surrounding us. At that point, I opted to be turbaned (I know, Jane, that is not a word and one cannot "be turbaned", however, it is the most appropriate term for me to use at the moment - at least in my little mind). Mohktar took about 9 meters of a red, orange and cream material out of one of the camel bags and proceeded to twist, wind and wrap my head up in it, finishing with a flourish and tucking the last bits of material across my face to cover my mouth and nose from the sand. Then came the comment, "oh, the eyes, so lovely!" Where they get these comments I just don't know as I am well aware that my eyes are all fine and good but not anything particularly unique or stunning. Blah, is all I have to say. So once wrapped up and with sunglasses on for further protection (tres chic, no?), we headed on. The sand got thicker and my contacts got grittier and gritter until I was pretty much in constant pain with buckets of tears streaming down my face. At this point, the wind had whipped up so much sand that you could not see more than a foot in front of you, if you could see at all, which in my case, I could not. Even having the turban over my eyes did not help and finally I had to stop and turn with my back to the wind, try to sort my eyes a bit, and then be lead on (blind) by Mohktar across the sandy field. It was so bad that they decided to stop near some trees and call it quits for the day. By that time, and when I unwrapped my turban, I was crying tears of sand.
Wyontta and I hunkered at the base of the trees while sand and wind, and even a little bit of rain whipped about us. Ten minutes later, it was completely gone and the sun came back out and the birds began to sing as if nothing had ever happened. Our nomad men began to set up camp, putting up the tent, getting the camels hobbled and searching for firewood. By this time, it was quite clear and lovely out so off Wyonetta and I set to help collect wood. Well, about five minutes into it, the wind came again and before we could get back, sand was swirling all about us. Wyonetta was out with Mohktar so was OK but I was off under another tree in a different direction and had serious visions of getting completely lost even though the camp was about 200m away. Clearly I made it back as I am still writing this darn thing and hopefully not boring you all too much.
So the wind stopped and the sand cleared and we had a fabulous sunset while sipping mint tea and snacking on nuts, dried dates and cookies. They definintely provided for us quite well and both of us girls were very amazed that they had pulled all this together - especially after the night before when it sounded like nothing at all had been planned. The boys set about taking care of the camels and getting dinner ready and before you knew it, we had steaming bowls of home made harira in front of us, followed by lamb tajine (not sure how I feel about the meat after it sat in the sun on a camels back all day but we didn't get sick so it must have been OK) and then the 'seasonal fruit' (orange with cinnamon).
After dinner we gathered around the fire under the stars. Apparently all of those sateites that we see flying about the sky are not really satelites but stars going across the sky to visit other stars in other areas. At least that is what our guides told us and when Wyonetta said to me, "Steph, come look at this shooting stars, they go so slowly out here!" I just about died laughing when I realized she meant the satelites and then with the follow up story about them being moving stars...well, you can imagine. So as we are sitting here enjoying our first evening under the stars, out of nowhere appears this new guy, wearing the required blue robe and turban, of course. He stops in for a bite and a jam session and there you have it, all four guys are all of the sudden banging on the water containers as drums, playing the castanets and singing and dancing. I am still not sure where this guy came from as there were no other people around and about an hour later, he got up and wandering off in to the desert and we never saw him again. Very odd. Apparently his camel was out there somewhere as well.
Day #2
7:30 or so breakfast with 8:30 departure once the camp was taken down and the camels were retrieved. I say that the camels are retrieved as they are hobbled in the evening and for lunch and then left to go roam. Amazing how far those suckers can actually get and many times our camel boy (Mohammad) had to walk a couple of KMs just to find them and bring them back.
The walk was mostly through dunes and sand and it was quite hard going. The camels are walked around the dunes but we walk up and over them for the most part or it would take hours. I cannot believe how fast these guys walk and even when they are leading the camels, are well ahead of us. By noon, I was about to die from the heat and the pain of going up and over the dunes and walking in the sand. I think they realized this so finally found us a nice shady tree to rest under.
Lunch was the same as the other day with the addition of a saffron rice and a starter of nuts and dates. Zurich was quite keen on the nuts and dates and even though he was hobbled, kept coming round and trying to poke his nose in our plate. We tried to shoo him off several times but he wasn't getting the hint until camel boy really got to him and then he limped off with his lower, saggy lip, flopping about looking like a child pouting. Of course, since we shooed him off, he felt the need to go way off and that meant it took camel boy about 1/2 hour to retrieve him. Tomsaier wasn't much more helpful that day and wandered off the opposite direction, also with the lower lip flapping away.
After a few hours rest, we carried on through the dunes. Wyontta (not very fit) jumped on a camel for a bit until her ass hurt too much and she had to come down. Apparently the underwear wasn't too helpful and added to the discomfort as it crept up. We stopped for the evening amongst the dunes and shrubs, quite an interesting landscape, which unfortunately I cannot share with you as this is where my trusty canon decided not to be so trusty and died completely on me. I think that the find sand of the Sahara may have gotten the better of it and now I am just hoping it can be fixed. That said, it was an amazing sunset and the sand turned a brillant amber color with the wind ripples shading bits with a dark black color. Very beautiful and very dramatic and boy, would have made a nice picture!
Dinner was harira and chicken tajine (again, weary of the meat as we weren't carrying any form of refrigeration) followed by, you guessed it, seasonal fruit! After dinner we sat by the fire again for a bit then I turned in a bit early to lay under the stars and enjoy the evening light. This is where the "do you want a berber massage?" comes in, which I politely, declined and turned away to go to sleep. Wyonetta, however, decided to dabble with Briham and well, that turned into quite a mess a little later in the week. In any case, she got the, "oh you must stay with me in the desert and the I love you" etc. etc. Silly girl.
Day #3
A half day today...first through old fossil fields and then up into some small dunes and finally to our goal - Erg Chigaga! This is a dune field of 40+Km with dunes over 300m in height. We arrived about mid day and the boys set about making us lunch and camel boy went off to some oasis somewhere 6kms away to get the camels water. Seemed a bit far to me as there were semi permanent places that had water closer but guess he likes to walk and an additional 12Km for the day is nothing to him as long as his camels are well cared for - and boy did her really care for the camels...Wyonetta reported that Briham kissed much like you would imagine a camel to so maybe they do spent a little to much time with their little hump backed friends.
We spent much of the afternoon under our little tent thing with the sides up covered in our turbans and trying to ward off the flies. I was much too hot to do anything more than that and thus we all fell asleep until sunset was almost upon us. At that point, we roused the energy to get up and head to the top of one of the 300m high dunes to watch the sun set. There was a sandstorm on the horizon so the sun was blocked a bit and hazy, making the dunes look like they were under a solar eclipse. It was quite spectacular looking at them in this strange glowing almost black and white light. As the sun dipped down, we did get some lovely blues and reds to finish it off.
The next morning when we peeked out of the door, no one was to be found...neither Hassan (thankfully) nor Mohktar. Hmmm, what to do now. However, about 10 minutes later, Briham (Mohktar's brother and one of the guides) showed up to take Wyonetta off to buy cigarettes for the trip and a few minutes behind him was Mohktar asking for our bags and running them out to two very loaded camels. This is impressive we thought as we really believed that absolutely nothing had been done to prepare for the trip. Bags loaded on the camel, we were off heading across the dried out river bed into the Sahara sands. We looked like quite the little band, us two girls with our two camels and three nomad (Tuareg) men dressed in their blue robes and turbans. We learned later in the day that our two camels were named Tomsaier and Zurich. Tomsaier turned out to be the nice quiet, docile, sweet camel while Zurich grunted and groaned loudly whenver anyone came anywhere near him with a bag or box. He was also quite the pig and when not grunting and shouting at us, was trying to grab bits of whatever shrub or bush he passed - belive me, in some spots there were not a lot of shrubs but boy did he manage to find something to eat.
I guess that the easiest way for me to give the rundown of the five nights/six days of Sahara trekking is to do it the same way I did the Nepal trek.
Day 1
Late start of around 9:00 when we finally left the hotel in M'Hamid, the end of the road and the beginning of the desert (post pannic email to family about should I not return...) Headed off into the desert - direction straight into the middle of nowhere -light hearted and light footed with our three decked out nomads and two well loaded camels. Travel was fairly easy over sandy, slightly rocky areas. Various camels, nomads and donkeys pulling carts were sighted off in the distance and in a few instances one of our guides would wander off for a quick chat with somone about 1km away and then suddenly reappear by our sides. They seem to be super fast walkers.
About mid-day, we stopped and had a rest under the shade of a tree (we had not yet hit complete desolation). Blankets and cushions were pulled out and Wyonetta and I were set down like princesses. The men set about making a fire and slicing and dicing things (we couldn't see but could hear and were much too busy lounging about to care). About 1/2 hour later, two lovely cups of mint tea appeared followed by an entire platter of fresh cut tomatoes, onions, green peppers, cucumbers and olives. All of this was, unfortunately topped off by some type of canned fish (definitely could have done without that) and accompanied by bread. Fortunately the fish was not in vast enough quantities to taint the entire platter and I was able to pick about and get the good stuff off the plate without much trouble. It was quite the spread and both Wyontta and I were in awe that they could create such a feast. Post lunch was siesta time and we all settled down to naps, books and chit chat. Think we post-lunched a little too long as when we came to, and were ready to carry on, the wind had picked up and the sand had started to whip about creating a haze on the horizon and dimming the sun to a dull yellow color.
We got all packed up and ready to head off but by then, the dust was pretty much surrounding us. At that point, I opted to be turbaned (I know, Jane, that is not a word and one cannot "be turbaned", however, it is the most appropriate term for me to use at the moment - at least in my little mind). Mohktar took about 9 meters of a red, orange and cream material out of one of the camel bags and proceeded to twist, wind and wrap my head up in it, finishing with a flourish and tucking the last bits of material across my face to cover my mouth and nose from the sand. Then came the comment, "oh, the eyes, so lovely!" Where they get these comments I just don't know as I am well aware that my eyes are all fine and good but not anything particularly unique or stunning. Blah, is all I have to say. So once wrapped up and with sunglasses on for further protection (tres chic, no?), we headed on. The sand got thicker and my contacts got grittier and gritter until I was pretty much in constant pain with buckets of tears streaming down my face. At this point, the wind had whipped up so much sand that you could not see more than a foot in front of you, if you could see at all, which in my case, I could not. Even having the turban over my eyes did not help and finally I had to stop and turn with my back to the wind, try to sort my eyes a bit, and then be lead on (blind) by Mohktar across the sandy field. It was so bad that they decided to stop near some trees and call it quits for the day. By that time, and when I unwrapped my turban, I was crying tears of sand.
Wyontta and I hunkered at the base of the trees while sand and wind, and even a little bit of rain whipped about us. Ten minutes later, it was completely gone and the sun came back out and the birds began to sing as if nothing had ever happened. Our nomad men began to set up camp, putting up the tent, getting the camels hobbled and searching for firewood. By this time, it was quite clear and lovely out so off Wyonetta and I set to help collect wood. Well, about five minutes into it, the wind came again and before we could get back, sand was swirling all about us. Wyonetta was out with Mohktar so was OK but I was off under another tree in a different direction and had serious visions of getting completely lost even though the camp was about 200m away. Clearly I made it back as I am still writing this darn thing and hopefully not boring you all too much.
So the wind stopped and the sand cleared and we had a fabulous sunset while sipping mint tea and snacking on nuts, dried dates and cookies. They definintely provided for us quite well and both of us girls were very amazed that they had pulled all this together - especially after the night before when it sounded like nothing at all had been planned. The boys set about taking care of the camels and getting dinner ready and before you knew it, we had steaming bowls of home made harira in front of us, followed by lamb tajine (not sure how I feel about the meat after it sat in the sun on a camels back all day but we didn't get sick so it must have been OK) and then the 'seasonal fruit' (orange with cinnamon).
After dinner we gathered around the fire under the stars. Apparently all of those sateites that we see flying about the sky are not really satelites but stars going across the sky to visit other stars in other areas. At least that is what our guides told us and when Wyonetta said to me, "Steph, come look at this shooting stars, they go so slowly out here!" I just about died laughing when I realized she meant the satelites and then with the follow up story about them being moving stars...well, you can imagine. So as we are sitting here enjoying our first evening under the stars, out of nowhere appears this new guy, wearing the required blue robe and turban, of course. He stops in for a bite and a jam session and there you have it, all four guys are all of the sudden banging on the water containers as drums, playing the castanets and singing and dancing. I am still not sure where this guy came from as there were no other people around and about an hour later, he got up and wandering off in to the desert and we never saw him again. Very odd. Apparently his camel was out there somewhere as well.
Day #2
7:30 or so breakfast with 8:30 departure once the camp was taken down and the camels were retrieved. I say that the camels are retrieved as they are hobbled in the evening and for lunch and then left to go roam. Amazing how far those suckers can actually get and many times our camel boy (Mohammad) had to walk a couple of KMs just to find them and bring them back.
The walk was mostly through dunes and sand and it was quite hard going. The camels are walked around the dunes but we walk up and over them for the most part or it would take hours. I cannot believe how fast these guys walk and even when they are leading the camels, are well ahead of us. By noon, I was about to die from the heat and the pain of going up and over the dunes and walking in the sand. I think they realized this so finally found us a nice shady tree to rest under.
Lunch was the same as the other day with the addition of a saffron rice and a starter of nuts and dates. Zurich was quite keen on the nuts and dates and even though he was hobbled, kept coming round and trying to poke his nose in our plate. We tried to shoo him off several times but he wasn't getting the hint until camel boy really got to him and then he limped off with his lower, saggy lip, flopping about looking like a child pouting. Of course, since we shooed him off, he felt the need to go way off and that meant it took camel boy about 1/2 hour to retrieve him. Tomsaier wasn't much more helpful that day and wandered off the opposite direction, also with the lower lip flapping away.
After a few hours rest, we carried on through the dunes. Wyontta (not very fit) jumped on a camel for a bit until her ass hurt too much and she had to come down. Apparently the underwear wasn't too helpful and added to the discomfort as it crept up. We stopped for the evening amongst the dunes and shrubs, quite an interesting landscape, which unfortunately I cannot share with you as this is where my trusty canon decided not to be so trusty and died completely on me. I think that the find sand of the Sahara may have gotten the better of it and now I am just hoping it can be fixed. That said, it was an amazing sunset and the sand turned a brillant amber color with the wind ripples shading bits with a dark black color. Very beautiful and very dramatic and boy, would have made a nice picture!
Dinner was harira and chicken tajine (again, weary of the meat as we weren't carrying any form of refrigeration) followed by, you guessed it, seasonal fruit! After dinner we sat by the fire again for a bit then I turned in a bit early to lay under the stars and enjoy the evening light. This is where the "do you want a berber massage?" comes in, which I politely, declined and turned away to go to sleep. Wyonetta, however, decided to dabble with Briham and well, that turned into quite a mess a little later in the week. In any case, she got the, "oh you must stay with me in the desert and the I love you" etc. etc. Silly girl.
Day #3
A half day today...first through old fossil fields and then up into some small dunes and finally to our goal - Erg Chigaga! This is a dune field of 40+Km with dunes over 300m in height. We arrived about mid day and the boys set about making us lunch and camel boy went off to some oasis somewhere 6kms away to get the camels water. Seemed a bit far to me as there were semi permanent places that had water closer but guess he likes to walk and an additional 12Km for the day is nothing to him as long as his camels are well cared for - and boy did her really care for the camels...Wyonetta reported that Briham kissed much like you would imagine a camel to so maybe they do spent a little to much time with their little hump backed friends.
We spent much of the afternoon under our little tent thing with the sides up covered in our turbans and trying to ward off the flies. I was much too hot to do anything more than that and thus we all fell asleep until sunset was almost upon us. At that point, we roused the energy to get up and head to the top of one of the 300m high dunes to watch the sun set. There was a sandstorm on the horizon so the sun was blocked a bit and hazy, making the dunes look like they were under a solar eclipse. It was quite spectacular looking at them in this strange glowing almost black and white light. As the sun dipped down, we did get some lovely blues and reds to finish it off.
This is also the day that my feet decided to follow my hands in their excessive peeling and, really, just plain falling apart. I would post a picture for you all to see what torment my poor little feetsies are going through but I think you would all be rather disgusted. Think a good pedicure when I get home aught to do the trick as they sure don't seem to be wanting to sort themselves out on their own with all my walking around in tevas and flip flops.
And back to more pleasant things, afte the sunset, we came down the dunes to find a nice little congregation of our Arab friends (our guides plus a bunch of other guides) sitting on the small dune above our camp. They were snacking on nuts and dates (I have really grown to love these dates) and chatting and drinknig whiskey and coke (whiskey had come from Sweden). So what could we do but join them. Later a couple from Minnesota or Wisconsin or one of those states (they weren't overly friendly so there is really no need for me to bother to remember what state they are from) joined us and out came the water canister drums and the castinets and the singing and dancing. The whiskey-coke tasted divine after all the walking we had done and went quite perfectly with the brillant stars shinning above and the drumming and singing. After that, it was off to bed under the stars for a good night of sleep.
Oh, two other things of note did happen that night: One, I got a shower (scarab beetle included, although I am sorry to say, he did not survive). There was a little shower block for the people staying at the semi-permanent camp and we took advantage of sneaking in there for a quick wash. It definitely beat the dunking of the edge of my pack tower into a sawed in half 1.5L water bottle for a wash, which is what we had been doing. Two, we had a Berber Omlette for dinner instead of a Tajine. OK, it is a form of Tajine but very different tasting so a welcome departure from the usual.
Day 4
The use of the word 'Directly' becomes a constant in my life. Mohktar left early in the morning to go join up with another group that was coming through and he left his brother Briham and Camel boy in charge of getting us back over the next three days. As we walked slower than the boys, actually I should re-phrase that, Wyonetta walked a lot slower than the boys as she was wearing a pair of flip flops most of the time and didn't want to put on her tennis shoes as they made it hard to walk in the sand. Lets just say she was not very well equipped or ready to do something like this. So, having decided to head out ahead, we enquired as to which direction we should take to get back out of the dunes. The reponse from Briham was "Directly!" with a wave of his arm in a vague direction forward. We weren't quite sure if this meant go straight up and over the massive dune in front of us or maybe wind around it. We asked if we should be walking toward the grassy, palm filled area we had seen on our way in (seemed to be directly on the other side as far as we could remember). Again the response was "Directly!"
Off we headed, directly, which turned out to not be the "right" directly. Funny that. We corrected and carried on that morning for about 2 1/2 hours across sandy stone field filled with old fossils that the boys kept picking up for us and giving us to look at. At around 11:30, we arrived at an oasis. It really was a true oasis with two sweet water springs, one in a well and the other coming out as a little creek and running along the edge of a walled area that was meant for the nomads and various campers that came through. It was amazing the life around this little creek. Palm trees and green plants lined the edges, frogs jumped about and fish were all over swimming through the algae. Both of us girls just wanted to jump right into it and splash about but we realized that would probably not be appropriate and settled for squatting down next to the water and having a small splash. It really wasn't big enough for much more anyway.
After visiting the creek and while Camel boy made lunch (Briham had gotten quite lax about doing his job after his brother left and was basically just hell bent on spending every second with Wyonetta) we headed to the small auberge/hotel next to the stream. Rumour had it that they had ice cold beers. And guess what? They did have ice cold beers and they were mighty refreshing. Wyonetta loved her drink and was struggling with not having a cocktail, wine or beer nightly, so she was particularly pleased and ready to settle in for the entire afternoon. Fotunately, Briham still had a little sense of what were were doing and how far we needed to go that afternoon and before she could order beer number 3, he ushered us out for lunch. Lunch was the usual although the amount of fish being used seemed to increase by the day. We did have an excellent lentil dish though and that made up for the excess in fish.
It was really quite a challenge to find the camels this day and Mohammed was gone for about 45 minutes before he returned with them and we were able to pack up and head out. Story was that we would be sleeping in or near a village that night. Wyonetta was particularly excited as they said she would have a chance to shower, which she hadn't done when we had the previous opportunity. Hmmmm, well, lets just say that no village appeared and we walked until the sun was almost down. Apparently our boys got a little lost out there in the sands and didn't find their way to the village. They even looked quite stressed and confused as they tried to find a place for us to camp amongst some small dunes before the light disappeared completely.
Camp got set up right quick and us girls were set up on top of a little sand hill with our tea and coffee and snacks to wait for dinner. We asked about the village and what happened and boy, isnt it just amazing, "What village?" popped out as did a lot of confusion and Briham all of the sudden not understanding English very well and not really knowing what we were on about. Mohammed didn't speak English so there wasn't any asking him. I think dinner arrived about midnight this night as Briham had taken to doing absolutely nothing but lounging around petting and kissing Wyonetta. Poor Camel boy got stuck with both his job and Brihams. Thought I would die of hunger before the night was out and almost fell asleep before the food came.
Oh, should mention that part of the delay in the food was that they decided to make a special nomad bread. It was absolutely fantastic but it meant making the dough, letting it rise, kneading it, moving the coals off the fire, digging a hole, burying the dough in the sand (sans cover) and then putting the coals back on top to let it bake. How we were not eatting a gritty sandy bread mass, I don't know. There was a lot of patting and scraping after the bread came out of the sand but the outside was nice and crusty and inside soft and warm. Don't think I will be trying that one at home though...Dad, maybe if you get ambitious with your bread making????
Day 5
This is the day we completely lost it. To begin with, we were lost which meant extra mileage. Adding to that was the fact that we were supposed to be checking out some fossils bu really were just walking through what appeared to be an old river bed that never, ever, ever ended. No matter which way we looked there was nothing but flat open ground, sand colored with rocks and more rocks. Oh, I am sorry, did I miss the two pathetic acacia trees (shade only if you sat at the base of the tree) that we stopped under in the almost five hours of walking and only because Wyonetta and I could not take the heat and walking anymore? We finally looked at them and said "Uh, could we get on a camel?" They appeared to be a little suprised that we were so beat and wanted to get on a camel. Sorry boys, we are not used to walking miles and miles in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the sun beating down on us.
Up on Zurich we went and he grunted and moaned and whined his displeasure before one of us even got on him. In fact we werent even near him and he was moaning. This was a bit better on the legs, although our asses sure did not think so. I think the heat made us quite loopy as we began to sort out what songs we could sing as we were jolted along on our camel. First up was Hotel California (Wyonetta decided I should know this one - I didn't and could only sing chorus/backup). Then came 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. After about 20 bottles we got bored and decided to try it out with different accents. British was definitely the winner and we sounded like two old biddies having a gay old time after too much wine (or tea as it may be). German didn't work too well and I think we ended up sounding more like that German sex doctor lady who is so famous for advising people and has that talk radio show thing (can't remember her name..ah, Dr. Ruth Westeimer). This was followed by a Julie Childs impersonnation of how to make a Tajine and sand baked bread in the desert and finally by a brief shout out by Yoda. By early afternoon, we were imagining cars driving by and waving our turbans fantically at them to come save us. I can now fully understand how people see things that are not there in the desert as at one point, a bush sure as hell looked like a camel to me. Oh, and yes, there really were cars off in the distance as by this point we had gotten close enough to civilization to have dirt tracks around.
We stopped early afternoon under another scraggly acacia tree close to some small dunes. Not much to report on the lunch as it was the same as the others. We all tried to take cover under the small amount of shade and our turbans. Couple hours passed and guess what, a sand storm decided to whip itself right up and keep on going throughout hte entire night. We only had a couple more hours to walk so got there as fast as we could as the wind whipped about us. Setting up the tent was quite the challenge but we got it done - several times as it almost blew over a couple times while dinner was being made. The wind howled all night (even rained a bit) and was still going the next morning (although much lighter) when we packed up to head out.
Day 6
At this point us girls had sort of had it with teh walking thing and prevailed upon Zurich to carry us the last 10km back to M'Hamid. Little embarrassing to be carried in but we were pretty beat so accepted the humiliation until we reached the winding streets of the town. We were brought to Mphktar and Briham's house first to unload the camels and also to stop in and have a tea. this was the amost amazing tea process I have ever seen. They made the tea in a little kettle that was set directly on hot coals that were fanned with one of those puffer things. The first setting of the tea is poured out as it is bad. More water is poured in, sugar added, glasses poured out and then back in (to mix the sugar appropriately). This went on for about 10 minutes before any of us got a glass of tea and I think that only four glasses were served. The tea was exceptional so I guess whatever they are doing works.
We were invited back for Tajine that afternoon after we had showered and set our bags down and rested for a bit. Boy that shower was nice, as was lying on a propper bed. My back was beginning to hurt from the thin flimsy mat we used in the desert. Someone should introduce them to the ThermaRest. The Tajine was like no other Tajine I had tasted. It came in an absolutely gigantic Tajine ceramic pot and was loaded with tender lamb and vegtables. Their sister had made it and complimented it with ther freshest cucumber I have ever tasted (wanted to use it as a cooling pack for my eyes), Moroccan salad (tomatoes and onions), an olive and pepper tapenade, olives and a sweet, shredded carrot mixture, and, of course, bread. All of this was followed by, you guessed right again, seasonal fruit of orange slices and cinnamon. We spent quite a bit of time relaxing there and enjoying chatting with Mohktar and Brihams sister in my little bits of French and her little bits of English.
Apparently we did not offend as we were invited back for a couscous dinner. Couscous has become quite a favorite of mine so having a home made couscous was particularly exciting. At this point my time on internet is running short so I will have to make the couscous adventure short as I would like to move beyond the Sahara on my Morocco trip. Suffice it to say, we were very late. We had gone back to do laundrey and Wyonetta had managed to get Hassan to find another bottle of wine from his collection. The man reminds me of one of those fat, greedy Roman men of the old day during Julius Caesar. Of course he was more than willing to find one for the outrageous sum of 150 Dirham or almost 20 USD. Then he proceeded to drink most of it. He found a second one, which he decided to late add to our bill and also enjoyed a fair amount of that. At this point Wyonetta and Briham decide to have a quick "five minute" chat, which turns into about an hour, meaning that it is almost 10:00 at night when we finally turn up at the house for couscous. I am petrified at the rudeness of it all and seek out Briham's siter and apologiwe profusely in my pathetic French. She tells me not to worry and says that she only just got home despite the fact that I am positive I saw her come out of the bedroom still pulling on her sweater. The dinner was fantastic and I really wish that I could have been able to enjoy it at a more restful pace. As it was there was a bit of tenstion and back and forth going on between Mohktar, Hassan and Briham so it was all a bit awkward.
Until next time....
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