We woke up really early, and by really early I mean 7 o’clock, to start our first of many long drives. The drive from Azrou to the dunes of Erg Chebbi was beautiful. Starting north around the Middle Atlas, we then turned south and followed the edge of the mountains till we hit desert. Beautiful winding roads through dry but green treed hills reminded me of the drive from Lewiston to McCall, Idaho. This led us to a more arid drive to Rissani, where we stopped for a great lunch of Berber pizza; bread with carrots, egg, and other stuff cut up inside toasted. We then all got into Land Rovers and headed toward the Sahara. We peeled off the paved road at some random spot and headed straight for the dunes. Out of nowhere, villages and small communities started to popup out of what had seemed to be flat, black, rocky land. We dismounted the Land Rovers at our impressively nice hotel/guesthouse on the edge of the dunes, and were herded onto the forty or so camels patiently waiting to take us for a nice sunset stroll into the biggest desert on the planet. These camels were different from the ones I rode in the Gobi in Mongolia. They did not have the two humps and were not as big.
The desert is going to be very hard to explain in words, and the pictures only start to grasp at the expanse of nothingness that unfolds in front of you. Imagine a stormy sea of very fine red sand frozen at its angriest moment by the heat of the North African sun. You have swells of dunes rising up from a shore of black rock that lays to the west. It’s endless; as far as the eye can see, and even when you wander out and find the highest dune in your vicinity you look see another dune in the distance that’s taller. The air has a stale sandbox smell to it and there is no moisture to be had.
I wondered out the farthest to the east and found a high perch where I could enjoy the sunset with no noise from the group. Maggie and Asia came up and joined me 5 minutes later followed by a couple others who left the dune shortly after arriving. Maggie, Asia and I stayed up there as long as we could trying to soak in the breadth on the desert that lay around us. The Gobi had dunes, but they had mountains in the background dwarfing them and did not give the same semblance of vastness that these did.
We made our way back to the inn and stayed up late talking and wandering out into the desert in the pitch black. Scary. You feel like your in some sci-fi movie where a sand creature is going to silently pick each one of your friends off at a time until its just you with the flashlight….alone…….breathing…heavily….and then your flash lights dies and all you have for company is your breath….and then the creatures breath behind you…
Anyway, Henry, Mike, Kelsi, Dan, Steffa, Jules, Hong and I woke up around four in the morning and starting hiking out east into the dunes in search of a high perch to watch the sunrise from. After an hour or so of walking we thought we had found a nice spot. A year ago, I had streaked across the Gobi desert at sunset and thought I should keep the tradition alive. So, the boys de-robbed and ran out into nothingness with nothing. It’s a very freeing feeling when you are in such an empty expanse relatively alone with nothing on you. Its just you, the desert and the stars. It got cold so I ran back to my clothes. The other boys followed.
The drive from the dunes to Ouarzazate is flat out one of the most gorgeous desert mountain landscape I’ve ever seen. Huge ancient fault lines create big flat valleys with southern-Utahish looking swells on either side with palm groves cutting in and out of valleys. I am not going to spoil it for other, just go to Morocco and make the drive.
I woke up the next morning feeling really crummy. The only thing this day turned out to be for me was a painfully LONG haul up over the High Atlas to Marrakech. I threw up and was leaking out of my butt hole in the morning and the twisty, turny mountain roads just added to the problem. Midway through the day I had to pull the trigger again. I wish I could have enjoyed the views more because they were astounding. Looking forward to them in December when I make the drive with the family. The sickness passed and the next morning Hen, Mike and I would be walking around the city all day shopping the souks and drinking fresh squeezed orange juice.
Sunday, I woke up and felt much better. Mike, Hen and I set off to wander the souks of Marrakech. We walked up and down the crowded narrow streets, shopped and bargained, ended up bartering away a set of American playing cards to get a lower price on a present. Pretty funny. That night we had dinner at one of the MANY food stands in the Djemaa el Fan Square and washed it down with the delicious fresh squeezed orange juice. A lot of tourists in the city, but its got a great vibe.
The next morning we departed for Essouria stopping at an Argon oil commune where women work to produce different types of culinary and cosmetic oils. We moved on to the town, which sits in a nice bay on the coast with a big beach stretching down to the south. We played a big soccer game on the beach, which was super fun and everyone was really into it. Still sore from it…ha that’s sad.
The drive back to Rabat was uneventful, stopping in El Jadida for the same picnic on the beach.
So as you can tell I kind of lost steam on this blog….it’s long enough as it is. But it conveys the week pretty well. Exciting up until leaving Marrakech and then kind of blah.
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