Sahara Desert
We left the riad at 7am and met up with the group travelling to the Sahara. There were 10 of us 2 swiss, 2 chinese 2 Portugese, 2 Lithunians, us and a French speaking Muslim driver. The road to the Sahara goes over the Atlas mountains and Jen and I are terrified of heights. When I was younger I couldn’t have done it but I figure the fear is related to death and as death is getting closer with age there’s not much point in worrying anymore. We made a stop at Quarzazate for a visit to the set where they filmed Gladiator and for lunch, Tagine (stew) is the local dish or couscous, We had tagine yesterday but not to worry its quite nice. I was very brave crossing the mountains as the manic muslim driver was overtaking lorries with thousands of feet drops, Jen slept all the way, the views were stunning and the pass is high enough to be up in the snow. We arrived at Dades Gorge at 6pm. Lovely hotel – no heating, cold shower and meal – Tagine. We met an American couple and sat in a room we found, with the lithunians Natalie and Andreus playing cards and drinking beer accompanied by three moroccan staff singing, playing drums and marraccas. We stayed there till midnight – there was a log fire. During the night it snowed. After breakfast we left for the desert stopping on the way for lunch, managed to get an omlette the only other choice was a sandwhich or Tagine. We arrived at the Sahara at 6pm. It was amazing riding the camels in the Desert at sunset although very cold. The night sky was starry with a full moon. We arrived at the Berber Camp after 8pm and had been told to take only the minimum with us plus drinking water. Somewhere during this trek I managed to lose my phone. We were all given a mattress in a large tent and loads of blankets. Plenty of sweet black tea and Tagine which was served in two large bowls between ten of us, nowhere to wash your hands and no cutlery or plates. The Berbers then entertained us with song (well a sort of shrieking grunting noise) and music from home made drums. We figured the only way to keep warm was to join in. Later the Berbers gave us a sand board and Jen, Andreus and Roi (portugeses) had a few goes sand boarding down the dunes. I used it like a sled and sat on it, climbing those dunes soon got us really hot. In the morning we were up at 6.30am to see the sunrise and ride the camels back. Our driver was in a major rush to leave we stopped for a loo stop at 11am and were told that the mountain pass was to close for the night at 5pm because of the snow, after that the driver wouldn’t stop again and drove like a madman to make the mountain pass before it closed. We got through at 4.35pm and it was gone 6 before we got through the mountains and stopped for food. Tagine or cold chips.
Posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 8:30 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
