More about the desert

11/8/09-11/9/09

So the next morning we were woken by the clapping of our hosts and the occasional drumbeat. We ate our breakfast of bread, confiture, and hard boiled eggs (which our guides fought over carrying from where we first mounted our camels the day before), played with the baby of the Bedouin mother of the host family (who after making us fall in love with her baby showed us all the handmade camels and scarves she had for sale...the gag worked because I bought some), and mounted our camels once again for a long day of camel trekking.

I rode Eunace again (I think), and we went through some more nice soft dunes into the more rocky part of the desert, which I believe was referred to as "Black Sand Desert." We trekked toward the Algerian border and ate lunch under a small tent near the home of another Berber family. Our poor vegitarian friends (who had been sustaining themselves on bread and fruit) were brought this salad with fish on it and it went something like this.

Vegetarian: Is there a vegetarian option coming?

Bedouin Guide: This is it.

Vegetarian: There's meat on this.

Bedouin Guide: No, its fish.

Vegetarian: Fish are animals.

Bedouin Guide: We'll see what we can do.

And to their credit, they did. But in case you are vegetarian and thinking of coming to Morocco, be warned that "vegetarian" really isn't part of the vocabulary here.

We rested for a long time there (which the boys were very happy to do, especially since there weren't any frozen peas to be found). Then began our trek back. This time I rode Mongo, who Chloe had the day before. He was very sweet, and had this crazy nose tumor which he kept nuzzling against Norma's behind (Jess's camel). The coolest thing about the trip back to our campsite is that Julia got to ride her camel sans guide! She asked for a little lesson on how to lead them (it seemed to be very similar to riding horses in terms of commands) and wandered along next to us, who were all tied together.

Mongo was great, and Max's camel was very friendly as well. I named her Penelope, but Max didn't really like that as he found it girly. I found that whichever camel you are riding doesn't matter so much as the one that is behind you. Whenever we went downhill the traffic kind of backed up, and you had the next camel's head next to you. If they are a nice camel, they will let you pet their nif and scratch under their jaw right by their ear.

The second night at the campsite was not nearly as cold as the first, for which we were all very grateful. We spent a lot of time playing with the child of the family there. He must've been about 5 and he loved Connor's Snowboarding magazine. We taught him the words "ski" and "jump." We tried "man" also, but I'm not sure if that one stuck or not. There is a beautiful simplicity to family life here. At least it seems simple to me, I'm sure it's not actually. Family is a huge part of things here, and one of the main criticisms of Western culture I've heard are that our families are not close. It's all relative I suppose.

We didn't stay up very late that night at all and went to bed almost immediately after dinner, because our plan was to wake up at 4 the next morning to catch the sunrise on our way back to Fes.

And we did just that. After a little bit of scrambling around in the dark to make sure we hadn't left anything behind, we mounted our camels once more and left our Bedouin Tent site for good.

Riding a camel under the Saharan night sky is something everyone should attempt to do in their lifetime. Humbling and beautiful, this was my favorite trek of the weekend. We stopped briefly to take some pictures of the sunrise, mounted our camels for the last time, and continued on to a hotel where we met our guide and headed back to Fes, to Rassani, and then to Rabat.