Out Into The Desert.

Our gateway to the Sahara.

One of my trips to Morocco was a group trip, a couple of weeks exploring the country. We visited most of the interesting cities and visited the south, west to east. Now, I had never been on a group trip before, and, being a bit of a solitary traveller in my later life, wasn't sure it would be for me. But the group, heavily Australian, were lovely, the guides fantastic and the route took me to many new places plus, at the end, my old favourite, Essouaira.

Our waiting camels

But possibly the most exciting couple of days was when we went into the Sahara Desert for a 2-day trip, riding out into the desert on camels, spending a night out there and then riding back to our starting point. Among the things we learnt was that the whole area where we started from had suffered severe flooding a couple of years earlier which seemed beyond belief. Also, it was surprisingly chilly and, in fact, quite freezing when the sun had gone down.
Riding camels is not that difficult but rather uncomfortable, especially after the first hour. These beasts just plod on, following the leader and are very sure-footed even when going across the sloping side of a dune. We spent the time shouting to one another, taking photos and making sure we weren't about to fall off from our quite high perches.
But I know we were all very pleased when we came to our small Berber encampment in a fairly big flat space amongst the dunes.
Once dismounted and our belongings stowed away in the tents, the younger members grabbed some surf boards and started surfing down the steepest dunes, not for me. And two of our party climbed up the highest dune around and then came back to announce that Dean had proposed to Natalie and they were now engaged to be married; they both worked in the travel business and now have their first baby.

The happy couple.

When the sun disappeared the cold became quite noticeable and we all huddled into one big tent to eat the lovely food prepared for us by the unseen Berber womenfolk. This meal was followed by a spell outside round a roaring fire and our Berber guides and some others of their tribe, entertained us with some local music and we all had a good laugh, not at them, but at jokes told.

Me and my camel.

Then it was off to bed and I found that fully-clothed and with additional clothing and a hairy, thick Berber blanket, I was still too cold to sleep for ages. And then had to stumble our to find the loo in the middle of the night which was quite unfunny.
At first light we were up, had a hot drink and were back on the camels, heading for the simple inn where we were to have breakfast and head off to our next stop in our minibus. You can see how early it was by the lengths of our camel shadows.
I was jolly glad it was over when we got there, my bum was suffering from the hardness of the saddle and I was very much in need of food. But it was an experience I wouldn't have missed and will always remember. How people can live out in the desert is beyond me but its silent vista has to be seen to be believed.