Sahara

Morning everyone! 

You would never believe me if I told you that I was woken up at 7:30 am and was dressed and packed in 2 minutes, but I swear that’s exactly what happened. Susan wanted to go to the Sahara but couldn’t get a tour, and Auntie Sureia wanted to go up north to Tanger and surrounding beach cities. I went to sleep while they both were at a stalemate lol. I was simply ready for any adventure out of Fes, which was how I ended up jumping out of the bed and into the car for a 7 hour drive to the Sahara. It was definitely a race to the desert because we were trying to beat nightfall so we could ride camels in the sunset. 

Probably the only perk of not driving a stick shift is that I was a permanent passenger/navigator while Susan and Auntie Sureia took turns at the wheel. The scenery was beautiful and we crossed the mountains. It was cool to see the transition from green, lush farms with plentiful livestock to red rocks! Interestingly, the red rocks looked just like I was driving through Utah or Arizona. I swear!

As we got further into the Sahara there was only one paved two way road down the middle, and nothing else. The gps kept telling us to turn left, and we kept looking left and there was just nothing! We circled twice before deciding to off road and follow the gps. Well apparently, there was a “road” in the sand but the only way to know if it was a road was whether or not there were other tire tracks. We looked absolutely ridiculous in our little Toyota Yaris competing with all these  4runners. I have to hand it to Auntie Sureia though, we made it five minutes after 5 pm, just in time for our camel ride.

I feel pretty guilty, the camels were not well taken care of or handled nicely. I wish I could have done something different once I saw that but my options were to stay in the tent alone or be with others in the group, obviously, I hopped on. But in the future I think I’ll be more intentional on what tourist activities I participate in. It’s a bit crazy how much power we can have as foreigners and I think if people realized we cared it would make a difference.

The camel ride was wild! Instead of a pretty sunset across the Sahara, we got a desert storm. And let me tell you, that sand was biting! Sand was literally everywhere and within 30 seconds I could taste the grains in my mouth, despite being super covered up. Actually, it was funny, when we were driving over Auntie Sureia was complaining about it being dusty with the window cracked in the car and the guide just laughed and said “lady, this is the Sahara.” Now I understand why, to fight the sand is futile, we just had to learn to lean in to permanently being covered in a layer of it. Also, looking at these photos I can’t help but laugh because I look like a total desert gangster! 

After the camel ride, we were sent to our luxury tent, which by the way was AMAZING! There was electricity and running water,  the ceilings were draped with fabric, and they had both heat and air conditioning!! The only thing missing was steady service and wifi lol. Talk about ultimate glam!! Actually, the tent was the nicest place we stayed in AND the nicest food we had eaten the entire trip. Trust me, the fact that the best hospitality was in the middle of nowhere desert was definitely not lost on us. All we could do was laugh about it and enjoy ourselves. 

After dinner we had musicians come to play indigenous Berber music. They have this instrument called krakebs, the metal ones shaped and played kind of like the castanets (guy on the right in the photo is playing them). They make this haunting sound that represents the shackles of slaves or the hooves of a horses as people were dragged away in grain sacks, which seemed so contradictory to the lively drumming and singing. The beat was unusual, I couldn’t quite figure it out, but I wasn’t going to be deterred from dancing. This might be my biggest claim to fame, we had two Germans and two Brits in our tent with us aka the most stoic and reserved people ever, and I convinced them to dance!!! We were having so much fun that even the a group of Moroccan guys from Tangier who weren’t really participating in any activities walked by and joined our dance party. One guy even taught me some of the local steps! I know I looked a bit silly, but I tried! The musicians let us all play their instruments for their last song. After our impromptu dance party, one of the Germans came up to me and said “For Germans, that was too exciting. We normally don’t do that.” 

Dancing always makes fast friends. Even after the musicians left, all of us stayed around to chit chat. Turns out the British couple were from Manchester and had traveled both to the States and Morocco before. They had some really good advice for our trip to Marrakech! It was funny because they were telling stories about their mishaps while driving automatic cars in the US, which they insisted was way harder than driving a manual. I can’t say I quite agree haha.

The Europeans slowly peeled off until it was just Auntie Sureia, me, and the Tangier Moroccans. So we sat around playing a local card game pretty similar to spades until 2:00 am! It was funny watching Auntie Sureia beat them even though she has just learned the game, but if you ask me I think she was secretly counting cards. The rest of the night felt like I was in undergrad all over again! Turns out I wasn’t too far off since we later learned the three guys were all in college. You should have seen their faces when they found out I had graduated so long ago, they were so shocked!! Thanks mom and dad for the good genes. Unfortunately, my almost thirty self will probably regret staying up all night, but that’s a tomorrow problem.

Anyways that’s all for now! 

Love you all,

Carolyn