Midnight at the Oasis!
The title of this post and the next few lines will show my age...so we put our camels to bed, then woke them up again at 6:00 am for sunrise on the Sahara. Yes...we went to the Sahara desert and did a camel ride out to a tent camp and spent a night under the amazing stars! The Milky Way was so clear out there. Never mind the minor detail that we were a mere 15kms from the Algerian border.
The light in the desert is absolutely incredible! We were a group of 8, and our fabulous Berber guide! We were later joined by 3 ladies from Japan, making a total of 11 in our camp. After an amazing tangine dinner, we had a fire and our Berber guide and 3 others played traditional drums. Then we had to take a turn: let’s just say I won’t be recruited into a Berber band just yet!
This was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done! It’s right up there with rafting the Zambezi River back in 1997. I’m not a morning person, but I was jumping out of bed at 5:45am for our sunrise ride back. However I must confess: camels, (actually they’re called dromedary camels because they only have the one hump), are not the most comfortable of seats, so today I’m feeling the effects of 90 minutes of riding both on Thursday night and Friday morning. Our 12 hour van trip back to Marrakech didn’t help either!
Desert temperatures were down to 3C overnight, but we were quite warm with our cots and blankets. We definitely layered up though for the early morning ride out. More later on my other Moroccan adventures and my random thoughts, but for now...I just want to bask in the memories of my experiences out on the Sahara.
