Spring Break, part 2

So, where was I? Right, climbing onto camels and riding off into the Sahara. 

The three nights in the desert are by far the most rugged camping experience I’ve ever had. This is not to say that our trek was difficult per se, but rather that I’ve never gone nearly so long without seeing a toilet. I also did not change my shirt between the time we left Auberge Les Roches on Saturday afternoon and the time we returned there early on Tuesday morning.

Perhaps our dirtiness played a part in making us feel, as we did by the time we returned to civilization, that we had totally lost our minds. On the other hand, the desert itself doesn’t need much help to make one feel that way. They are just so large and so far outside the realm of what the normal human brain is willing to accept. Terrain, one’s cerebral cortex insists, just does not look like this. The analogy which sprang to mind was that of an ant in a sandbox.

It’s easy to imagine getting hopelessly lost in the seemingly-endless landscape of orange dunes, all of which look essentially the same. Luckily for us, we were accompanied by our fabulous guides, Moustapha and Ahmed; one of the best parts of our trip was getting to hang out with these awesome locals[1]. They told us some of the silliest jokes I’ve ever heard. The one currently making the rounds all over Morocco is about Qaddafi’s accent. Some of you may be aware of a horrible speech Qaddafi made in which he declared his intention to massacre every single rebel “street to street, house to house, room to room, person to person.” The Arabic word for street is zankat, but Qaddafi has a funny accent, so he said “zanga zanga” instead of “zankat zankat.” Hilarious, right? No? What if it was dubbed over Shakira? Still not funny? Well, you clearly haven’t been to the desert.

We camped in the dunes the first and third nights, at a small campsite consisting of two sleeping tents and a sort of small tin house where we ate dinner, a delicious tajine with chicken and vegetables. The guardian of a nearby gite showed up after dinner and they all serenaded us with bongo drums and a guitar that was short one key. Each of us was forced to play the drums a bit, and they asked us to sing American songs for them to play along to. The only songs we could adequately remember which were suitable for gnawa-like bongo rhythms were Shakira’s “Waka Waka”[2] and K’Naan’s “Waving Flag.” Moustapha, as it turns out, is in an African Blues band.

The next day we made our leisurely way towards a nomad-style house near the Algerian border, which is marked by a very sheer and dramatic-looking cliff at the edge of a rocky, barren plain. On the way, we stopped for a tasty fish salad lunch[3] which Ahmed somehow produced out of nowhere. We lay in the sun singing pop songs we remember from our ‘90s childhoods. Amelia had a fake karate battle against Moustapha. When we got to the nomad village, there wasn’t much to do besides sit in a tent, stare out at the landscape, and sip shockingly sweet glasses of tea[4] which our guides brought to us on a tray.

We had delicious, delicious couscous for dinner and, after asking us for paper, our guides demonstrated remarkable artistic ability by drawing us lots of pictures of camels, palm trees, and the six of us trekking across the desert.

We had to wake up painfully early on Tuesday morning, around 4:30, in order to pack up and trek back to the hotel in time to catch our 8 AM bus for Ouarzazate. Mackenzie was deathly ill, but demonstrated commendable self-control and got on her camel anyway. It was incredibly cold, and camels should never be ridden in the dark because they’re actually not the most stable of mounts. On the other hand, there probably aren’t very many people in the world who can say that they’ve watched the sun rise from camelback while riding out of the Sahara.

We got back to the inn at about 6:30, where they fed us another great breakfast and we all had barely enough time to sort of jump into the shower, hose ourselves off, and jump out before Mackenzie, Amelia and I had to get in a cab for the bus station. Hila headed back north to Meknes to meet up with some of our other friends, but the rest of us were beach bound!

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[1] Moustapha, in addition to speaking excellent English, also spoke Derrija, fus-ha, at least one Amazigh language, French, Spanish, German, and a few words of Japanese. He has only had six years of formal schooling.

[2] Which all Moroccans know because 1)they love Shakira because she’s part Arab and 2)the song is about Africa.

[3] I had no idea that canned mackerel was so delicious. Adding that to my shopping list.

[4] Have I written about Moroccan tea? If I were a better blogger, I would have done a whole post just on things like food and tea. Moroccans love mint tea, which they drink several times a day. It’s green tea with large quantities of mint leaves and about as much sugar as water. That’s not really much of an exaggeration. It’s sort of like southern sweet tea, actually.