Since I was in Morocco I splurged on the very
touristy thing of visiting the desert. It had to be done! And I was really
afraid that I would miss it.
First there was a sand storm!
Then there was a rain storm!
And as the hotel owner said they only get rain
twice a year! It was cool but I was a bit bummed because I wanted to go to the
fucking desert!!
Any how it passed… for the most part. So we saddled
up! It turned out to be a benefit that I was solo because I got to sit at the
front of the camel train. I got the typically awesome camel photos!
And one of the guides took a couple photos for me!
I will preface this two hour camel ride with the
fact that I have never ridden a horse before let alone a camel. So I was quite
sure I was going to fall off at some point. Turns out I was a natural! There
was an older couple there who were convinced I had ridden before and was lying.
And the one guide said I’d make a good Berber wife because I rode so well.
Anyhow it was a two hour ride out to the camp. It
was actually rather cold because of the earlier rain. And about 45 minutes into
the ride we were rained on. I mean come on how freaking cool! I got rained on
in the Sahara! When we stopped for photos I got this beauty!
Seriously how many people do you know that have
seen a rainbow in the Sahara desert!
Not to mention I totally had to get a
picture of my self in my desert princess getup!
And the guide was chatting me up. The normal how old are you, are you married, why aren't you married, do you have a boyfriend. I did my best not
to be a total bitch but as I said before having weird conversations with men
was a side effect of being a solo woman. Then we mounted back up. Getting on
and off the camel was a little white knuckle experience. Because when you go to
dismount they go down of their front legs first and mine was stubborn and
didn’t want to sit back so I was just leaning back trying not to fall forward
before he sat down. Getting back up was the reverse. I had a very sassy camel.
I named her Bernard, but called him Babes.
So after sunset pics it was the long haul to the
camp! It was up hills and down hills. Then we were there and we walked down a
smallish dune and into the camp!
Legit right?! We all got assigned tents. There was
only 7 of us, normally on peak season there are 20 or more people! That would
mean doubling up in tents. So it was nice that there were so few of us. Plus we
all got pretty close from hanging out and talking over dinner.
I’ll introduce my friends from the desert. There
was the older couple (I think they were Danish). They were nice, very sassy and
very well travelled. There were two girls from Canada (I think) and they were
working in Switzerland as nurses so they spoke tons of French. Then there were
my Canada Boys. They were two friends from Toronto. And I’ll be dead honest
they made that desert trip perfect for me. They were close to age and easy to
talk to. Then we had the two Berber guides with us. One was younger (the one
creeping on me) and an older one.
We looked at the stars before the moon rose then
hung out and had tagine for dinner. Then we told some jokes. I was just telling
my mum and brother the jokes the other day and they were like what? Those are
stupid. They’re funny in that lame way. One of them our whole group got stumped
on and came up with creative answers only to have it be a lame one. It was
still fun. Then it was music time. I got to play the drums, poor choice on
their part. I suck musically. And it was almost painfully awkward for me. But I
made it through alive!
Then it was time for more star gazing! This time
the moon was up! I seriously have never seen that many stars in the sky and it
was amazing! Canada Boy 1 showed me how to set the manual settings so I could
get pictures of the stars!!
And even though my camera is ghetto they came out
amazing and I was so fucking lucky to have my camera pointed in the right
direction to catch this beauty!
Ahhhh!!!! How fantastic right! Any how while we
were all taking pictures and milling about the one guide who had chatted me up
earlier came over and was like hey do you want me to take you up the dune after
this. I was a bit creeped out but I totally wanted to go. So as we were sort of
going toward the dune I was like hey Canada boys come with me we’re climbing a
dune. And either they were totally game or I sounded very creeped out they came
along, bless their souls. Canada Boy 1 lagged behind because of a knee injury
but Canada Boy 2 stuck with it! It was seriously so nice to have someone else
along on that hike. Because at one point I’m lagging a bit and the guide comes
over and takes my hand and I’m like beyond weirded out so I grab Canada Boy’s
hand and we keep on trekking up. It was a massive dune!
Yup that one. So we climbed the non windblown side
from out camp to a smaller ridge then we hopped over to the windblown side and
damn what a difference it made. It was packed and made walking so much easier.
So we hiked and hiked. I’d say it easily took us 45 minutes if not longer to
climb that dune. I was never happier that I had been working out at the gym and
getting in shape because I did a decent job on not lagging too much! So we get
to the top and holy hell…
Those lights are Merzouga
The pictures don’t do it justice. It was like a sea
of silver. Honestly one of the most mind bogglingly beautiful things. We just
sat there for a bit in silence then we sort of started chatting with the guide
and he was sitting way too close for comfort so I scooted a bit and Canada Boy
and I ended up talking about random things.
Then we were tired and like okay let’s head back! So the guide was like hey do you want to Berber sled. I was like cool show us how to do it. So he’s like sit down and give me you ankles. Apparently Berber sledding is just being pulled down the dune by your feet. Weird right? Totally weird. Canada Boy got left out, he had to walk down the dune. I’m convinced it was because he wasn’t a single female…
After that it was totally bedish time. I ended up
cracking out my manuscript because I wanted to be able to say I had edited it
in the Sahara! But come on this tent was pretty sweet.
Of course I was in the desert you fool!
Any how I
had 3 blankets on my bed because I wanted an extra one since I had no one to
share body heat with. I also slept in 2 pairs of socks, leggings, pants, shirt,
sweatshirt and vest. And I used my desert wrap on my face during the night
because I woke up to a freezing nose that I was convinced I’d lose to frost
bite. I didn’t get too much sleep because I kept waking up from being cold. And
I hate being cold. I severely underestimated the cold. Next time I go into the
desert for a night I had better be married so I have a hot guy to cuddle with!!
The next morning we were woken up early so we could
catch the sunrise. Our whole group hiked up the huge dune (the one I climbed
the night before). We took the hard route straight up the side!! And holy fuck
was it worth it!
When we got there the sun hadn’t crested the dunes
in front of us but there was a higher dune to the left that was already in the
sun.
So we all took a seat and waited…
And I took way too many pictures…
But it was just stunning!
There's our camp!!
The creepy guide gave me the front camel again for
the ride back. So I had epic pictures again. And since it wasn’t rainy I got to
wear my head wrap!!
Come on I sort of looked cool as fuck! By the way this is my selfie with Babes when we got back
And I got a bunch of cool shadow photos…
I’ll be dead honest that ride back was really
painful. My butt was so bruised from the day before that it was VERY
uncomfortable.
And yes I stole this picture from my Canada buddy!
Cheers!
I just have to say that I felt quite epic on a
camel. And it was worth the splurge which turned out not being a huge splurge. So
that was money I rolled into Rome and Edinburgh!
Cheers,
