Desert Trip

Well, I just got back from a fantastic trip to the Saharan Desert on Sunday evening, and it was definitely worth all the muscle pains and sore nether regions that I’m feeling this week. It was an eleven hour drive each way, and although that sounds awful it was actually almost as good as the actual desert because we were driving through such an incredible landscape that went from beautiful green rolling hills, to mountains with snow, to barren rock lands with lush green valleys. I was so excited when I saw the red sand dunes in the coming up in the distance – they almost looked fake, like someone had just popped them there for a movie set. I will post some photos on here asap.
We arrived at the base camp, which is at the edge of the dunes, at about 4:30, where we had tea (of course) before getting on camels to ride an hour and a half out to our camp in the dunes. I am ashamed to admit that I was a little bit chicken about riding a camel – they’re a lot bigger in real life! – but soon I was cruising along with my water bottle in one hand and my camera in the other, whilst twisting myself into contortions to find a more comfy part of my butt to sit on – unsuccessfully I might add.
When we arrived at our campsite we were told to start climbing, in order to be at the top of the dune for the sunset. This may have been the most strenuous thing I’ve had to do in quite some time; we were half convinced that this exercise was purely for the entertainment of the guides watching from below, but it was worth it once we reached the top, for the amazing view of the sunset. It was also worth it for the run down again, which was heaps of fun and almost made it worth climbing back up just to run down again :)
The guides cooked us a beautiful meal – tagine of course – then finished us off by getting us to dance to their singing and drums. We all slept pretty cosily, 9 in one tent, and then stumbled up at 5am for the ride back to base camp so that we could watch the sunrise on the way. The drive back was long, and I can now say that I’ve had my first meal in Morocco that didn’t taste great – I guess roadside café’s are the same all over the world! All in all though it was a fantastic, wonderful weekend, and I can’t wait to do a longer trip into the desert with Damien when he gets over here.