a night under the stars

So where I left off in my last post was us heading off to bed in Gorges du Todra after a fun-filled day and Matt trying to use the tiny, electric heater (it didn’t warm the room at all!) to dry out his trousers and shoes. The trousers managed to lose most of the water by morning but there were no saving the shoes and we had to leave them behind.

It was beautiful and sunny when we awoke in the morning and after a hurried breakfast we were all bundled back into our buses and we headed off on what was described as the “second longest drive” of the tour. This drive was taking us to Erg Chebbi sand dunes, but we did have a number of stops along the way.

Our first stop was in honestly the middle of nowhere (or so it seemed but strangely the middle of nowhere in Morocco often had a lone person trying to sell wares of some description). The reason of this stop in the middle of nowhere was to examine an old well.

The well was on the right-hand side of the shot.

Sadly, in this case there was no where to buy water or were there any toilets, so a couple of people made use of the fact that there aren’t too many people in the sand dunes.

One thing that we did notice during our time in Morocco (sorry a little bit of a tangent but mentioning the lack of a toilet reminded me of this) was that there were lots of people (mainly men) randomly placed by themselves all over the place. During the tour, we saw so many lone people squatting or sitting by the side of the road and just observing what was going on around them. It was very curious.

Once we’d all peered into the well and realised that, yes it had dried up, we all piled back onto the bus and headed off to our lunch stop. I don’t remember the name of the place where we had lunch, but I do remember blue, blue skies and a swimming pool and we sat in the sunshine, eating a Moroccan version of pizza (which was such a novelity that we were all so excited by it) and soaking up the rays.

After lunch we stopped off at what could only be described as a “fossil dealer”. They used the various rocks/stones, etc that they found to create various furniture pieces and ornaments. One of the girls in our tour group bought a chess set made out of fossil stone – it was really pretty. I really liked the coffee table tops and the shower bases that were both made out of this fossilised stone.

This was a piece of stone that hadn't been turned into anything yet. I thought that it would have been a great table with a piece of glass over the top!

From the fossils we then began our off road experience to reach Erg Chebbi in a mini bus and discovered exactly why a coach company wouldn’t give up one of their precious coaches for a tour like this. The potholes and uneven sand was amazing and although our driver didn’t see the journey as a race, the rest of us in the bus were trying to get him to take alternative routes across the various paths in the dunes so that we could pull in front of the other buses. Unfortunately though, in the end we were still last, which was this stage was the running theme.

We were amazed as we pulled into the hotel/tourist centre at the beginning of the sand dunes at the number of camels waiting for us. Until then we weren’t really sure what to expect: we didn’t know whether it would be two people to a camel, whether we’d all go in a big group and how much control we’d be expected to have of the camels.

As it turned our, we each got our own camel – hence the amazingly large number of camels waiting. We were only allowed to bring our daypacks and sleeping bags into the desert with us so once we’d sorted ourselves out we were herded towards the camels. They had groups of about six camels tied together and one Berber would lead the front camel on foot. I was at the back on the way into the Sahara desert so I also had what I dubbed as the “Sleeping Bag camel” attached to my camel “Bob”. The “Sleeping Bag camel” was a little young but we got along quite well and he spent most of the trip trotting along beside “Bob” and myself so that I could occasionally scratch his head.

I'm not going to say it... I promise... I won't... ok, you've twisted my arm... is that "Lauren of Arabia"?... geez, even my dad cringed at that.

Some of our tour group

We were on the camels for about 45 minutes until we arrived at the Berber camp. The camp was pretty amazing, there was a mass of Berber rugs that created the tents where we were to be sleeping. Matt and I selected quickly to sleep in a large, authentic looking tent that housed another six people. We had to squat down to get into the tent.

Once we selected our tents we were told that we had some free time. It was suggested that we may wish to climb one of the bigger sand dunes to watch the sunset, so armed with a couple of “sand boards” that looked an awful lot like snowboards to me, we all began the march up the sand dune.

Boy it was hard work. The sand was soft and hot and our legs really had to work hard to make it to the top. It was so worth it though when we did as we got to watch the sun go down in all its glory.

Sunset over the dunes

We ate dinner sitting cross-legged outside our tents and then sat around a bonfire and listened to the Berbers singing and playing drums. They tried to get us to sing at one point, but there wasn’t really a song that we all knew and could sing in unison.

It was one of the best night’s sleep that I had while on the tour, the quiet and calm of the desert coupled with the fact that with my sleeping bag and an extra blanket I was warmer than I’d been at a number of the other hotels meant that I slept the night straight through. I also should thank Missy Higgins because there were still some people around the campfire as we headed off to our tent and I put my iPod in to help me get to sleep. The same couldn’t be said for Matt as according to him, his sleep mat (haha Matt’s mat!) had been placed on a mini sand dune and he spent the whole night trying not to roll off.

In the morning we were woken at around 6.30am so that we could climb the sand dunes again to see the sunrise. I had to go to the toilet when I woke so Matt started off without me. Unfortunately it was really hazy that morning and we didn’t really get to see very much by the time I’d had my turn in the toilet and treked up the dunes, but I couldn’t find Matt anywhere. I asked a couple of people and they mentioned that they’d seen him, along with another couple of guys in our tour, disappear over one of the further dunes. Sighing I headed back to the tent to start packing things away as we were supposed to be leaving soon and once I’d finished I poked my head out of the tent to see whether Matt had made it back yet. He hadn’t and neither had the others, which started to make us worry slightly. I started to get bullied to get onto a camel as they were waiting for us to leave, but I didn’t want to leave without making sure that Matt made it back. Then I got slighted annoyed with him for disappearing in the first place and I got onto a camel and headed back to Erg Chebbi without him.

Of course, once I did this I spent the whole camel ride back feeling bad that I’d left without making sure that he was ok so once I made it back, I then stood watching for him camel group to make it back. I think that he was slightly scared when he saw me standing there with my arms crossed but I was just glad to know that he hadn’t gotten himself lost in the desert that I gave him a hug and we then sat down to eat breakfast.

We headed back in the mini buses after breakfast to Ouarzazate where we were staying the night. On the way through we stopped to look at Draa Valley:

Matt and the valley.

Our hotel in Ouarzazte was a God send – heaters in every room, hot water and a nice, warm meal and we were almost all ready to hit the hay. It wasn’t long until we all pealed off to the sweet callings of our pillows.

Coming up next…
Quad bikes, movie sets, kasbahs and back to Marakech!