A sand dune in my shoe

Hi everyone,

I am sorry it has taken me a few days to update this blog. I have promised to keep this up-to-date, and haven't for the past few days... BUT I have a good excuse! I was unable to write because... (choose between the following options):

a) I was locked away in some castle's highest tower
b) I was abducted by aliens
c) I was riding a camel in the Sahara desert

You guessed right: I was riding a camel in the Sahara desert!

I joined in an organized tour group heading out into the Sahara desert along with my travel partners, Nikole & Jen. There was another 13 people travelling with us (not counting the driver/guide), so for those afraid of safety, there has been enough people around us to be absolutely safe...

We left Marrakech three days ago, really early in the morning, and hit the road for what would be several hours! Our first few stops were bathroom breaks, and we had lunch in Ouarzazate, small but beautiful town east of Marrakech, with several kasbahs. Kasbahs are big big houses, almost literally an entire town, all attached together and made mostly of hay and mud. While visiting these buildings, you literally think you stepped back into time to when there was no such thing as electricity or heating. Apparently, although it gets really cold in Morocco, way colder than we had anticipated, there still is no heating systems in the houses (big blankets will have to do for the nights). Ironically, in houses made of stones (or some sustance similar to concrete), it ends up being colder inside than outside the house! This was the case for our hotel on the first night of our trip...

We crossed the High atlas mountains, going all the way to 3000 meters and witnessed a Banff-looking scenery, full of snow and high peaks. Gorgeous! While crossing the mountains, I dowed off and woke up 1/2 hour later to a completely different scenery, that of a dry desert and striving oases. After visiting kasbahs, including Ait Ben-haddou, we drove to the Dades Valley, where a beautiful oasis lines the bottom of the valley and houses have been erected even in the most remote places along the dry and steep cliffs. This was a real shock for us; we were seeing the real Morocco for the first time. This is a place where kids are taught, from really early on, that any stranger or visitor is a potential source of revenue and therefore they will try to sell solething, anything to a venturing tourist. We have learned to barter hard as this is the rule in this country but we have also found it very tiring and hard to try to lower down prices that are already not too high for us, knowing that this is their livelihood (or part of it). We were seeing the real Morocco... A little harsh for the eyes and the heart, but definitely worth seeing... We stopped at the Dades Gorges for the night, and enjoyed a traditional Moroccan dinner in a big but, oh, how cold hotel. The hallway was garnered with a few gas heathers and we all agreed to share them for the night: 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there. We ended up with it for the night...!

The next morning, we took to the road again and drove to the Toudra Valley, a bright red, very dry valley with complete desert scenery. We had the time to walk around the Toudra Gorges, second biggest in the world after the Grand Canyon. Very impressive! After a lunch there, we were back on the road and reached our destination, Erg El-Chebbi, or the beginning of the Sahara desert. We were directed to the 15 camels waiting for us and comfortably seated on one each. We rode the camels for about an hour when we reached our camp for the night. We all elected residence in one of the big berber tents there, and took the massive sand dune in front of us. I was really surprised at how hard it was to hike the dune, as it was all sand. But I still made it to the top, and on the way, accumulated a whole sand dune in my shoes! We were served dinner by our berber guides and served traditional mint tea. Around the fire, we played tam-tams and heard jokes and stories. We had a beautiful time! Our beds called us pretty early and we dozed off for the night.

The next morning (yesterday), we awoke to a wet Sahara desert. Yeah, it had rained during the night! Being a place where it only rains once or twice a year, we can say we really chose our night... We chose the one night with rain... Still, we were all dry and happy and the camels tooks us back to our bus. FYI, did you know that camels burp, fart and snore? You'd think we got all-male camels! They make the weirdest sounds and smell foul, but are nonetheless very friendly!

We drove for about 10 hours yesterday to get back to Marrakech and checked back into the same hotel where we had stayed the first night. We met a German guy and a South Korean girl that hve spent the day with us today, from breakfast to dinner, and in between while we went shopping in the souqs (where they make all the merchandise to sell, including slippers, jewellery, leather bags and other things). It is now dinner time and I am starving!

I will leave you at this for now, and will email again soon. By then, we should be in Fes, the lasr major city to hit before slosly heading back to Tangier, and then to London for a few days.

I love you a ton, I miss talking to several of you, but it would cost me a fortune to do so... So here's the blog update!

Take care,

Annik