Morocco Storybook Tour – Day 6 can be found here.
Another great sleep last night – not surprising, considering what we’d undergone the day before.
Breakfast at 8:30 am, which consisted of fresh fruit, yoghurt, muesli, Moroccan flatbread served with various preserves and spreads, and a Berber omelette.
Artfully photographed to hide the fact that we demolished the rest of it
Delicious.
The original plan had been to ride out to an oasis on camels and stop there for lunch, but nature had other plans – a sandstorm was blowing in, so we opted instead for a 90 min camel ride near our camp.
It’s incredible how much life there is in the desert – not only the plants and insects, but birds and animals too. We saw a series of paw prints earlier, and Ali thought they belonged to a desert fox.
The camel ride itself was lovely – or should I say epic, which is the term my son used. The animals were extremely well trained and we had no issue riding them, despite limited riding experience on the part of myself and my son.
(My wife and daughter ride regularly, but they noted that the camels have a much different gait than that of horses.)
At one point the rope binding the train of camels actually fell off and none of the now-loose camels used this as their opportunity to bound toward freedom which was a pleasant surprise given the dire warnings we’d heard about camel stubbornness.
The ride lasted 90 minutes in total, which was an ideal amount of time – long enough to sink in, but not so long as to become permanently bow-legged.
We paused at the camp to reapply sunscreen and then Ali made a surprise appearance so that he could take us to lunch along with Mohammad, our guide. (We’d thought he was staying in Zagora while we were at the desert camp, but apparently he stayed closer to hand in case he needed to make an appearance.)
It was about a 30 minute drive to lunch. On the way, we paused briefly at a Saharan village from which the French military had recruited heavily during the early 1930s. Not surprising considering the level of hardship one would have to endure simply to live in this part of the world.
As though to drive the point home, we saw firsthand the sandstorm that had prompted this last-minute change of plans.
We carried on to Erg Smar – an oasis, restaurant and experimental farm.
Hard to believe such a place exists this deep into the desert.
Lunch was delicious, and consisted of saffron pasta, a range of Moroccan salads, and chicken and lamb skewers.
We wiled away the time reading, playing boules, and carrying on with our Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
Our guides also joined us for an impromptu game of football.
We didn’t return until well after 4 pm, at which point we saw that part of the camp had collapsed in the wind.
This was definitely the flimsiest part, however, and none of the rest of the camp showed any sign of giving way beneath the gales.
(As I write this, however, they are currently upgrading the ropes – which is not entirely reassuring.)
I tried briefly to lie beneath one of the shade structures, but soon found my body coated with a thin layer of Saharan sand.
So instead we retired to the drinks tent for a time – grateful that the air was beginning to cool as the sun dipped on the horizon.
A local band came by shortly after. Their music was an incredible combination of old influences, and new.
A truly special treat.
The evening grew later still, and soon the sun began to set. We once more climbed the massive dune in front of the camp to try our legs at sandboarding. This time we used the far side of the dune.
It’s more difficult than it looks – my wife suggested treating it more like surfing than snowboarding, so I believe my first attempt worked better than my second.
Then we once more grabbed a beverage and settled ourselves to watch the sunset, this time with a living desert undulating before us.
Our nightly routine continued much as it had before – back down to the camp for a delicious dinner shortly after sunset, followed by a fire and some stargazing.
It’s been an incredible destination, but I think two days was the perfect amount of time. We’re all ready for a proper shower at this stage.
But I can’t think of anything I would have cut – not even the sandstorm, which was a truly unique experience.
Tomorrow we head to Skoura.
Continue reading Morocco Storybook Tour – Day 8.