The Dunes of Erg Chebbi: June 28th- 30th

Apologies folks- I've been quite busy and I haven't exactly been great about keeping up with this.  

I'm going to split the last couple weeks up into a few different posts.

Last time I posted we were about to head out for the Sahara desert.   

That Friday afternoon we all piled into a 15 passenger van accompanied by a driver, a teacher from the school, and William, our resident director.  We drove about 4 hours south and west to Midelt. About 3 hours in we stopped to see the monkeys that lived in the mountains. We spent the night in Midelt in a very nice hotel. After an early morning breakfast we were back in the van heading south. We made a quick stop to pick up turbans for our desert excursion.  After a stop at a fossil factory and dinner, we were finally en route to Merzouga.  From Merzouga we departed by camel into the desert.  Riding a camel is not quite as comfortable as it appears- they're considerably wider than horses.  I (in contrast to orhers in my group) find camels to be quite majestic.  After a 2 hour camel ride, we arrived at the Berber camp within Erg Chebbi. Despite the oncoming darkness and general hunger, all 15 of us made the climb up a large dune before dinner.  The stars were not too much to talk about because it was a bit overcast, but it was fun to mess aroun inn all the sand.  Dinner was tajines and tea.  That night we all choose to sleep outside (as opposed to the stuffy camel hair tents).  All was well until about 3am when we were roused by one of the Morrocans. At this point the wind was whipping and lightning was illuminating the dunes around us. As we pulled our mats into the tents it started to rain.  Storms like this one are very rare in the dry season.  We were woken again at 5am to make the trek back to Merzouga. Although nobody enjoyed getting up early, we at least avoided the worst of the heat.  Once in Merzouga we started the long drive back to Rabat- who doesn't love a good 10 hour car ride?  Exhausted, we finally arrived back at Qalam center around 10pm. 

The view from somewhere on the road during our long car ride.

Making friends with the locals.

In Merzouga, all turbaned up and ready to go.

Saturday night's dinner- meat filled bread thing (can't say I remember what it's called). 

My very friendly camel whom I named Yom, meaning "day" in Arabic.  My Arabic name is Leila, meaning "night".

Erg Chebbi at its finest.

Rafa, third from the left wins for most casual camel riding. Oliver, second from the left, takes the prize in camel yoga. The rest of the people on this train were a group of Slovaks.