Day 3 - The Desert

We awoke early the next morning before the Riad and its staff was up. Sherif had set up breakfast for us the night before and we gobbled it down and quickly left for the tour office. We were still unsure of the proper time since it changed the evening before and wanted to make sure we didn't miss our transport. Once everything was in order at the Sahara Expedition office we hopped in the van. We were joined by an Australian girl near our age and a middle aged Columbian man and his mother. Our driver once again spoke very little English. An hour and a half into the 7 hour drive we came to the High Atlas Mountains. The name suits the mountain range with low gorges, high peaks, and a winding highway with steep drop offs. The Columbian people spoke little English but we became friendly with the Australian girl whose name was Lisa. She was on holiday for a week before heading to Scotland to work as a sheep sheerer, the same job she does back home in Adelaide. She was very friendly and we bonded over the similarities in our lives that transcended our cultural differences. She had never heard of the American Outback Steakhouse and was very amused at the names of the dishes. We stopped for lunch in the city of Quazarte. Quazarte is famous for only one thing really, movies. Most movies that are set in Egypt and the desert are actually filmed in Morocco. There are a few studios in Quazarte and movies that have been filmed there include Lawrence of Arabia, Prince of Persia, The Mummy, Gladiator, Troy, and many more. We ate a traditional Moroccan lunch of tagine and bread. Tagine is a dish where they steam meat and veggies in a terracotta pot with different spices and lemon. Once lunch was finished we hopped into the van for another three hours. The scenery started changing and becoming drier and more desolate. Finally, we reached Zagora. Here the five of us loaded up on water and climbed onto our camels in preparation for the 2 hour trek into the Sahara. We met two desert guides one who spoke English and one who didn’t. Surprise surprise, the non English speaking guide was ours. Ten minutes into the trek, the older Columbian woman was complaining of discomfort. She had bad hips and had been walking badly all tour. After much confusion between the Columbians and the desert guide, they dismounted their camels and walked back to the city to stay in a hotel for the night. Now we were down to three. The sun had started going down early in the trek and by the time we reached the camp, night had fallen upon us. It was pitch black when we hopped off the dromedaries and made our way to the tents. You could just make out the faint outlines of the dunes closest to you. Once we arrived at the tent, the English desert guide we had met before, Abraham filled us in on the evening’s happenings. Our guide brought us a dinner of tea, soup, bread, tagine, and honey dew melon which we ate in our tent. Once dinner was finished, the guide told us to leave the tent and sit in the sand outside to converse and enjoy the cool desert air. The sand was very fine and soft. Lisa, Nicole, and I chatted for a while under the stars. The guide would sit quietly and listen, but understood very little of what we were saying but managed to ask us where we were from. When we said the US, a smile formed on his face and he said "Oh! Barack Obama!" We laughed and said yes, Obama's the man. The guide left shortly after to join the others to build a fire. When we started hearing drumming, we walked over the dunes to the fire. The guides had gathered to drum and chant traditional Berber songs around the fire. It was an amazing experience but we were exhausted from our journey and retired to bed.