Blogs from Merzouga, Meknès-Tafilalet, Morocco, Africa

Sunday Day 15 Wow, what a fantastic few days! I spent two nights in the Sahara; the first at a Bedouin camp and the second with a nomadic family 15km from the Algerian border! But, let's start with Friday morning. We broke camp around 8am and left with Rasheed who was organising the next few days for us. We followed him to M'hamid where we visited a 14th century Kasbah. Considering there are 200 families that have, on average, 10-12 people per household (children and extended family) inside the walls, it was eerily quiet - though it was during the day so I guess most are at work/school. We learnt a few interesting things: white paint around a doorway means a wedding is taking place and all are invited to help celebrate and yellow means they've ... read more

Trust in Allah but tie up your camel. (anonymous) Bending down on his front knees, lingering, and then slowly onto back knees, it seemed a huge effort. I scrambled clumsily onto his back and with a grunt he hoisted himself to his feet. The three camels were tied to each other; Kathy was on the first, who was obviously the boss and very amorous, I on the meek second one and Natarsha on the happy third. Natarsha insists that we name our camels: Kathy generously calls hers ‘snorter’, I call mine ‘Cassie’ (but find out later that it is a boy, so Cassie becomes ‘Cassie the Tranny’), and Natarsha christens hers ‘Casper the friendly Camel’. We are the only people on this trek other than Yousef our guide, who was also our cook, musician ... read more

This past weekend was our last empty weekend, where there was nothing scheduled by the program, so we took the initiative and asked the program to set us up on a trip to Merzouga, which is about 40 kilometers from the Algerian border. Because of the distance from Meknes, which we originally thought was about 5 hours by car, we left from the medina at 6 am on Saturday morning. One of the administrators, Taha, from AALIM came with us since none of us had any experience in organizing camel safaris. We stopped at about 7:30 in Azrou for a quick breakfast. And then got back in the car. We stopped randomly on the side of the road to take pictures from the mountain, and then continued on our way. Stopping at a roadside hotel for ... read more

DESERT DAYS Each day was the same. Different. Sweeping sand dunes embraced us. We roamed, our vista sand and dunes and sky. Many had traveled here before but never did our pathways traverse their trails. Swirling sand grains danced with any breeze that offered, swiftly erasing memories. On occasion, Khalid, Ali, and I encountered vacant tent camps abandoned by their Berber residents, gone to the cities to make money for a few days or many weeks. Tree branches supporting woven wool blankets created spacious shelters. Each blanket pattern and colour differed from the next, creating a kaleidoscope of colour to contrast the sand, golden like poplar leaves in autumn. Ragged blanket corners wavered in the breeze. Deep within Erg Chebbi, the Sahara of Morocco, we sight our own Berber-blanket tent camp, snug within a narrow valley. ... read more

7am sees us packed and in the car park outside the Fez medina where we meet Abdullah and Abdullah our driver and our guide - convient that they both have the same names, so Rochelle quickly christens one " Driver Abdullah" , we become Fatima and Nima and we hit the road. It a long windy and hot trip to the desert, about seven hours in total with no music and little to distract us , so its lucky we like each other. We arrive at the edge of the Sarah at around 5pm and get out first glimpse of the dunes, golden pale sand offset by a deep blue sky. After Abdullah asking us to " seba, seba" or hurry as our camels are waiting, we stow our stuff in a less than reputable Kasbah ... read more

Erg Chebbi i hotel HAVEN LA CHANCE... read more