Destined for the desert.

In a tumult of sea spray and fish entrails I leave Essaouira behind, blazing my way across what is an admittedly sprawling country. I’ve started to realize that time is short - I’d like to be in Barcelona by Christmas Eve - and there’s an uncomfortably long list of things left to do. Most immediate is my plan to set foot in the Sahara - a plan that’s slightly complicated by the fact that the desert is a good 15 hours due east of the Atlantic coast. I’ve broken the trip up into a couple of long days, making mental calculations that are founded more on wishful thinking than any concrete facts.

It’s a day-long haul to Ouarzazate - “the Hollywood of the Atlas” - twisting along a treacherous mountain road that, just a few weeks ago, claimed the lives of a van-load of French tourists. You have to marvel at the fact that at some point, in a fit of spastic engineering, someone had to look at the blueprints, scratch their heads and say, “Yep. That’s about right.” At times we have to slow to a crawl, negotiating turns that all but double back on themselves. Headlights glimmer and fade in the surrounding darkness, disappearing around blind curves, only to reappear minutes later in the black valley below. Where ice or chunks of debris have fallen the road narrows to a single lane. There’s a group of young Moroccans at the front of the bus, endlessly fascinated by the driver’s tactics at each terrible impasse. When the bus slows they half-rise in their seats, their silhouettes popping up like in the old games of Whack-A-Mole. A few rows behind them, an older French couple is having a tough time of things. Now and then I can see their panicky hands stretching across the aisle, blindly groping for one another in the dark.

We pass through small mountain towns where fire pits send long shadows dancing over the hillside. There are smoky restaurants thrust against the road - men huddled over the tables in thick, padded coats, the dining rooms exposed to the cold air like an open wound. We stop at a place with chickens dangling over an outdoor grill, their upturned bottoms dusted by the snowfall. People are filing out of the bus to use the bathrooms. A kid is chopping the heads off the chickens and dicing hunks of meat into little cubes. He’s flashing a wide smile my way - pleased as punch to be presiding over such acts of random carnage.

An old man is sweeping pools of water from the entrance with a broom. When he sees me he approaches with manic intensity: he wants to know if I want someone to show me around. Given the situation - the pitch darkness, the snowfall, the idling bus - I don’t think I’m in any position for a walking tour of the town. But he’s intent, pulling me to the side. He has some precious minerals and fossils I might want to see. There’s a look in his eye suggesting limitless sorrow, and I know I’m going to buy the first thing he offers at the first price he names. He sells me a hunk of amethyst (13Dh) which - given my eye for precious, semi-precious, and not-at-all-precious stones - could be just about anything. Then we all line up single-file and get back into the bus, our breath coming out in ragged puffs, the windowpanes cool and thin as the skin of a grape.

We arrive in Ouarzazate and I’m suckered into the first pricey place I find, lured by the promise of heated rooms. But the heater inexplicably shuts at eleven sharp; there’s a frosty draft blowing in from a crack in the wall; and I spend a restless night in my sleeping bag, buried beneath a heap of blankets.


In the morning I dig into a massive breakfast in the hotel restaurant, realizing that I haven’t eaten for the better part of a day. There are a couple of friendly kids waiting on me - the place is empty - and they’re amazed to see how much food I can put down: a pile of buttered rolls, an omelette, a crepe, two cups of coffee, a glass of fresh orange juice. They start asking about life in New York; Mohamed - a young, sweet, soft-spoken kid - is particularly curious about Brooklyn. “Jay-Z!” he says. “Biggie Smalls!” He plays me the ring-tone on his phone - the opening bars of a song by Eminem - and we stand there for an odd moment, hunched over his phone and bobbing our heads, while two women vigorously mop the floor around us.

Hussein offers to show me around in the afternoon. His English is smooth and confident, though he lapses into nervous laughter now and then. He’d like me to see Atlas Studios - the town’s claim-to-fame - where Hollywood hits like Gladiator were filmed. He rattles off the names of some of the stars who have been to Ouarzazate in recent years, eager to impress. Mohamed points out that 50 Cent paid a visit last summer, clearly moved by the experience. I thank them but decline: Morocco is starting to wear me out, and there’s little more I’d like to do in Ouarzazate then sit with a good book, drink a pot of coffee, and send desperate emails to a few friends, looking for the quickest, cheapest way out of the country.

The next morning I get an early start. I catch a grand taxi out of town, racing across flat stretches of gravel and dun-colored earth with the Atlas’ broad, snow-capped shoulders beside us. Old motorbikes putter on the side of the road, smoke pumping from their tailpipes. Men squat and watch us pass, occasionally sticking out a listless thumb. Soon we come across a barren landscape of immense proportions: earth and sky and nothing in between. We drive for miles without a sign of life. Suddenly we pass a young kid steering his sheep along a rocky embankment, or an old woman walking across an empty wasteland with such purpose that you’d think she’s on her way to the local A&P. Nothing makes sense here. We pass through villages of squat, mud-brick homes that look like the ruins of some ancient tribe. We pass walls of solid earth that begin as if they’ve sprung from the ground, ending abruptly for no good reason. When things couldn’t get any stranger, an old man in a pointy jlaba comes pedaling our way on a dusty bicycle, the lines of his face rigidly fixed, his legs pumping toward God-knows-what, since we haven’t passed a single house for the better part of an hour. The sun is trudging across the sky above us, a long, low formation of clouds spooled over the mountaintops.

When we get to Tenghir I start to recognize a serious lapse in judgment. The plan was to switch taxis here - about mid-way between Ouarzazate and the Sahara - and pick up onward transport toward the desert. But grands taxis are mostly used by locals shuttling between neighboring towns, and the only type of person who shows up in Tenghir with plans to make for the desert is a stupid tourist with a useless guidebook.

In case you’re wondering, that would be me.

My plan to share a taxi - and its cost - with some locals has suddenly unraveled. I spend a half-hour in the taxi lot with a bunch of drivers, one of them periodically calling out “Erfoud! Erfoud!” mostly just to show me what a wasted effort it will be. That these guys are expecting me to reach into my fat American wallet and commandeer a taxi for myself is evident. I put up some stiff resistance, since the asking price all the way to Merzouga is, at 700Dh, slightly more than I’ve spent in the past two days combined. But the alternatives are hardly more appealing - baroque combinations of transport that, in the end, will gobble up most of the day - and after three weeks in crowded taxis and buses, the idea of coasting along in a private car has an appeal no New Yorker can deny. I buckle, reasoning - quite fairly - that an extra two hours of work will help me to pay (literally, metaphorically) for the extravagance. That such a line of thinking eloquently reveals the chasm between me and the average Moroccan is, FYI, a point I haven’t missed.

For the better part of the next few hours I’m feeling regal - a royal shmuck, if ever there was one. Through town after town I’m chased by wide-eyed stares: a profligate foreigner who’s not only paid for six places in a grand taxi, but - because he’s nursing a bum knee - is all but reclined in the back seat like some tribal prince surveying his land. If I’d felt at all guilty on the ride to Tenghir - comfortably settled in the front seat while four men crammed into the back - I’m utterly chastened by this promenade into the desert. And it’s not until the bold, sweeping dunes over Merzouga come into view - their pink tips touched by the fading daylight - that I let myself off the hook, taking a deep breath and convincing myself it was totally worth it.

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