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David felt ill. Was it heat exhaustion? Jet lag? Dehydration? Something he ate? Probably a combination, but regardless, he was feeling miserable by the time we arrived in Merzouga, and even worse when we hit the unpaved road to Erg Chebbi.
Eventually, our minivan stopped at the only man-made structure in the area where we repacked our bags, and mounted camels for a 1 1/2 hour sunset ride into the Sahara! The sand dunes of Erg Chebbi are a vast sea of sand, with hills and valleys of nothing but this orange sand. Our trek took us deep into the dunes, until we could only see sand for as far as the eyes could see. After arriving at a camp of Berber tents, David immediately ducked into a tent to sleep because he was feeling so very sick and exhausted. Laure dropped off her backpack, grabbed the camera and disappeared in the dunes for a while trying to take in the beauty of the sunset. Tagine and mint tea was later served in the bivouac to the sound of the nomads drumming away.
Later in the evening, Laure convinced David to wake from his sickness induced slumber and relocate
in the sand. We placed our blankets on a dune and sat there marveling at the wide open sky, looking at the stars and constellations. PRICELESS. And as luck would have it, we saw a beautiful shooting star! We snuggled together with a big smile on our face and fell asleep to the silence of the desert.
We awoke naturally the next morning at 5am with the sun (already getting hot) and, because David was feeling so much better, we ran on unspoiled sand, tumbled down sand dunes, and tried to soak in as much of the scenery as possible. Beautiful.
After a 1 1/2 hour sunrise camel trek back to the building on the edge of the desert, we ate a simple breakfast (bread, butter, jam, and tea), then got in the bus again. But today we would be breaking off from the organized tour because we wanted to go to the magical city of Fes (and the minivan was going back to Marrakech). So once we arrived in Rissani, we got out at the bus station (along with a Mexican and two Dutch girls) and looked for transportation. We were immediately greeted by someone who appeared
to work at the bus station. He told us that the bus ride to Fes was 4 hours (despite our guidebooks saying 12 hours!). After following this man to two different buses and getting different prices on how much it would cost, we decided that we would rather hire a taxi to take us there. So we headed off towards the town. Along the way, we found a minivan and two men sitting next to it. We asked if they would drive us to Fes (approximately 7 hours by private charter). They offered their minivan and a chauffeur for 250DH/$31.25 each (or 1,250DH/$156.25 total). We bartered and tried to get them down to 200DH/$25 per person but they wouldn't do it so we walked away. But lo and behold, who comes driving up next to us saying 200DH per person is fine? Yes, of course, it was the driver! So we piled in the minivan. Not surprisingly, the driver came around asking for 10DH/$1.25 per bag in addition to the 200DH/person ride. HA! We laughed at this request and he too seemed to find it funny.
Our chauffeur for the next 7 hours was very nice, friendly, and polite.
He allowed us to stop anywhere we wanted to take photos. And we took him up on that offer, stopping at the Valley of Ziz and several other beautiful view points. We also stopped at a 24/24 restaurant -- meaning that it was open 24 hours every 24 hours (similar to our 24/7 expression) -- and ate our best Moroccan meal of the trip - kefta and tea. Kefta is beef mixed with spices and grilled over an open flame. It's served with onions and tomatoes on top. We devoured this meal with some mint tea and were absolutely flabbergasted when the bill came-- 2360DH/$295!!! While the food was more than enough to feed our group of six, that's more than double the price of hiring a chauffeur and minivan for a 7 hour trip!! So we knew there had to be a problem and asked the server to explain. The server and our chauffeur examined the bill and started reading what each item was. But when they were reading numbers, they were not reading what was written (e.g., 235 was written on the receipt for bread, but they read that item as 207). We examined the bill closely and
noticed that it appeared they were adding a zero behind everything, so we figured if we just dropped a zero from the price, 2360DH to 236DH, that would solve the problem and 236DH/$29.50 seemed expensive but reasonable. Thankfully they pulled out a calculator and added everything up to the grand total of 118DH/$14.75, which we split 5 ways ($2.95 per person). We are not sure if they were really trying to rip us off...seemed more like they were really bad at math and didn't know what to do with numbers. It made for a very interesting moment and some good laughs back in the minivan on our way to Fes.
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I love the desert. Not sure I would be too keen on all those touts you seemed to meet often though. :)