Morocco: days three and four
In the morning, Peter said he slept well but got wet due to condensation. (Imagine … moisture in the desert!) He said next time he would change the order of his layers (put the plasticky material underneath) to attract less condensation.
We started off the day with a traditional Moroccan breakfast of muesli, cheese wedges, condensed milk, bread, jam, instant coffee, and Lipton tea. (Well, breakfast was likely our least traditional meal of the day. Oh, and spaghetti with marinara sauce might not be very traditional either.) Usually there was a special addition to breakfast such as pancakes or pancake-shaped omelets.
Our trek over these few days of camel-riding took us through the Draa Valley. The Draa is a large river flowing from the Atlas Mountains into the Sahara, which is why you see more greenery than you would expect in the Sahara. (We never quite made it into the real, open Sahara, though we got fairly close.)
We stopped for snacks after about an hour: dried fruit, nuts, and candied nuts.
We rode through some settlements along the river, occasionally encountering locals traveling the other way by motorcycle or donkey.
We stopped in a village to visit a store to buy water for the next 24 hours and to take a short break.
We continued riding, encountering some Spanish tourists in Land Rovers trying to go the other way (but having to pull over to yield to the camel train). My illusion of trailblazing was by now fully shattered. It also became apparent that we weren’t actually in the middle of nowhere: not only were there electrical lines but once in a while of the Berbers would answer his mobile phone.
We continued through the village and stopped for lunch in an oasis on the far side. Another amazing meal, full of fresh vegetables lightly cooked. Then we had time for a nap. I took a few photos of the area instead:
as did Marc [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8].
We continued our journey and arrived at a new campsite.
Everyone was thrilled that there was a large sand dune nearby but not so thrilled that there were a few other tour groups camping in the area. Still, the view was great:
(I believe those are cellphone towers in the above photos. There were quite a few of those in the desert. There’s coverage nearly everywhere in the country.)
We watched the sunset from the dune:
After which things started to look interesting in the twilight:
Rumors were that French tourists had been spotted just beyond the ridge. Obligatory jokes about the French ensued.
After dinner (tajine) we built another campfire, and the Berbers joined us to sing some traditional songs (and play empty water jugs) around the fire.
We wanted to come up with something to sing back but struggled to find something that could be sung without accompaniment, that we would all know, and that had some melody or words that the locals could possibly pick up. We did the hokey pokey (called the “hokey cokey” in the UK, with slightly different words!) and more or less managed “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”.
The next morning we paused for some photos before setting off.
The next day’s trek was much like the previous. I got to test out the toilet tent. First time for everything!
This evening, while we lounged about waiting for dinner, the Berbers built the fire, which they needed to bake bread the Berber way, as demonstrated after dinner. You rake the coals to the side, leaving hot sand underneath. Then you lay a big pad of dough down and cover it up with sand and coals. You let it sit for maybe 20 minutes and then flip it. Cook for a little while longer, dig it out, scrape off the dirt and sand, and voila! Bread for breakfast tomorrow!
Since this was our last night at a campsite, others decided to try sleeping outside. I passed, prefering to stay warm and dry.
Note that for any of the pictures I embed from the Morocco trip, you can get a larger version here. Most of the links are to photos by Marc, which you can browse from here or from each photo, or by Julie.