Travels Within Morocco: Merzouga

This is it guys! The post I've been waiting for this whole trip. I have finally ridden a camel in the desert. Not just any desert either, but the Sahara Desert. It was absolutely fantastic.

Look at that! That is me on a camel at the edge of the Sahara Desert!

We left Friday morning at 8 am for the all day drive to Merzouga, the very small town on the edge of Erg Chebbi. An erg is an area of desert that is covered with wind-swept sand(sand dunes) and has no vegetation. I know what you're thinking, isn't that what a desert is? False, a desert is an area with extremely low amounts of precipitation. They can be sandy or not sandy, have some vegetation and animal life or have none. To be considered an erg, an area of sand dunes must be at least 125 square kilometers. Anything smaller is just a dune field.

Storm in the distance

The bus ride to the desert was filled with stormy weather. So when we finally got to Merzouga we had to change out plans a bit. Originally, we were going to spend Friday night camping in Berber tents out in the sand and Saturday night at Hotel Riad Nezha but because of the storms, the tents had blown away. So we spent Friday night at the hotel, which was amazing to say the least. It had a very nice pool, a roof top terrace, lavish rooms, and (maybe most importantly) fabulously hot showers. 

Rooftop Terrace

Tiffany, Alaina, and my room, we each had a very big bed with lots of pillows.

The shower! In Morocco most of the hotels that we have been to do not have a bathroom for every room, let alone a shower. The shower was big, the tile was beautiful, and there was plenty of hot water to go around.

That balcony above the entry way belonged to our room.

The pool! They had just put chlorine in so we had to wait until the next day to swim.

We had some free time Friday evening so we all made our way to the shopping area of Merzouga in search of turbans. By shopping area, I mean one street with 5 or 6 small touristy shops, out of which only 2 were open. Everything, of course, was covered in dirt and sand. Turbans are basically really long scarves or sheets of fabric that are then wrapped around the head in varying styles in order to protect your head and neck from the heat and sun in the desert. Almost everyone bought a turban, they cost anywhere from 30 Ds ($4) to 50Ds($6.50) depending on your bargaining skills. Tiffany and I bought shorter turbans,about half the length of  the rest. They can be wrapped just like a long turban, they are just shorter in length and so do not provide as much protection, and they can also be worn like regular scarves because they are not as long and bulky.

Blue is the most common color of the turban in Morocco so many of the ISA students opted for that color

Mine is purple, and I chose to wear it in a head scarf style, I wasn't a big fan of the turban style. It felt a little suffocating to me. 

Saturday morning we got going around 9:30. We all piled into 4X4s that were going to trek us around the desert for a mini tour. Alaina, Tiffany, Hannah, Kahn, Kamel and I all ended up in a white Land Rover which sped through the desert on a barely visible path. At some points we had to drive through or over sand. Driving through sand feels extremely similar to driving through snow. You kind of sink in a little bit and slide around. At one point, one of the other 4X4s got stuck in a sand dune and everybody had to get out to help push it loose.

We drove around in the sand for awhile and at good picture taking places we stopped and walked around for a bit. At one point, we were all allowed to climb on top of the 4X4s and sit up there for a short distance. That was soo much fun. My car sang songs from Disney movies during our rooftop tour. 

We took a break from the 4X4s and Daniel, our director, led us off into the desert. We climbed a few sand dunes and then just laid back and enjoyed the heat. 

The 4X4 trek ended at about 2:30, we then went back to the hotel for lunch and about a 3 hour period of free time. I swam and laid by the pool and showered before getting ready for our camel ride and camping in the desert. We got on the camels at 5:30 on Saturday and didn't return to civilization until Sunday morning.

  
Camel riding through sand dunes is exactly as fantastic as it sounds. My roommates and I meticulously picked out our outfits for the occasion so that we could take fabulous pictures. Alaina went for the imperial European look with a sun hat and white flowing skirt while I went for the Arabian princess look complete with a small sword and head scarf. The camels took us to the second largest sand dune in the world, which we then climbed.

World's 2nd largest sand dune

 We stayed at the top of the sand dune for a good two hours. Some members of our group had rented sand boards and were experimenting with riding the dunes. Everyone looked like they loved it until they had to carry the board back up the dune so someone else could have a turn. I don't know how they did it. I was struggling to get up the dune the first time around without carrying a sand board.  I didn't get too many pictures from the top of the sand dune because the wind was very strong. Strong wind plus sand does not equal good things for a camera, one grain of sand getting inside can destroy the whole thing. We all had our cameras wrapped in plastic bags or in scarves. Sadly, quite a few people's cameras are no longer working because of this trip. I did manage to get a few good sunset pictures before I ziplocked my camera away.

 Exhausted, we climbed down the giant sand dune, got back on our camels, and took about an hours ride under the stars to our campsite. We all wanted to eat and go straight to bed, we were so tired. But in true Moroccan fashion, the food was not ready and our bags had not yet been delivered. The tents that we were in were basically a lot of blankets sewn together and held up by wooden beams.

Meal tent

Dinner was served after about a half an hour. It was delicious and we were starving so there wasn't much food left. After dinner, the hotel guys who had been escorting us this entire trip brought out drums and began to play tribal music. We listened for awhile, and a few ISA students were given drums so they could participate. At about 11:30, my roommates and I were ready for bed. Only problem was our bags were still not there, it was cold, and I needed somewhere to put my contacts. Tiffany lent me her water bottle and I dropped my contacts in. We crawled into bed and quickly fell asleep. I woke up again at about 12:30, everybody was up and about making noise, our bags had just got there. I ran out into the cold, got my bags, put on about three more layers, and went back to sleep. The sleeping mats, the sheets, the pillows, every inch of the tent was covered in sand, but it didn't matter. Everyone was too exhausted to care and the place was silent within 15 minutes. 

The outhouse, which was surprisingly nice because it had a normal toilet instead of the Moroccan style hole in the ground.

We woke up bright and early on Sunday, packed up our bags, and walked back to the hotel. We had about an hour and a half for breakfast and showers and then we were back on the bus. The bus ride home took a ridiculously long amount of time. We stopped for bathrooms, tourist sites, and lunch that altogether probably added about 4 hours to the trip. My dad and his minimal stops policy would not have handled this well. In fact, I did not handle this well. To make matters worse, the weather got very bad on the drive home. It was very cold and the bus does not have any sort of climate control. Rain was streaming in through cracks in the windows and it was very very cold. At one point it even started snowing! We were amazed that we could experience the Sahara Desert and a snow storm all in one day. 

snow!