Day 7 Erfoud – Sahara

Tonight your intrepid reporter sits in a Berber tent among the dunes of the Sahara, at a secret location that can only  be accessed by camel.

Ah bollocks, the truth is a little plainer than that but it’s still damn cool. We’re in a Berber tent, under the billions and billions of stars (thank you Carl Sagan) after a fairly short camel trek into the dunes east of Merzouga. We rode camels into the Sahara, how  cool is that? And we’re in a tent under the stars. It’s pretty tres bien awesome.

It’s so quiet, it makes space seem like a Deep Purple concert.

We had the choice to get here by 4WD, but where is the fun in that? Though poor Ouday may have preferred to spend the evening back at the stable, hanging out at the trough with all the other dromedaries, rather than carting my fat arse up and down dunes, all the while tied to Onay and mostly having a view of his black, furry bum but no one said life was easy for camels.

First time on a camel, it was an experience. One is a fair distance from the ground, and camels sway and rock a bit as they go, especially over sandy dunes that have a habit of turning soft without notice. But I hung on for dear life and didn’t embarrass Australia by falling off.

The day started at Erfoud, a semi-oasis ont he edge of the desert that has a good supply of underground water i believe. There’s plenty of water around anyway. We met Abdul and Tana, our guide, and headed just out of town to a cool place that makes beautiful fossil furniture. This part of Morocco was under water during the Devonian, and left behind all manner of trilobites, jellyfish and snails in the rocks. Now there’s a thriving industry in slicing, polishing and shaping these rocks, making beautiful stone tables with cross-sections of fossils inside. I just wanted a trilobite, but seeing the plates, chess boards and other wonderful bits of stonework made us pick a few extra items. We’re waiting for them to get back to us on a shipping deal, so there’s some bargaining ahead.

Next was the Ziz valley, a big slice of green among the rocks. It’s famous for dates, the palms grow everywhere and there are millions of them. Liz was very happy. It was neat to get a tour of the valey, seeing how well they irrigate the small fields, and grow veggies among the palms. Everywhere you could hear water running in trenches.

Lunch was with Tana’s family, his wonderful mum and cheeky youngest daughter. Beautiful bread, wonderful tagine, and the sweetest cucumber I have ever tasted. We’re talking cucumber that could be served for dessert.

Back on the road and out to Rissani, famous for being where the King’s family hails from, and also for silver. A quick tour of the mausoleum there, unfortunately we weren’t able to go into the mosque or the tomb but it was a pretty neat looking building, lots of detail in the doors, mosaics and decor. We then checked out the Berber cooperative in the Kasbah, where all of the trinkets of Morocco could be found and bought. I scored a cool beanie and a turban, while L hit them up for jewellery.

Then out to the dessert, onto a camel, and thhough it’s been overcast for all afternoon we caught a glimpse of sunset in the dunes, beautiful colours. Dinner was good — a bit interesting that the entree was a rice salad with tinned tuna, but the tagine was yummy beef and veggies. Then some traditional Berber entertainment of singing and drumming. I’m way out of practice on drums, need to build up my arms again.