Alice (Im not sure my camel had a name so I called them all Alice) lurched up from her sitting position in rather violent fashion and let out a combination of gaseous noises that I'm sure some Pepto-Bismol would have cleared up as Gord, I and a few other resort guests prepared for our overnight camel trek into the Sahara just north of Merzouga. The noises didn't stop as we climbed the first of dozens of sand dunes but the bucking bronco motion did and as we moved deeper into the desert, a calm that could only be felt in a place so harsh and desolate set in. Our group of four stopped to watch the sunset before continuing on to our camp and as day turned to night the temperature dropped to a chilly six degrees and the stars came out. So many stars in fact that I'm now in desperate need of a chiropractor to help with the kink in my neck suffered from staring up in the sky while saying "wow" over and over. With no other light to compete with, stars in the desert can be seen in 180 degrees from one horizon to the other and aside from the burping/farting of the camels that were "parked" a few hundred feet from our camp, they were the only entertainment around for miles.
Our wake-up call came early at 6am and we hiked up a nearby dune to watch the sun rise over the mountains in nearby Algeria before riding our camels back to the resort an hour and a half away. By the time we arrived we were walking bow-legged and the last thing we wanted to do was spend a half a day riding our bikes again so we decided to make it a "short" day and only rode 180 km today. We arrived at our destination in time for lunch and spent the afternoon exploring the area around Todra Gorge, a massive gorge of stunning orange, black and brown rock that seems to attract more Caucasian tourists with collared Columbia shirts tucked into their khaki pants than any other place in Morocco. We have no idea where all the tourists are staying though, as we are the only guests in our circa-1935 hotel. This may explain why they had no problems allowing us to park the bikes in the lobby (again !) on their beautiful rugs and why, as I sit here on the couch writing this, they appear to operating a brisk bootlegging operation to locals out the back door of the hotel.
Tomorrow is another short day (200km or so) before we head for the Atlantic coast on Sunday morning.
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| Gord and Alice...just hanging out on the side of the to road to Merzouga |
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| Group heading for their night in the Sahara |
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| Our camel train |
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| Keeping the sun at bay any way possible |
