Sahara

I’m going to talk about camels now because who wouldn’t want to hear about the time I went to the Sahara and rode a camel.

Maybe after a solid month of being here I’ve gotten used to the insanity of daily life in the medinas and souks, and am desensitized to the overwhelming amount of gorgeous 12^th century architecture, but if you only get to see one single thing in Morocco, I’d say it has to be the Sahara.  The Sahara itself is a distinct cultural experience, even if you’re missing out on the vendor stalls that crowd narrow medina streets, ancient Islamic madrasas, and (aggressively psychotic) snake charmers.  And you might even coax your Berber guides into teaching you a song or two.

Zaid, our crazy Berber driver

We went out from the town of Rissani, which has a lot of Berber roots.  We had a pretty crazy – no holds barred, no brakes necessary – driver, who seemed to seriously enjoy his job.  Land rovers are necessary to access most places directly on the edge of the desert (as our hotel was) because there is a wide band of black rock and sand that marks the transition from semi-arid savannah to hyper-arid dunes and acts as a natural barrier against further desertification.  Most villages on the fringes of the desert now have basic infrastructure and passable roads, but water shortages remain an issue.  If plan on going out, take all the water you’ll need for your stay, or expect to pay a small fortune for each bottle of sidi ali (the dasani of Morocco). 

Anyway.  Land rovers are pretty sweet.  And potentially nauseating and/or dangerous.  But who needs seatbelts?  Which actually, I’d probably have been happier if the camels did come with seat belts. 

Camels are really big.  (Starting with the obvious here, stick with me.)  And their feet are super flat with two wide toes, which I can only assume helps their stability on sand.  And here they only have one hump, which marks them as Dromedary camels.  Dromedary camels are apparently the 2^nd largest camel subspecies.   Males can be around 6 ½ feet tall, and the hump is another 6 inches or more, and they weigh around half a ton.  Ours were basically any shade of brown, ranging from coffee-colored to beige to almost white (yeah beige is such a descriptive color, I know).  And their heads and eyes and eyelashes are really big (or maybe just their legs seem really skinny?).  But basically they are really kind of awkward-looking up close, and walk just as awkwardly. 

look at their giant heads

A camel’s gait it not at all similar to a horse’s.  It’s more like a cow on stilts, lumbering from side to side, and shifting heavily with every step.  And can we talk about how they stand up.  A camel has to be seated for you to get into the saddle.  When it stands, the camel will heave its front legs partway up, then fully extend its hind legs, so it’s kneeling, then lunge the rest of the way into a full standing position. Google it.  The only thing more awkward is when it sits down, when it pitches forward and drops to its front knees, collapses its back legs, then abruptly lays down. 

On the bright side, no one got spit on.  My camel grunted grumpily a lot though.

Let's be honest, riding is pretty fun because, you know, you’re riding a camel through the Sahara.  Which was a pretty surreal moment.  We stayed to watch the sun set, and then came back to watch it rise the next morning.  I took an absurd number of beautiful pictures of just sand. And mountains. And sun. And more sand.

At the risk of sounding overly philosophical and pretentious, the Sahara is a pretty incredible, powerful place.  Go there. Ride a camel. Live your life.

let's over-saturate some of these... yeah...