I never expected to find myself in the middle of the Sahara
Desert, trekking through heat and sand on the hump of a camel. 3 hours to
Marakesh, Morocco and the first place we stop is the camel taxi stand. I went
on a Semester at Sea sponsored trip, so 48 other students hopped on the idle
camels at the edge of the Sahara with me.
I don’t know much about camels, but I have heard they have a
tendency to spit and can survive without water for four days. I didn’t really
know what to expect riding along on my lumpy friend, but I found that camels
are surprisingly active despite the lack of water. My camel, named Hadil,
enjoyed bumping into the camel in front of me, chewing on the rider, and
emitting loud dinosaur sounds that echoed off the dunes of the desert.
Unfortunately I am not as good at retaining water as a camel, so I chugged as
many water bottles as possible to combat the heat. This made for an
uncomfortable ride, so to keep my mind off the water swishing around my
stomach, I couldn’t stop from singing to myself, “my humps, my humps, my humps,
my humps, check me out.”
An hour or two later we stopped at a lone castle like
structure for some lunch in the late afternoon where we had our first Moroccan
meal before continuing on the camels for a (thankfully) shorter trek. The ship
had cleared later than expected, so our camel trek had started a little later
than originally scheduled. In order to get to our evening destination, we
needed to be flexible (the “f word” of the voyage). The camels would be too
slow and riding them at night could be dangerous, especially with the wind
kicking up at by dark. Instead, our guide arranged for us to take trucks.
After our lunch and short camel ride we met 2 trucks that
the entire 48 of us were herded into. Turns out the trucks were usually used
for transporting camels to and fro- in fact, we watched the animals we were
just riding hitch a ride in identical vehicles- but this time the trucks would
be transporting humans. Feeling like we were being smuggled across the border,
we finally arrived at the nomad camp.
For the night, we were staying in the middle of the Sahara
in a camp set up by nomads. Though it was clearly set up for tourists, we were
literally walking on a red carpet laid down on the sand, the concept of
sleeping in tents out in the middle of nowhere was both exhilarating and
terrifying. Everyone was exhausted from the trek, so the pillows scattered
about the floor were a welcomed comfort, along with the traditional Moroccan
dance and music show. They offered many students to get up and dance with them,
but I was particularly impressed with my brother, Skye, who was not only able
to keep up with the pace, but looked great in the red hat the dancer insisted
he wear.
After an extremely filling dinner, all out of traditional
Moroccan tagine clay pots, I finally was able to retreat to my tent to sleep.
The temperature had dropped from the low 100s to the upper 70s, so it was
comfortable to get some rest before our next adventure tomorrow. I made sure to
check under the covers and my pillow because I had been warned that scorpions
often like to snuggle into bed with you, but they aren’t the best bunkmates. I
didn’t even need to count camels, as I easily drifted off to sleep, extremely
happy with my first impressions of Morocco.
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