Friday, March 4, 2011
We set off on our two dromedaries (one-hump camels), Abdul and Omar Shareef with our guide Said.
The desert was peaceful but not grand either. It probably would have been hard to walk the hour-and-a-half on foot. Said walked ahead, leading my camel. Dave’s camel was tied to mine. Said is a shy, gentle sort of guy, and according to Dave, a “pretty boy”. He knows I’m a vegetarian because of my dinner request so when I asked him about getting onto the camel he assured me it was okay because he’s a vegetarian. When I asked if I could touch Abdul, he said “of course. He’s an animal” and showed me where to touch Abdul on the back of his head. We arrived at our campsite, a grouping of Berber tents.
After dismounting and dropping our things into our tent, Dave and I hiked up to the high dune to watch the sunset.
At the top, though, we were rained upon with sand. It was a bit windy and unless we were standing up, we were pelted with sand.
It got everywhere and stayed with us throughout the trip. The next day I saw that my scalp was the red ochre of the sand. The sunset was nothing special, and fortunately we walked down before it was dark. When it’s dark and there’s no moon it’s pitch black there in the desert.
Said greeted us with mint tea and olives, which we enjoyed while sitting on thin cushions at a low table under a carpet in front of our tent. Soon afterward he went to cook us dinner. We sat in candlelight and ate while a sweet fluffy cat put on the charm for a bit of food. Finally Dave relented and gave up a couple of chicken bones and the remains of his stew.
As it was still well before time to go to sleep we didn’t know how we might spend the evening. Well, Said had plans for that. He brought another guide and two sets of drums and they sang us some Berber (and Moroccan?) songs. The other guy left and Said showed me how to beat the rhythm and we drummed together while he sang. He wasn’t very good and he was pretty self conscious, but it was still a nice experience. Then he told us it was our turn to sing. If we didn’t sing, he told us, we’d have to walk back instead of riding the dromedary. We knew, of course, that he was teasing us, but we had nothing else to do but sing. We tried to sing a few songs but we were hopeless with the lyrics, so we switched to Christmas carols. That was tricky only because we’d break out laughing.
Said had never heard them before, and we’re not sure if he’d heard of Christmas either. We believe he’s never been beyond Rissani, the town half an hour by bus from Merzouga. But he knows the desert as he’s from a Nomadic family that settled before he was born. He does muulti-day camping trips in the Erg Chebbi, but it’s a small desert, only 10km by 50km. We could see the width of it from the peak we climbed – and the mountains that are on the other side of the border with Algeria.
After the singing we walked up to the top of a nearby dune to look at the stars. It was amazing to see them so brightly. He pointed out constellations (many with which we were familiar), and for those we didn’t know, he turned on his flashlight and drew them in the sand.
Later Said made up our bed with the cushions we’d sat on around the table and topped them with five or six thick blankets. We were coze, and the tent was pitch black. It was a wood frame tent made of sticks that were covered with black woven blankets. The bed was comfortable and we were warm enough. I laughed out loud in the early morning when a donkey called and another one answered. We got up early to watch the sunrise, but again there were no special color effects.
So we headed back into town without lingering.
We were quieter this time, and it was a peaceful ride. I was starting to feel sick and was surprised that I was able to ride anyway. I got off before we got to the hard sand and dirt road as that would have been too jarring.
Back again at Chez julia we had breakfast up on the terrace.
All the buildings in Merzouga look this dull on the outside.
We enjoyed the company of a kitten who crawled up on me to cuddle. She was restless and went over to cuddle with Dave too.
It’s nice to find something so universal in such a foreign place. Several cats live at Chez Julie but they're not people-cats the way the kitten was with us.
Julia was very accommodating and let us have the front salon (a lovely room) for napping.
She must have assumed that we wouldn’t have slept much in the desert. Dave was greatly comforting to me.
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