9/25 – Into the Sahara

Women of Erfoud

We drove through Erfoud on our way south and saw that most of the women were dressed very conservatively – they looked more like the women of Saudia Arabia in chadors than any other women we have seen here. Our first stop was a fossil shop. There are vast areas here of stone with embedded fossils, and we were shown how the stone slabs were treated to bring out their characteristics. Of course they had a shop, and fortunately most of the stuff I liked best was way too expensive. At least we will not have the Moroccan equivalent of our 132 lb. jade horse from China to deal with.

Entrance to the mausoleum

In the next town, Rissani, we stopped at the mausoleum of the ancestor who founded the dynasty of the current king. It was an oasis of green inside the walls that contrasted with the desert outside. Nearby, we stopped to visit a family of limited means. The wife served us tea and nuts, assisted by her 11-year old son. We asked questions about her life, learning that her 18 year old daughter had just gotten married this summer – someone from another village had seen her at school, followed her home, made inquiries about her morals from the neighbors and then came to ask for her hand. She now lives in a nearby town.

Interior of Berber woman's home

As we left there, we met our Sahara drivers because we switched to 4x4s and will rejoin our bus in a few days. We briefly stopped at a roadside area to see camels milked, but the primary milkers had been put out to pasture. We did get to see a youngster doing his own form of milking, and it a move that would appall many in America, the owner gave a young camel a plastic bottle of coke to drink, which he did with great gusto.

Coke loving dromedary.

Driving in the desert is a lot like driving in Mongolia, but with less greenery. There occasionally are actual roads, but mostly there are tracks which you are free to follow or not. Our driver, Hassan, chose to take an alternate path, compared to the other 3 vehicles. All the drivers are Berbers, as are the camp attendants, and they are attempting to teach us their language when we use our few Arabic words on them. 

Not many roads out here.

We stopped for a camel ride (forgive me – dromedary ride, since we are frequently reminded there are no camels in Africa), which took about 45 minutes and ended with lunch. The riding frames were different than we experienced in Egypt and substantially less comfortable. We were all in a long line led by two drivers, which was also less free-form than Eqypt. I think I can safely say that for everyone, the best part of the ride was getting off.

After lunch, we drove to a village that focuses on supporting artisans and visited a group of men who form a musical group called Pigeons du Sable (Sand Pigeons). There music all sounded very much the same to my ears. Two songs had drums and sort of small double cymbals along with singing and simple dance moves. The next several song added an interesting 3-strings instrument that looked sort of like an elongated guitar, but its sound was largely drowned out by the drum, cymbals, and voices. A few in our group bought a CD, but the music was not to my taste. The women were invited to join one dance and most of us did.

Then it was into the desert for real. Mostly we drove over hard pan like the Gobi with less vegetation. We drove to Erg Chebbi, a high spot with wonderful views and a stone script that said “Sahara” with the symbol of Berber independence below it. We stopped at a Berber cemetery, marked with simple stones at head and foot and saw that many graves were quite small, indicating the passage of a child.

The cliffs mark the border with Algeria. There were several
Moroccan military outposts in the area.

View over the Sahara -- no dunes here

Berber cemetery

We finally arrived at our camp, a new construction that was substantially nicer than the one it replaced where we had had lunch. It was also further out in the desert and for a while it looked like it might be located in Algeria. We can clearly see the cliffs that mark the Algerian border in the distance here. After we moved our luggage into our tents, which have a private bath with and shower and running water. We gathered together in the shade of one tent for happy hour, a walk up the nearby dunes to watch the sunset with a glass of champagne, followed by dinner.

Our tent camp -- I guess they use dark wool because that is
the nomad standard - whatever the camel hair is.

Jim in our tent

The dunes in our area. We are actually on the hard pan, next to dunes.

 

Algerian cliffs facing the sunset

Sunset

Afterwards, we walked out of the dining room to marvel at the stars. I have rarely seen the Milky Way so clearly, though I had difficulty identifying any of the constellations I usually know -- probably too many extra stars distracting me. Pam showed us an app she has that maps out the constellations based on where you aim the phone, and it runs without needing an active data connection.  VERY cool.

Repairing to the tent for the evening was less successful as little flying bugs flocked to any source they could find. We had lowered the curtains to our room, but had not closed the wooden shutters, hoping for a breeze, but it let out enough light that the bugs came running. We turned off the overhead lights, (solar powered, only available after dark) and Jim just got into bed, but I wanted to update the blog, so I put on my headlamp and they streaked for my face. I turned off the headlamp and tried to write by the light of the screen, which continued to attract them. I finally just made a list of places we had been for another day to write up and retired at 8:45pm.