The Sahara Desert

A night in the Sahara Desert

I think this is one of the most exotic trips of my life, full of adventure and landscapes which I had never seen before, a real treasure which I will remember for the rest of my life.

I visited Morocco in November 2013, the weather was quite cold in Spain, but Morocco seemed to be a bit more hot.

Vane, Oscar and I decided to do a week-long tour with the company "Viajes a Marruecos", because (mainly from a lack of information) we thought that it would be the easiest and safest thing to do.

Given that we arrived in Marrakesh airport, Moha, our friendly guide, tended to any sort of doubt that we might have. One of the magical places that was included in the trip was the great Sahara Desert.

Africa, a new continent full of colour and different culture, from its religion and politics, which go hand in hand, to the architecture and general fashion, everything was incredibly surprising. It completely filled our days there with life, flavour and stories to tell our grandchildren.

We arrived in the south of Morocco after going on a journey which lasted some days, we were sleeping in different places, getting to know them, speaking and eating with a group of Argentinians who accompanied us.

The Moroccon-Mexican style truck

We were lucky to be three Mexican girls, Oscar, Vane and I only in the van, together with our happy driver who entertained us on our journey by playing Arabic music and speaking about himself, his family and his customs. What's more, the truck had a small Mexican flag which represented us and accompanied us throughout our journey.

We kept going more towards the east and the south, we arrived in a small town so we could buy some provisions and adequate clothing for our adventure in the desert, and bit by bit we started to realise that the clothing, the people and the landscapes were changing.

At the shop that we came to, we got a good steal, and when I say steal, I'm referring to the fact that we bought so much for such a little price, and it was all really nice. Although I was having difficulties on deciding what to get, I finally settled on a 3 metre long turban; it was a warm colour with black details, which reminded me of the desert. Moha told me that a 6 metre long turban would be ideal as it would create more shade.

They explained to us that these turbans are extremely necessary in the desert because the type of material it was made from and the length of it makes a protective layer against the sun rays in the arid Sahara, as well as protecting your sight from the sun, allowing you to have the best visibility that you can. Without it, the wind can have a lot of influence on the perception of our surroundings.

We've arrived!

We arrived in the province of Ouarzazate where we got out of the truck in a shopping centre to buy alcohol, just so you know, Muslims are prohibited from the consummation of alcohol and religion and politics go hand in hand, so they aren't allowed to drink. But they did actually let us buy some alcoholic drinks, but only because we were tourists, and the price had obviously been increased compared to other countries.

It was getting late and we couldn't stand around wasting too much time since the idea was to get to our camp-site in the desert before getting dark, but the sun was getting lower and lower and we were in a hurry because we were already running late.

In the end, we got to our hotel, there were 2 camels there to welcome us, "Kasbah Tomboctou" was one of their names and he warned us of the adventure which was to come. In reality, the hotel was only used as a place for us to leave our things, like our suitcases or something bigger, since we could only go into the desert with as little as possible. We could only take something to cover ourselves from the cold nights, our provisions and a lot of happiness and excitement, which we obviously all had.

We left our things in a room, and after emptying our bladders, all of us ran to to catch up with the sunlight and to meet our new travel companions - some very charming camels ready to take us between their hairy humps.

Nice to meet you Shakira!

Getting to know the camels was the first big excitement of the evening, they are some super-beautiful beings, with their faces which look like they're tired from everything, their hairiness and their lanky legs. Each camel had a name; mine was called Shakira and wow! She could move her hips! And that was not funny...

Well, after getting to know our beautiful little camels, it was time to mount them, which turned them from cute to terrifying! I was the penultimate in the line, I saw the others struggling to get on the camels, but that wasn't the worst part; when the ridiculously tall camel started to stand up it made such a jolt which could churn anyone's insides. I was scared of falling! That's what it felt like, so only I could see how everyone else was gripping on tightly with their arms and they legs on the body of our hairy friends.

When it was my turn, I couldn't do anything else except from deep-breathing and hold on with God's strength (haha). The camel gets up on its back legs first which means that you almost end up face-down on the floor, or more like the sand, and then the second jolt comes elevating the rest of the camel's body, which remains in a more or less normal position, and it raised my body some 2 meters off the floor... well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit but it was at least 1 meter 60.

Once the whole thing was up, we divided ourselves into 2 lines of camels, each one consisting of a guide who was expected to take us by foot through the desert. What I mean to say is that we didn't have to guide the camel, I honestly didn't know if it would be like riding a horse... whatever the case was, I'm not an expert rider.

As we were being guided, the movement continued; one hip over here and the other hip over there, a rhythm shaking all of us, at first it was the hardest thing, holding us and keeping us up on foot. My fatalist mind started imagining myself surrounded by the dunes and being walked over by the other camels that were behind me. But fortunately, nothing like that happened to me nor to anyone else. Even though that was the case, we were very uncomfortable thanks to the jolting throughout the journey.

Leaving the theme of camels aside for a bit, it's worth mentioning that the landscapes were beautiful, I honestly can't describe the feeling since it's not my best skill, but I will try... The sheer extension of the Sahara desert is inexplicable, I never imagined the immensity that I would feel all around me, we were just a group of Latino tourists on camels in the middle of nowhere...

No noticeable life, only sand, infinite dunes, an undulating landscape made of dust... an infinite horizon, wherever we turned, there was only sand a reddish-blue sky. The tones were intense and nightfall emphasised the shadows on the dunes. It was marvellous... It got dark, the night took us through kilometres and kilometres of sand. I was so steady on the camel that I couldn't take my hands off the camel to take out my camera and take pictures of the infinite stars which covered the sky.

We've arrived at the camp-site!

We finally arrived at our camp-site, I had barely caught the rhythm of Shakira's hips and it was already time to get down from its humps and leave it to relax... The landscape could not have been more perfect: the light from the stars and torches was the only light that we had. A series of tents were in a circle with the main tent, which is where we shared dinner.

Our delicious dinner consisted of enormous plates of couscous and tagine, accompanied by a lot of tea and a dessert made from succulent mandarins. As well as food, we could enjoy pleasant conversation, exchanges of ideas, customs, anecdotes and more it was an incredible night.

Once dinner was finished, we went to enjoy the outside in the desert, the infinite sand in our hands and on our feet. The tour group helped us make a bonfire a little way from the tents, to one side, to avoid accidents since the wind at night was strong.

We sat around the campfire to drink our alcohol which we had bought, the Mexicans supplied tequila, the Argentinians bought Rum and the Brazilians bought whiskey. We had so much alcohol and we shared it all amongst ourselves.

Little by little, an alcohol infused happiness started to run through our Latino bodies, from point to point, people started to laugh out loud and dance to the rhythm of some of the drums which the tourist team bought with them, and they were more than just that, they were our party guests!

We all came back a little crazy and we let ourselves go until the fire went out, bit by bit, slowly with the passing of time. Finally, I laid myself down in the sand to watch the starry sky, each one of the stars was visible, shining brightly like I've never seen before, I never want to forget it.

When the fire went out and the alcohol was finished, we went to sleep few by few, in our little two by two houses. Many of them went with their partner, I slept with my friend Vanhe and we had a really good night. We didn't get bitten by any sort of venomous animal, nor anything else of the kind. Everything was good and the only sound we could hear were our Argentinian companions with their singsong voices.

The following day, they woke us up to see the sunrise on the horizon, which we had to climb up a dune to see, a task which seemed easy, but was the most difficult thing ever. I tried it, and I wasn't even in a bad state, but after the load of alcohol the night before, my body was fighting with itself... I had climbed 3 meters and gone back down a thousand.

Finally, I started dying halfway through the journey; my head turned and I went to throw up... I didn't see the sun rise.

In the end, we went back by camel to the hotel, we showered, got our things together and we set out on the return journey... the night in the desert was over.