Sahara Time!

Hey All~

Well, in my one month here I've been able to visit just about all of Morocco. Marrakech, Rabat, the Sahara Desert, Tanger, and my home town Tetuoan. Africa (esp Morocco) is a beautiful place! Who knew? ;)

My most recent trip was to the Sahara Desert. And I have to tell you, it was quite a trip. We had all kinds of weather. When we left Tetuoan it was raining really bad. When we got down to the desert there was a sand storm (in the picture, that is sand blowing, not the presence of fog).

It would be hot one day and cold the next. Who knew that it could be cold in the desert in the day?


Our trip consisted mostly of driving every day. From where I live, the desert is a good 12 hours away. So, it took us two days to drive down to the sand dunes. After driving through the Atlas Mountains we arrived at the sand dunes itching to get on the camels and ride into the sunset! (Ok, maybe not itching to get on the camels, but we had been driving for two days and were ready to have the experience.)

As we're driving across the desert toward the sand dunes, we could see camels just roaming around eating. Eating what, I have no idea cause all we could see was sand and more sand and little patches of weeds. But there didn't seem to be eating the weeds. Weird. T.I.A. The sand dunes that you can see in the background of this picture were the ones that we were heading to.

We finally arrive to the dunes after a 45 minute bumpy ride across the desert and this is what we see...absolutely beautiful sand and blue sky.

It was incredible...sand dunes for as far as I could see. Which afterwards I found out wasn't very far, only about 10 square miles. The sand dunes are only in patches across the desert.

Arriving at the Auberger (it looked like a big sand castle) we ate lunch and relaxed before we hopped on our camels and rode off into the sunset. Because of the possibility of another sand storm, we all wore turbans to protect us from the sand and the sun. During the day the temperature only got up to around 70 degrees, but with the sun it felt much warmer. At night however, it dropped to near 40. Much colder!

Meet our camels! They were all tethered together and led by one guy in the front. For the most part it was ok. Except this one time, our guide was taking our picture for us and the lead camel decided he was done waiting and started walking. It would have been ok if we were on level ground, but we weren't! We were sitting at the top of a dune. Whenever we headed down a dune, the guide would slowly lead the camels down while we hung on for dear life. But this time there was no moving slowly. The camels were just about trotting downhill and well, I was screaming. I was on the last camel, and that meant that as soon as all the others started going, he had to run to catch up. Not fun! So this time with no guide, there was no one to slow them down going down a hill. I literally almost fell off. That would have been a site, and made my day. I probably would have just walked back after that.

Me in my turban. :)

The next few photos are ones that I was able to take during our hour and half ride out to where we would be spending the night under the stars. (Which was beautiful by the way, every star imaginable.)

We spent one night in the sand dunes sleeping in tents under many wool blankets to keep warm. We woke up early the next morning to hike up this massive dune to see the sunrise. I only made it up about 100 feet. It was beautiful though. We ate breakfast and then hopped back on our camels and headed home. The ride home was a sore ride. My legs were hurting for a couple of days. It is definitely not a leisurely ride. It takes lots of effort not to fall off and at the same time try and find a comfortable spot where the hump isn't...well, you get the idea.

Our trip back to our hotel that night proved to be full of surprises as well. Rainbows, clear sky, and snow. Yes, I said snow. It was absolutely incredible. And for a southern girl, like Christmas. It was a wintry drive home for sure. It probably snowed about 5-6 inches. I was very happy. :)

My trip to the Sahara Desert was certainly adventure and I'd head back any day and do it all over again. Any takers??

P.S. I have many more pictures, if anyone would like to see the rest please let me know and I'll send you more!

Back to the Grind

ﺍﻟﺴﻼم ﻋﻟﻳﮑﻡ
Salam Walekum!

Greetings from Morocco!

I just finished my first partial week at work. I began as a Compass employee on Wednesday. This week was the end of Ramadan, so Wednesday and Thursday was a national holiday. Consequently, no Moroccans showed up for work for those two days. Even today, Friday, there were very few that decided to come in to work. For me, I look at it as a blessing. Fewer people around for my first few days.

This job is definitely challenging. I'm learning new things and also applying what I already know to try and help out what's happening here. Right now I am the assistant Financial Controller, but as of Dec. 19 I become the Financial Controller. Hopefully, over the next couple of months I will be able to soak up any and all information I need to do this job successfully. I am becoming a sponge. :)

My first day, Erik (my supervisor) took me around to all the different sites associated with Compass. It was quite a trip! One of the sites is right on the coast, and very beautiful! I wish I had taken my camera to show you pictures (but alas I didn't know we were going, so I didn't have it with me). But believe me, I don't go anywhere without my camera now! The first few days were a bit boring, but today Erik actually let me do something. It makes things a bit less boring when you're doing work.

I hope everyone is well. I miss y'all dearly. Please be praying for my parents as they will be traveling over here next Tuesday. I can't wait to see them.

Until next time...

Crazy Trip Details

Dear All~

I apologize for taking so long to let everyone know the details of my trip. But..here they are!

I woke up Friday morning with probably the worst migraine headaches I've had in a while. Then, my flight from Charlotte to Philly was delayed for two hours that I missed my international flight to Madrid. So, I got put on a later flight to London-Heathrow. THEN, we were running out of gas and had to re-route to Gatwick to re-fuel. While there, we had a medical emergency on board and the paramedics had to come on board to check out the passenger. I think we were there for about 2 hours. Once we got to Heathrow, I had only 3 hours to get checked in with British Airways and then get to my terminal. I stood in line for 2 hours of that just to get checked in. Has anyone ever flown through Heathrow?..it's a nightmare! No signs anywhere! Ha, once I got checked in, I didn't realize that they had spelled my name wrong on the ticket and so they had to make phone calls to see if it was going to be a problem. Fortunately, it wasn't. I finally made it to Malaga where my friends were waiting on me, but I got in so late on Saturday night that we missed the ferry to go to Morocco. We had to stay at the Tryp Guadelamar Hotel. The next morning we got up early to catch the ten o'clock ferry, which ended up being very rough. The guy sitting behind us on the ferry got sick..and let's just say it was pretty bad. :(

When we crossed the border into Morocco, they had had such bad weather that there was flash flooding and shop owners were trying to sweep water and mud out of their stores. Fortunately we were in a SUV that we were able to make it through the water and mud with no trouble.
So, I arrived at my brother's house Sunday morning (unfortunately with no luggage), 43 hours after I left my house in Mobile.

It's good to be on the ground and not traveling by plane or ferry any more. I'm so happy to be here. I have felt pretty good considering the trip over, however I'm still getting over jet lag.
I finally received my bags on Tuesday, and that adventure in itself really introduced me to the way things go over here. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore!

I'm grateful that despite the crazy trip, I'm here safe and sound.