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!