Sleeping in the desert

This morning we have a long travel day so plan for pick up at 8:30.  We didn't sleep too well last night and were ready very early but had only arranged for the pick-up by our driver for 8:30. 

Our first stop this morning is to try to find the Barbary Apes, which are really monkeys, the same as they have Gibraltar.  The driver tells us they are really easy to find, well the first two spots that he knew they were easy to find they were not there.  Turns out he has never been here at this time of day, remember he does not know the area well, usually it is just a pass by spot.  He speaks to one of the guys hanging around and finds out in the morning the monkeys go to the river to drink.  So off we are on a hunt to find monkeys.  Success we find a small group that even has a few babies.  Our driver is really disappointed that we don't have food to give the monkeys because they would come very close, we told him we preferred watching them turn over the stones looking for food in a natural way, pretty hard concept for him.  We were plenty close, these monkeys are very used to humans you can tell.

Barbary Apes in the Cedar Forest

Let me see if you have anything in your ear

We say good-bye to the monkeys and start on quite a long drive to our end of the day stop.  We travel up and over the Atlas Mountains, such different terrain throughout the day.  Lots of stops for scenic pictures.  We see lots of sheep today, a few nomad tribes with their temporary homes, some people selling honey on the side of the road. 

Scenery traveling through the valley

Nomads

High Atlas Mountains in the distance with lots of snow

We stopped at a beautiful lookout over a valley surrounded by palm trees contrasting to all the rocks around it. 

Palmeria, quite the contrast between dry brown and green

Our next stop for the day was at a Riad in the Sahara where we were going to leave our luggage for the night while we do a short camel trek to a camp where we will be spending the night.  We waited here for about an hour until it cooled off outside and was getting closer to sunset.  Andre is a bit under the weather, I always think when we travel he just does a little too much drinking, along with too much sun, too little sleep, too much food etc, but this trip really no booze so that hasn't contributed, just the weak LeBlanc stomach I guess.  He took advantage and had a rest outside at the Riad while we were waiting for the OK to go and meet the camels.

We traded snow fences at home for sand fences here

Approaching the sand dunes in the distance

Andre has had better days, waiting for the camel trek

We are each allowed to take one small pack for clothes etc for the camel ride and overnight, Andres small pack is his camera pack along with a toothbrush, I brought everything else that we needed, or thought we might need. 

We met up with the camels and were given all kinds of instructions and signed wavers (NOT, they told us nothing, guess they figure everyone has ridden a camel before, right?).  These are actually not camels here they are Dromedaries, we were told not to call them camels because they only have one hump, I will continue to call them camels, so much easier to type.  So the camels are sitting down when we arrive and you just have to swing your leg over to get on, no stirrups, easy for Andre to do with his long legs, a little tougher for me.  Once you are sitting on the camel the handler then tells it to stand up, they are not too graceful at standing up so a bit of rock and roll.  You have this steel kind of handle bar to hold on to, I had the death grip on the stupid thing for the entire time.

We were just the 2 of us with our handler at the beginning, but we caught up to a family of 4 and we were hooked together.  We travelled for about 30 minutes then stopped at the top of a dune to watch the sunset.  What beautiful colours in the sand, reds, orange, yellows, some pink very amazing.  The kids in the family were having a great time rolling around in the sand, I am sure they will be finding sand for weeks to come.

Many people being dropped off at the meeting point

These were out 2 camels, they don't look too high when they are sitting down

Getting our instructions, none were given

Do I look a little scared?

Made it, and we are off

We joined up later with another family for part of the trek

After the sun set the handles split us up again and Andre and I were on our own with our handler to the camp.  We arrived at the camp and the handler got our camels down so we could get off.  For me this was the scariest part, it is not a gentle first part down, you really have to brace yourself to not flip over the front of the camel as you get quite a jerk, but I did not flip off so I was very happy.  The camel handler then opened his bag to show us he had fossils to sell to help his family, no thanks, we told him to try the American family that was coming up behind us maybe they would want some.

Sunset on the dunes

We are shown to our tent, which is very much like the tents we had in Tanzania, this is not camping!  We have our own private bathroom with running water, complete with a shower.  We left all our luggage (my little backpack) and went to the campfire to have tea and cookies.  All the others started arriving, we were 8 tents in total.  5 tents were set up in a circle where we were, and 3 others were a little higher up in the dunes.  Andre is really not feeling very well at this point, he has no energy left, and it was a very hot day today which did not help.  

Our tent for the night

The 40 degree + dining room

Full moon tonight

We are told it is dinner time at 9 so off we go to the dinner tent which had to be at least 40 degrees.  It is really unbearable.  We stayed for salad and then a tagine of tomatoes, eggplant, and cheese which was delicious but could not stand the heat any longer.  We got up and went outside then the waiter came and told us he could set us up a table outside, but Andre was done.  Off to bed he went, I have had so much food this part of the trip that I did not eat any more so I sat by the camp fire to cool off outside.  I have no idea why they had us eat inside, it was a beautiful night, so many starts, it would have been lovely outside.  Everyone was complaining about the heat, they really messed up on this one.  After dinner 3 of the guys came out and played the drums for a bit, then it was off to bed at about 11PM for me.  Andre was dead to the world, I knew he didn’t hear me come home, hopefully he will feel better tomorrow.