Camels, Camels, Camels
Trip Start
Unknown
1
23
31
Trip End
Ongoing
Erfoud, Meknès-Tafilalet, Morocco
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
After a couple of hours we reached our destination, a magical collection of bedouin tents at the foot of the dunes. But before I saw the tents I saw the camels! There were ten or 15 of them resting in the sand not far from our tents.They smelled, their bellies groaned, they ground their teeth constantly, they occasionally nipped at each other, and they were wonderful. Max Klinger on M*A*S*H once cursed someone with, "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits." Now I understand.
Our tents appreared to be a hodge-podge of burlap and rugs but when we got inside it all made sense. The "burlap" roofs were actually woven from camel hair, and the walls we hung with a colorful assortment of rugs. The area inside the compound was literally carpeted with carpets and I never had to walk on the sand once inside our little world. I would have been happy to take any of those rugs home with me! That evening we chatted by firelight and listened to a small band of musicians as they sang their haunting ballads. That we didn't understand a single word didn't matter; we enjoyed every minute of it. Later, our little band of temporary nomads sat around a low table in the largest of the tents and feasted on an assortment of tagine dishes.
David and I retired to our tent to discover that because of a faint breeze the Sahara had made its way into everything in just a few hours. Worst of all, it found its way between the sheets. It was a gritty night, and I was restless and slept very little thanks to a cold that had hit me the day before. Except for the occasional snoring coming from a nearby tent, the silence of the desert was powerful reminder of the lives we had briefly left behind. At one point I went into the little courtyard formed by our tents and was struck by the brilliance of the full moon. As with so many things in Morocco, it's hard to describe. I could have read the finest print in that light!
4:30 rise and shine. We pulled on some clothes being sure to wear lots of layers and stepped out to into the night. While we'd slept, a dozen camels had been delivered silently delivered to the edge of our tents. We climbed aboard then as they knelt and held on for dear life as they hauled themselves up to their full height. David's turbaned camel driver took the lead and I had to chuckle as he swayed to and fro from the odd gait.
The plan was to ride into the dunes a ways and then leave the camels behind and climb a big dune on foot to watch the sunrise. When my camel knelt down so I could dismount it felt like I was going end-over-applecart.
That Saharan sunrise is at the top of my sunrise list. Shooting was tricky because of the blowing sand so we kept our cameras in big zip-lock and pulled them out for a quick shot before zipping them back in their bags as fast as we could.
Footnote: One Moroccan man approached me and whispered in my ear, "I would pay a thousand camels for you." Tall, dark and handsome? No way! The guy was greasy, had about six teeth and smelled as bad as the camels! 
