Liked the oasis, loved the sand dunes, hated the camels! – there you go, a twitter length summary of travelling in Morocco in 1988 with mixed results!
An Oasis in the desert
Heading south from Fez for nine hours, we pass through hard barren reddish deserts, and at one stage we achieve enough altitude to find ourselves above the snow line – well it is January after all. We also pass the reputed original headquarters of the Foreign Legion, as in “I’m running away to join the foreign legion” – does any one ever say that any more? I am somewhat naively expecting the oasis to be half a dozen palm trees around a tiny waterhole, with desert encroaching from every direction. Of course when we reach Meski oasis, it is much bigger than that, with lots of irrigated fields extending out from the center of the oasis. I definitely didn’t expect a large concrete swimming pool with umbrellas and sunloungers, but the pool has been built in the path of the stream that runs through the oasis, so the stream now runs through the pool as well and fills it up. As I gingerly tiptoe into the very cold water, I realise that the pool is also full of fish, and they seem to like nibbling on our legs, a very freaky feeling, which does tend to put me off swimming. Little did I know then that this would become a trendy spa treatment twenty years later.
So instead we wander off to explore the village and surrounds, quickly attracting a crowd of kids who are already a bit bored with tourists giving them pens as gifts, but they take them anyway. We can see the old Casbah on a nearby hill, just across the stream. However we now realise that at this time of the year the stream is more of a river, and the locals are suggesting that we don’t try and cross it – there are no bridges within sight. We decide to wade in and give it a try as it doesn’t look that deep, but it turns out our problems will be swamp and mud, not water. The river bank and river bottom are very swamplike.
As we inch forward, trying to feel for firm bits of ground to stand on for each step, I place my right foot down and find it is now knee deep in the swamp. I try and pull it up and out, and I am now thigh deep in the swamp. I need the help of two of my friends to pull me back onto dry land, leaving my right flip flop in the middle of that swamp for eternity. At this point, we decide we don’t need to visit the Casbah at all, and head off to the little collection of stalls we had seen earlier. Meski is where I finally buy my first small Moroccan carpet – after many hours haggling into the night, I get it for the very good price of US $10 plus a six pack of beer.
Sunrise on Sand Dunes in the Sahara.
Flat dry deserts are all very well, but how about some real Sahara, with huge rolling sand dunes? We set off at 3.30 am to drive two hours to a point where the sand dunes start. Its a really weird sight, it’s all flat dry desert, and then all of a sudden, in front of me is a sand dune, and when i climb up to the top it is sand dunes to the horizon, and there is a feeling of immense open space. We carry on towards the largest (nearby) dune we can see and climb to the top and wait for sunrise. Even with all my warmest clothes layered on, I am very cold. This is not a red sky sunrise, the sky gradually turns from black to a light greyish blue, while the sand dunes turn a delicate shade of peach.
Then, after it already seems to be daylight, the bright ball of the sun appears over the sand dune horizon, and the sand dunes that face west start to glow a beautiful bright terracotta red. Finally we can start to remove some of the layers of clothes and warm up a bit. But we still sit and watch from the top of dunes for a while longer, it is an immensely relaxing sensation. Once we leave the dunes we stop in Rissini to visit the local livestock market and check out the prices of choice goats and donkeys, just in case that comes in handy somewhere down the road. I think to myself that a donkey might come in handy for the next day’s fourteen km hike through the long canyon of Todra Gorge.
Camels on the beach in Tangier.
Just outside Tangier on the coast are the Caves of Hercules, which are partly natural and partly man made over a couple of thousand years. There is an large silhouetted opening in one of the caves that supposedly looks like the map of Africa, and it is also claimed that you can see two profiles of Hercules face in the same map. However by the time we got to the cave, we just want to sit down on part of the old roman bath walls and calm down after the fear and loathing of our camel ride.
On the way to the caves, we stopped to take a camel ride along the beach. I don’t think beaches are the natural habitat of the camel, but when there are tourist dollars to be had, there is always a way. These are one hump camels, and I am sitting on a bunch of rugs tied to the camel’s back.
And this is where the nightmare begins. Most of the camels are female, as is the one I am on. One of the camels is male. And it seems this is the season for the female camels to be in heat, therefore the male camel is now very randy. So as we start our rolling walk down the beach, with the sun out and beautiful blue surf to our side, the male camel comes racing up behind the one of the female camels and starts trying to mount it, much to the consternation of the people sitting on the back of both camels. The local camel herders shoo him away so he makes for the next female, which happens to be the one i am riding. Not wanting to be squashed (or dribbled on) by the front half of the male camel as he tries to mount my ride, I kick and yell and desperately try to get my camel to run, which it eventually does but not willingly, I suspect she would prefer the male camel to catch her. Before long there are half a dozen female camels running down the beach, topped by out of control riders trying to hang on for dear life but too scared to slow their camels down. And the girl on top of the male camel wasn’t exactly enjoying herself either. For a while the local camel herders are mainly rolling around laughing but eventually they catch up with us, and one by one slow down our camels and get us off them. The last one they went to get was the male camel, who had been waiting for his opportunity, and before they could grab him he managed to successfully mount one of the now fortunately riderless females. Suffice to say the rider of the male camel made an extremely quick dismount. It is now a long walk back up the beach to our transport, but no-one is willing to get near the camels again. I think we’ll need a beer tonight.
