Quick weird fact about me: The first time that my eyesight started going bad was on a trip to Arizona when I was 7 years old. Being bored on this 16 hour drive with nothing to see but desert and the blazing sun I thought it would be a good idea to just look out the window and stare at the sun. 18 years later I still suffer the consequences but that doesn’t stop me from watching sunsets and sunrises when the opportunity comes.
Just imagine waking up and sitting on the bright, orange desert sand and seeing this beautiful sunset. This was our view when my study abroad program took us to Morocco and we spent two nights in the the Sahara Desert of Merzouga. This was by far one of my greatest adventures and most memorable trips.
Oasis
Only in movies like the Mummy Returns and the Scorpion King had I seen stories of someone stranded in a desert with nothing but sand and eventually they find an oasis with so much luscious, green trees and flowing water. Seeing this in person was so mesmerizing and gorgeous! This was our first stop before we were completely surrounded by sand.
Merzouga
Welcome to the Sahara Desert! This is where we stayed for the next few nights in tents lined up along the sand. We got to explore this vast open space of desert by taking pictures on jeeps, riding camels and motorcycles, dancing to Berber music, endless couscous and tea and watching the beautiful sunrises and sunsets with some of the locals.
Here are just some photos of me and my friend Victoria sitting atop the jeeps that brought us out here and a picture she took of me on top of another car.
Camel Time
Okay, I had never wondered what it would be like riding a camel because I never thought I would ride anything other than a horse but let me tell you, it is nothing like riding a horse! As much as they tried to make it comfortable with the saddle on top of the camel, I could still feel the in between humps in my pelvis and I couldn’t wait to get off of my camel. His name was Fetty Hump, which I named that because he was missing an ear he lost in a fight lol.
The Dunes
Let me just say another thing I wasn’t prepared for was hiking up a dune! I’ve hiked canyons and mountains but hiking up a sand dune is killer! Luckily I had some help from some of the locals that were more than willing to take breaks with me as we went up. But I’d take going up 5 flights of stairs any day over going up a steep sand dune.
Arabic in the Sand
One thing I hope to learn one day is to be able to write and speak Arabic. I’ve always loved the way it was written and as seen in my Malta blog with my tattoo. I asked one of the locals if they could write my name in the sand.
The Berbers
So the Berbers or Amazingh people are those that are native to this land across Northern Africa and can speak multiple languages like their native tongue, Arabic, English, Spanish and others based on the amount of tourism they get in this region too. Here is me and some of my study abroad friends with a few of them but they were also our tour guides in the Sahara who helped us with the camel riding and were so excited to share their desert with us. One in particular I became pretty fond of was Ahmed.
Ahmed
I had met Ahmed somewhere along being done with riding the camels and watching as people rode on motorcycles and resting on the sand to watch the sunset. He actually let me ride on the back of his motorcycle and took me on a quick ride as the sun went down.
I believe he was around 25 at the time and I was 20 about to turn 21. Once we got back to the rest of the group and me and my friends were going to go have dinner with our tour group he wanted me to meet up with him after. As the sun had completely disappeared and it was pretty much pitch black everywhere I had seen him on the dune along with some of his friends. We made jokes and talked about different things as he also showed us a backflip on the sand.
I showed him some pictures on my phone of some of the places I had visited so far like Madrid and Rome. I decided to also take a selfie with him and try out some of the filters.
As we started to walk away from the group we just talked about life living in the states and him living in Merzouga. The conversations just flowed so easily and we shared stories about what we want in life and for the future. We later laid down in the sand underneath the most breath-taking milky way, that seemed so close you could almost touch it.
Eventually I had to return back to the tents and he had to go home but I promised to meet him in the morning to watch the sunrise on my last day there in the Sahara.
I took some more photos of him but this one was one of my favorites where you can see him smiling. As we cuddled up and watched the sunrise it felt like a fever dream where you meet a guy traveling abroad and y’all fall in love or something like that. We definitely didn’t fall in love but I did keep in contact with him for a few years after through Facebook.
Here are some photos of the three camels that he owned at the time which I suggested the names Elvis, Dean and Martin. Right now we are out of touch and no longer have each other on Facebook but I still think about the time we spent together in Morocco. I was actually going to serve with the PeaceCorps right after graduating and get sent to Morocco but unfortunately COVID did not allow that to happen.
Sayonara Sahara
I hope that I get to return to the Sahara again one day and hopefully run into Ahmed and catch up on where life has brought us so far. It was eye opening to see where some people come from and where our roots are as people just living with the Earth and not in concrete cities. Granted not all of Morocco we saw was desert, which I will share in another blog, but it was an experience that I cherish the most being able to do in this lifetime.
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