Day 4 Traversing the Atlas Mountains and into the Sahara Desert

If Mars and Nevada had a baby it would be the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

 

Today we left Fez for an 8 hour drive to Merouga and the beginning of our camel trek in the Sahara Desert.  A long but eventful drive.  First, it is beautiful.  As we ascended into the Atlas Mountains, it started to look more like the Alps and less like a desert.  As we neared the higher elevation we drove into a town that indeed looked like it was in the Alps.  Steep roofs, lots of edelweiss, (cue up “Sound of Music”), Morocco’s take on Bavaria! 

Mohammed, our guide, told us that when winter hits in February, the snow comes down and Moroccan’s drive up to this area to go skiing!

We continue on to Merouga, Mohammed’s home town!  We drop a huge chandelier off, we bought in Fez, at his apartment that we had crammed in the back of our car with our luggage and headed out to the drop-off point for the camel trek.

We get there close to dusk, mount up, and off we go on our camels.  Led be Ali an hour and a half later, in the moonlight, we arrive at our destination and are met by Hassam, who greets us with “Moroccan Whiskey”.  Since this is a Muslin country we didn’t know if this was Moroccan Moonshine or what.  It turned out to be mint tea……  Hassam laughed.

 

Gloria and Janet with Ali our camel driver

Our "room"

A dinner of chicken tagine was excellent, than we sang around the campfire and headed to bed.  It was cold!  Gloria and I had 7 blankets, Scot and Janet had 6, plus many layers of clothes.  Camel blankets are so heavy with 7 on board it is hard to move, you just sink lower in your bed as you pile them on.  We did sleep well and woke up the next morning to a hike and a sunrise.  Incredible.