Merzouga, Morocco - Day 2

Monday, February 5, 2024

Dare I say, we had one of the most comfortable nights of sleep during our time in Morocco while we were in the Sahara Desert? Soft sheets, plump pillows, and heavy comforter blankets kept our family warm during our stay at Bahba Luxury Camp. Outside, the air temperature was a cool 32 degrees this morning which made getting out of our warm beds difficult to do.

Breakfast was served in the dining tent at 9:30am — coffee, orange juice, warm chocolate croissants, fruit, and yogurt. A propane patio heater near our table helped cut the chill of the cold morning.

“Africa!” our server, Musafa, exclaimed as he delivered food to our table, and so our day in the Sahara Desert began.

After breakfast, Mustafa (one of the camp owners who was also our driver yesterday), said he was going to take us around the desert today to show us examples of the way people live. He also promised the kids would have a chance to look for fossils later. Finally, our day would conclude with a camel ride through the desert dunes.

The four of us hopped into Mustafa’s Toyota Land Cruiser and drove through the desert. The Sahara Desert is the world’s largest hot desert and features various landscapes including rolling orange-colored sand dunes, black sand, mountains, rocky plateaus, and extinct volcanoes. A few scrub bushes and Acacia trees dot the landscape. Most of the rivers and lakes in the Sahara are seasonal, but there are man-made wells that draw water from underneath the ground.

Mustafa stopped at one of the wells to show us how nomadic people of the Sahara Desert get their water. Aden and Tory took turns pulling up a bucket attached to a rope. It wasn’t easy! It took some muscle power and determination. A small concrete pool next to the well provides a place for animals to drink. We could see several nomadic camps set up in the distance. Most of them place their tents close to a water source in an otherwise barren landscape.

This setting helped me picture people of the Bible gathered together at a well to fill jugs of water and refresh their animals. Access to water was, and continues to be, an essential part of life.

Next, Mustafa drove us to one of those nomadic camps set up in the distance. Hundreds of families still live the nomadic way of life in the Sahara Desert. When temperatures change throughout the year, or their animals run out of food to graze, nomads pick up their belongings and move to another location. I asked Mustafa how he got to know this family, and why they allow us to visit their home. He said that Berber nomadic groups like this one were originally apprehensive about tourists coming to see their way of life. But, over time, they realized they have something to share and that monetary donations left behind by visitors give them income for food and supplies.

It’s not just tourists that help the nomadic people. Giving back is one of the five pillars of Islam, and Muslims are expected to give a fixed amount of their finances to the poor. Mustafa explained that he and others from nearby communities visit the nomadic groups regularly to provide assistance.

We visited a Berber family with a husband, wife, and a three-year-old child. When we arrived, the woman was baking bread in her earthen oven. We watched as she skillfully placed the dough in the oven next to the fire while using a stick to beat off the charcoal from another piece already cooked. The mechanical manner in which she moved about doing this chore showed me that’s done this household job a million times. Next to the oven was a smaller hearth used for boiling water.

Nearby, her husband sat on the ground near another tent whittling a piece of wood. The three-year-old boy laid on a cushion inside the tent playing with a plastic truck toy. He was curiously shy when he saw us, hiding his face in his arms and then peeking up at our family standing beside the tent.

Travel experiences like this one are so eye-opening, and make me realize what a bubble we live in most of our lives. I love my life and all the modern comforts of our home in Wisconsin. I’m so thankful and grateful for all that we have. My first instinct is to feel sorry for the nomads for the difficult challenges their daily lives must bring. I’m sad for the little boy who’s education will only be what his parents teach him, knowing there’s more to experience and learn in the world. But I also understand that these people choose to live this life. It’s different than my own, but that doesn’t make it wrong. This nomad family is happy together, living off the land of the Sahara Desert.

Eventually, the man stood up from his kneeling position on the ground and walked to the animal pen about 30 yards away. The little boy happily ran after his dad. Inside the pen were a dozen goats and chickens. The man pulled out a sack of feed, filling a trough for the animals to eat. We watched as the animals pushed each other out of the way toward the food. A young goat and a chicken went head to head, bawking and bleeting at each other to move out of the way.

While we were over by the animal pen with the man and his son, the woman had been busy making us refreshments. She invited us into their dining tent which covered the ground with rugs and floor cushions. Inside, she gave us Moroccan mint tea to drink and homemade Berber pizza with the bread she’d just baked. The Moroccan people are a kind and peaceful group of people. Time and time again, we’ve witnessed this during our travels through the country. This Berber family, living with so little, welcomed us into their home and offered us some of their food. This gesture warmed my heart.

The Berber pizza was tasty, too! We all enjoyed it. While we ate, I tried not to think about how the cooking conditions might give us a case of the “Marrakech Express” after all.

After we ate, we waved good-bye to the nomad family, saying “shukran” which means gratitude in Arabic. Then, Mustafa drove us to a panoramic look-out. We stopped by one of the few Acacia trees scattered about the desert for a quick family photo.

Not all of the Sahara Desert is orange-colored sand dunes. Parts are volcanic and rocky, like this vista point. It felt like our family had been transported to the surface of Mars. From the top of the mountain, we had a good view of the Sahara Desert spread out before us. Tory and Aden busied themselves making cairns with the black, rugged rocks.

From this viewpoint, Mustafa pointed out the Algerian border in the distance.

From the viewpoint, Mustafa drove us to a spot about 10 minutes away. He pulled the car over and said we could hunt for fossils mixed amongst the stones. One-hundred million years ago, this area of the Sahara Desert was once underwater, evident by the numerous marine fossils found on the ground. I couldn’t believe how many of them were there. We saw petrified snails and turtle shells, fish scales, and sea snakes permanently imprinted on the sides of rocks. When I was a little kid, I dreamed of being a paleontologist so searching for fossils in the Sahara Desert this afternoon felt like a wish come true. It fascinated me watching Tory and Aden hunt for real fossils in the desert. When I was their age, the closest I ever came to searching for fossils was in a sandbox at the local history museum.

We saw turtle fossils —

Lots of snail shells—

Fish fossils and sea snakes —

This valley in the rocky desert was full of fossils. I asked Mustafa how he knew where to find them. “Oh, there are fossils all over the desert,” he responded nonchalantly.

Hands down, this was one of our family’s favorite experiences in the Sahara Desert. When Mustafa mentioned spending our time finding fossils, I worried it would be some sort of tourist trap / gem factory experience but this was anything but that. We were the only people around for miles, and together as a family we searched for fossils hidden amongst the rocks like desert treasures. What an experience!

Next, Mustafa drove us to a spot for lunch near the town of Merzouga. A small group of people from Sudan make up this part of the community after originally coming to Morocco as slaves. Today, they hold tight to their traditional music, food, and customs living harmoniously with the Berber people.

Mustafa seems to be friends with everyone in these Sahara villages, so we were warmly welcomed into Restaurant Dar Aytma Khamlia and given a table on the outside patio. This was another place where we didn’t order for ourselves, but food was brought to the table by the owner. While we waited for our meal, a little girl nestled in next to Andi with a backpack full of toys. She plopped a plastic doll without any limbs on the table, as well as the rings from a stacking baby toy onto our table. When our food came, her dad told her she needed to move to another table to play (at least that’s what I assume he was saying to her). She wasn’t very happy about sitting elsewhere!

For our lunch, the four of us shared a rice dish with peppers and olives. Then, we ate more Berber pizza which was a Moroccan bread filled with sauce, egg, and lamb meat (I think?).

For dessert, the owner brought us orange slices with cinnamon and crescent-shaped cookies. There’s always multiple courses in Moroccan meals — one or two starter dishes like olives, nuts, bread, and sometimes soup followed by meat, vegetables, rice or couscous, and then something sweet to finish off the meal.

So many cats in Morocco & they seem to gravitate toward Aden.

We had a few minutes to burn before it was time to ride camels, so Mustafa took us to the community garden in his village. Every family in the community is assigned a plot of land to grow vegetables, and then they all share their harvest with one another. The grounds are watered in the same manner we saw at the date palmery in Skoura — mounds of dirt separate each plot of land. When it is time to water a certain section, the farmer removes the mound and floods the field. Then, the dirt is piled back to hold the water in place. All the water in this location comes from a well outside the garden. This is also the community well that people from the village come to fill jugs of water for their homes.

Finally, the desert moment we’d all been waiting for had arrived (or, for some of us, the moment we’d been dreading) — camel rides! Mustafa’s eldest brother, Sayid, cares for the camels that Bahba Luxury Camp uses for their guests. We drove into Merzouga to find Sayid in the “camel parking lot” as Mustafa called it, suiting up his camels for us with blankets, a long pillow wrapped around the camel’s hump, and a saddle with handlebars. Did you know camels with one hump are actually called dromedaries? Technically, there are no camels in Morocco — only dromedaries.

Andi and I decided that we’d ride the dromedaries in pairs since both Tory and Aden were nervous about this experience. Tory and I saddled our dromedary first, climbing on top of its back while it laid on its belly in the sand. “Hold on and lean back,” Sayid instructed us, and the dromedary flung backwards as it propped its front legs up underneath itself, and then lunged forward as it stood its hind legs in into position. Oof! Dromedaries are not very graceful animals. But, we were up! I thought the hardest part of this experience was going to be getting on top of the dromedary, and now that part was behind us.

Andi and Aden’s dromedary was not pleased to be carrying their weight, and it groaned as they climbed on top of the saddle. The two dromedaries were tied closely together by a rope, and Sayid led the way in front of them. Off we began walking through the desert sand dunes. We rode for two hours, stopping along the way to sand board and to watch the sunset. Eventually, we ended back at Bahba Luxury Camp.

Riding a dromedary through the desert was slow-moving and actually, very peaceful. We rocked back and forth in the motion of the dromedary’s feet moving through the sand. I wasn’t sure how we’d sit on the dromedary given its large hump, but Sayid had wrapped a pillow around the hump and then we sat on top of the pillow. This was a lot more comfortable than riding in a horse’s saddle, I thought, but Tory complained about the metal bar from the handles digging into her thighs.

The kids were not at all excited about riding dromedaries, but Andi and I felt like it was something we had to do while we were here. We’re in the Sahara Desert, after all! If we have the opportunity to ride dromedaries, we should take it. Tory was nervous though, and whimpered through most of the ride. I could feel here taking deep breaths as she sat in front of me on the saddle. Aden was thrown off a horse two years ago in Ecuador, and ever since then he’s been apprehensive to ride on the back of an animal. He was OK riding a dromedary with Andi, but had no interest riding on one himself.

For the most part, the sand was packed firmly so it wasn’t difficult for the dromedaries to walk. The only scary part happened when we were ascending one of the sand dunes and the sand suddenly got very deep. The camels’ feet were sinking quickly, and the animals started to groan. I worried the dromedaries would fall over with us sitting on top of them. Sayid acted quickly, turning the dromedaries around 90 degrees. He led them down the dune to a safer location, and then the four of us hopped off and physically walked to the top of the dune.

Aden’s been waiting for the opportunity sand board in the desert. Sayid kindly carried the board through the desert for him until we reached a dune appropriate for sliding. He requested Aden sit on the board, not stand, and instructed him to slide down the dune. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lot slower moving than he’d have liked. The hardest part was climbing back up to the top through the soft sand. That got each of our hearts pumping!

Ok, so make that two scary moments that happened during our ride — the other one happened when Andi was trying to take a video of the desert landscape. Aden bumped Andi’s arm and Andi lost hold of his phone. Quickly, he moved his arms through the air trying to regain control of his phone which startled Tory and I’s dromedary that was tied behind Andi and Aden’s animal. Spooked, our dromedary took off running, through it couldn’t go far because it was tied to the back of Andi and Aden’s. The sudden running of the dromedary made Tory scream which then startled both of the animals. Once again though, Sayid acted quickly and was able to calm his animals without anything major happening.

After the dromedary took off running, Tory demanded to get off the animal, but I was able to convince her to stay on for the rest of the ride. It would have been a long walk through the sand to get to camp.

It wasn’t mandatory to wear scarves tied around our heads for the dromedary ride, but I actually preferred it. The air was cold as the sun went down in the desert (I’m a freeze baby anyway), so the scarf kept my head warm and protected my hair from getting a bunch of sand in it. Maybe it looked a little silly, but I didn’t care.

The sky turned a million shades of rainbow colors as we made the trek back to camp. How simply gorgeous and tranquil it is to be in the Sahara Desert!

Back at camp, dinner was waiting for us. The cook prepared a tuna pasta salad, tagine kofta (meatballs), and chicken with homemade French fries. Tory and Aden were really happy to see French fries set before us. I’ve been impressed at how adventurous Tory and Aden have been when it comes to eating foods in Morocco. They might not always like the dish, but they’ve been willing to try a bite and more times than not can find at least one ingredient that they will eat.

Dessert tonight was baked apples with yogurt which tasted simple and delicious. I’m impressed with the foods Bahba Luxury Camp is able to produce for us in a tent out here in the desert.

Mustafa, Mosafa, and Sayid rounded out the evening with a Berber music drum circle around the fire. They played a few songs for us, and then encouraged the kids to try to play something on the drums. Tory wasn’t interested, but Aden tried his hand at making Berber music.

Afterwards, our family retired to our tent and crawled into our warm beds. What a day full of learning and adventure in the Sahara Desert! It was a memory we won’t soon forget.

Tomorrow, we say good-bye to the Sahara and make our way back to Marrakech. Our time in Morocco is nearing an end.