The Sahara, Marrakech and Fes.

We left on Wednesday morning at 7am and boarded a van for a 3-day over the Atlas mountains and into the Sahara. I traveled in a van with Katie (the girl from Scotland), Vicky (from England, the French Canadians (Gabrielle and Maiti) and a 60-ish couple from Bologne, Italy. We traveled over the Atlas the first day, stopping at a dozen or so ancient Kasbahs along the way. Then we spen the night in a hotel near the Atlas gorges (a lot like the Narrows in Zion National Park). After hiking a ways up the gorge, we got back in the van and trecked across hundreds of kilometers of nothing until we got to the sand dunes of the Sahara on the Algerian border. Here, we boarded camels and made our way over the dunes for an hour or so during sunset.

We arrived at our Berber camp (a circle of tents made from Berber carpets) just as a sand storm blew in. I quickly came to understand why they recommended I wear a turbin. The sand storm was really rough so we went into a tent and talked with other travelers while the Berbers made our Tagine dinner.

After dinner, the Berbers played their drums and other instrument (kind of like a maraca) for us. Later, a few of us stayed up singing Beatles songs while the Berbers played the beat on their instruments. Then I busted out my harmonica and played Amazing Grace and a few other songs while the Berbers played along on their drums. We stayed up until around 1 am, then my four wives and I headed to our tent for four hours of sleep before getting up at sunrise.

At sunrise, we hiked to the top of a huge dune and watched the sun climb over the Sahara, casting brilliant red light over the already vividly red sand.

We then got back on our camels and worked our way back to a hotel at the foot of the dunes where we had a pathetic breakfast and boarded the buses for a very long, very hot journey home. The drive back to Marrakech took around 9 or 10 hours. The sun was very hot and they had installed aftermarket locks on all but the front windows of the van - and those were only 'allowed' to be opened half way. No air conditioning and Ahmed (the drive with, as one guy put it, "as much charisma as a wet rug," refused even to use the vents). Oh well; we survived (barely) the ride back and then my wives and I hit up our favorite food stand in Marrakech's main square for a wonderful meal of shish kebabs, olives, orange juice and mint tea.

We then said goodbye to the French Canadians and the Brits and I spent the night in the Hotel Ali. Our room was approximately as hot as an Industrial Revolution-aged furnace, and I was awakened by the very loud call to prayer at 4 am and then again by the incessant "melodies" of snake charmers that began around 7 am.

The bottom line: Southern Morocco was a wonderful, magical place. It was culturally fascinating and I had great company.
I arrived 10 minutes late for the 10-minute late train headed for Fes and arrived here around 11pm last night. I spent the night in the Hotel Cascade and spent the morning getting lost in the crazy labrynth of thousands of narrow, winding and often dead-ending roads that make up the Medina of this Medival city.

Now I have to run catch a train 5 hours north to Tangier and work my way back across Gibraltar into Spain.

Shukran.