Morocco : Ships of the Desert

We rode the ships of the desert into the Sahara, the dunes undulating around us in every direction, like waves. The wind blows the sand over the dune ridges, whipping it up like spray. Hamid, our guide, walks ahead in his green robe and white turban, pulling on the camel's rope. Alex's camel is first, we're told he is the crazy camel, but he is fast, and so first. Alex rides like a pro, her back is straightened her hands sit unbothered at her sides. She rocks and leans with the listing ship she rides, without any complaint. Matt rides second on his camel, tied to Alex's. He wears kakis, sandals, a white dress shirt and a black and white fedora. He looks formal for the occasion of riding into the Saharan dunes by camel. From behind, as I watch him on my camel, his wide legs straddling the girth of the camel's belly and his position on the far back of the saddle make him seem as though he is a fraction of a second from slipping right off the back. As if he is losing ground on the blanketed saddle, and his legs unable to stop him from slipping, but that is nowhere near the case, Matt is soundly on and he's up there telling jokes and chatting with Alex and Hamid about the desert, about the dunes, about the ships we're riding out into the sunset.

My camel, tied to Matt's, is not very sure footed. As we go up or down, the camel stumbles, lurches and I teeter on top. My camel is also strapped with baggage so my legs cannot grip the camel as you would when riding a horse, and so I rely completely on the metal handle of my saddle to steady myself.

Behind me, tied to my camel, is Michael who rides the stubborn camel, he is the camel that takes every step under pressure from the camel in front of him. This camel has neck is outstretched so that it's rope is taunt. As we walk along Michael's camel makes gurgling noises in its throat, noises that sound like burping or farting, like the camel is affected greatly by gas. But it is my impression that the camel is simply talking, perhaps he is expressing his intolerance in walking, his grumbling about each step sounds to me like something from a Star Wars alien, like Chewbacca or an Ewok. So as the camel groans and gurgles, right up to the back of my camel, I turn to it and murmur, petting it when it gets close enough on the cheek and calling it Ewok. The camel rumbles at me despite my attention and we continue deeper into the dunes under thin, passing clouds.

Wind picks up speed, pushing sand in drifts, spilling it over the backbones of the dunes and shifting it over the surfaces of the desert. It lifts up, into the air, up to us, high on the camels, and peppers our skin with the grains. The dunes and the sand are orangeish, flecked with dark brown and the surface is patterned with lines like those at the bottom of the sea. Our trail is visible before us in the sand, not because there are footsteps left behind from other camels or other people, no those have long blown away, but because the trail is made of round brown pebbles; camel poo. The poo lines the trail, is blown into pockets along the trail, blown over the dunes to roll along nearby, the only lasting mark of the camel trains that daily make the route here, through the desert.

We consider what it must have been like hundreds of yeas ago, riding camel caravans through the dunes, navigating the shifting dunes, coming across the tracks, the poo, of other camel trains. Hamid leads us ever onward, looking just the part. But no matter how exotic the trip is, how interesting it is to try to re-live, or gently re-experience history, the modern world is never far behind. Hamid is a smart boy, young and lean, he looks just as his ancestors who have inhabited this part of the word for thousands of years have looked, but under his robes he wears cammo jeans and an orange tee shirt. He carries a mobile phone in his robe pocket and it rings several times as we walk. Sheepishly, he stops the camels and answers the phone, sounding exactly like his teenage counterparts in the United States. Except that he is speaking his traditional Berber.

We are heading toward the biggest dune we can see as Hamid explains to us that at every big dune in the desert there may be a Berber family living in huts. The big dune offers protection and often access to water, deep underground. Hamid points to the horizon to the left and says that just 30 kilometers away is the Algerian border. "Let's go!" Alex says, "I've got my passport," and Hamid laughs. After an hour of riding, slowly plodding and listing on the ships, we circle a small rise and come to the base of the big dune. There, under its shade is a collection of tent circles made of oilcloth and carpets. Hamid leads our camels to one of the circles and tells the camels to sit down. With a small amount of grumbling, each camel bends first at the front knees, drops halfway, then drops his back legs, and finally settles his belly down in the hot sand. Holding on as the camel descends is the hardest part of the whole journey, and I have no choice but to trust that my camel is not bucking me off, as it feels, but simply settling down for the night.

Our tent village is empty except us, though Hamid tells us that when it is cooler there are more tourists and the camp can become crowded. Inside the ring of tents we find two bigger supply tents lined up with the short carpet covered sleeping tents. They are open from all sides, and the floors are simply sand. There is a kitchen hut with a propane stove on and a boiling kettle. In the center of the sand ring, there is a carpet, four cushions and a table. Hamid tells us to sit there and relax and he soon brings us mint tea and a bowl of shelled nuts. He joins us and we chat with him about his culture, about Ramadan which is coming in a few days and of his family. He felt apprehensive about Ramadan, it would be easy, he said, if only he could have some water, but that is not allowed. He said he gets to visit his family for a few weeks a year - he lights up talking about them - his parents, two sisters and three brothers. He spoke about the languages piled up in his head- "Berber," he says, "Always comes first, then I think in Arabic, then in Japanese, then French, then Spanish, then English, and sometimes it takes a long time to figure out what word to use." But to us, he didn't seem to struggle, having mastered all those languages except Berber and Arabic simply through contact with foreigners. We were impressed.

After tea Hamid served us Moroccan soup, then chicken tangine with bread and followed by melon and orange slices. We struggled to eat it all, stuffing ourselves too full. By the lantern light, alone in the desert, a cat came up and ate our scraps, "Moshe" said Hamid, translating all the little words we used into Berber, a lyrical language that contrasted harshly to Arabic which sounds gruffer and more guttural.

Matt lays back on the cushion, full and lightheartedly complaining to Hamid that Hamid had killed Matt with too much tasty food. I sit quietly writing in my journal while Michael snaps pictures of us.

Hamid looks around at us and turns to Michael, "Japan,” he says, "You take the pictures, yes? And she," he points to me, "She does the writing, yes? And he," Hamid points to Matt, "All he does is the eating, No?" We laugh. "What about Alex," Hamid asks, "She learns the language," I say and on cue Alex recites the words that Hamid has spent the evening teaching us, "Moshe, Ahmen (water), Temir (thank you)." Vey good," Hamid smiles a bright smile, happy with our attention to his culture.

Hamid lays out a huge rug on the sand in the center of the tent circle so we can sleep outside. We help him pull out foam mattresses, heavy blankets, pillows and sheets. He assembles our beds and puts out the lanterns, then drags his own mattresses out to where the camels are still sitting in the sand.

Under a star filled sky we chat in the darkness. We can hear the drums of another camp in the distance beating away in the night. It is warm and comfortable and we sink into sleep on the sand.

Before the sun makes it over the dune ridge we wake up and scuffle about camp. Hamid told us we needed to be up early to ride out and that we would be served breakfast at 6:30 am. We are determined to get up before then so that we can ride snowboards down the huge dune looming in front of us. I quickly put my clothes on and straighten up my things. I see Matt and Alex struggling close by: they're sick. They’ve spent the night puking into the sand and they're miserably weak. Matt still gets up, sighing and groaning and the three of us head out in the faint light, taking two boards with us up the slope. The dune is huge and we know that, of course, but as I go up it becomes bigger and bigger. Each step I take pushes me back, too, as I slide in the sand. The heat is already dripping off me, and I feel dizzy. Matt is lagging behind and soon falls to his knees, puking in a shallow hole.

When we make it to the top, Matt and I are exhausted but Michael is hyper excited by the thrill in front of him. He gets me to board a little down, tentatively against the steep, dangerous looking slope, then he gets Matt to follow and he takes our pictures. But he is antsy and he quickly sets his board up and hands us his cameras to shoot him as he comes down. He takes the whole hill, shouting and crashing, blowing up sand and whooping as he zooms past in a cloud of sand. Unsure of myself and my ability to board, I scoot down best I can, gaining speed until I can't control it and I end up dropping into a hole in the dune side; it is a spot strewn with trash and offers a tiny bit of privacy that has been utilized as a latrine. I unstrap the board and walk back to camp with the guys. I boarded right into the poop hole, I say. The boys laugh and holler about their success in taming the giant dune, the precipitous slope, the wall of sand in the desert.

Hamid is unimpressed. "Japan," he says, looking at Michael, it's his nickname for Michael because he takes so many photographs, ""take this" and Hamid offers a photo opportunity with the camels. Michael obliges him. We talk about the other tourists Hamid gets - lots of Japanese that Hamid says never put their cameras away, and big groups of Americans.

Hamid lays out breakfast of bread, jam, cheese and coffee for us but only Michael feels well enough to eat. I sip at my coffee and try a corner of bread. Matt and Alex are unable to eat anything. "I'm nervous," Matt says, "about being on that camel, about waving about the waves of the dunes. I don't know if I can take it." He grimaces in pain.

Soon Hamid tells us it is time. He has saddled our camels and they are lined up, laying in the sand and ready for us. We each load up and one by one Hamid has the camels stand for us. I have a different camel this time and it is infinitely more comfortable. This camel is less stumbly and is smaller so my legs hang properly and I can try to squeeze my thighs and hang on. I don't have to grip the handle and I can sway with ride like I'm riding a big lumbering horse. The sun rises over the dunes and the beats down on us, it bathes the orange dunes with light and shadow, everything looking so beautiful and peaceful. Other camel trains are in front of us in the distance, weaving up and down, appearing and disappearing around the waving dunes. I love riding my camel, it's fluid and calm and the breeze blows through my kurta, cooling me even in the heat. We rode the ships of the desert into the orange dunes back across time to a Berber camp, and then, quite simply, back to the edge of the desert, back to reality.