Les Chameaux

A million things have happened in the last couple days, so I'll do my best to fill you all in.

After Fes we headed up into the Middle Atlas. Beautiful country of stark red brown mountains carved into table tops by water and endless plateau vistas. Our hotel was in the middle of a vast swath of ground that ended right at the mountains. To stretch our legs we hiked it to a nearby gorge and then on to a nearby mud brick kasbah village. The people here were wonderfully friendly, even if I didn't have a clue what they were saying. And the children were amazing! They all lined up to have their pictures taken and then wanted to see what they looked like on the digital cameras. Much shrieking and laughter ensued upon their examinations of our photos. As the sun set, three of the little girls took the hands of Linda (fellow touree) and myself and walked with us all the way out of the village. This is probably my best memory of the trip thus far.

Beyond the Middle Atlas we decended down through steep valleys which broke away to reveal... the Sahara! This was the night I'd been waiting for. The camel ride through the desert. And I wasn't disappointed. It is unbelievably quiet and soothing. Rolling dunes of gold stretching beyond your sight, the sparse tufty grass struggling to grow. Mind blowing! But my GOD the camel ride was uncomfortable. You'd think that in 1000 years they'd come up with a better saddle! My ass bones still hurt. Probably did not help that we all decided to scramble up a massive sand dune to watch the remainder of the light spatter across the dunes. Great experience though.

The weather wasn't exactly as we'd hoped and on the way out to our camp it began to rain. This was to be the theme for the next couple days. I've talked about rain before. How the rain was thick enough to swim through, how it was trying to kill me, how it was rain with intent to murder. But NOTHING compares to the rain in Morocco. You see it's rained so much here that the majority of the roads we need to traverse are now masquerading as rivers. (Though this is as much due to the Moroccoans complete inablity to grasp the concept of bridges as anything else.) We got holed up in some small town for a whole day because the road we needed to cross was submerged. It also meant that we didn't get to see one of the more spetactular natural wonders in Morocco. The Todra Gorge. Well... I should clarify. We saw it... from the other side of the broken path up the gorge! Still, the attempt was made and I'm glad for it.

Unfortunately all this rain has also meant colder temperatures. And when your only pair of pants is soaking wet you get cold pretty fast. Needless to say, me and my fellow tour gals are a shivering mess of clammy coldness. And worse, I haven't seen a hot shower in days!

Today we're headed to the kasbah in Ait Benhaidu (or something like that) where "Gladiator", "Kundun", and a whole whack of other movies were filmed. Now if only I can get a big sword to swing around for some choice photos!