Midnight at the oasis: put your camel to bed
Credit to Author: Dave Pottinger| Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 23:15:18 +0000
We went to the Sahara desert on dromedaries called Ali and Hassan. We find ourselves on a sand dune in the Sahara, under a November supermoon, a scant 15 km from the Algerian border.
It is a place of overwhelming beauty at every turn and much much more. It is a place of silence and solitude. A place where dreams and mirages merge; where beauty lies in the sameness, in the wind and in the quiet.
Paul Bowles; author of The Sheltering Sky, writes the following about the desert: “The coming of day promises a change; It’s only when the day had fully arrived that the watcher suspects it is the same day returned once again – the same day he has been living for a long time over and over.”
There is a timeless cycle; of sand, of sunrise and sunset. The wind shaping and shifting dunes. The vast emptiness speaks to our hearts and grabs our soul.
To us the desert is like a lover; intimate and close. It gets under our clothes, lingers on our skin, slips into our bed, runs its fine, wind-driven fingers through our hair and caresses places only a lover knows.
It is unhurried and reflective. It is to sit silent, watching the dunes in a Sahara sunset capture shadows and spirits like a Berber storyteller gathers tales.
It is to breathe.
But, let’s rewind this story and start several days earlier in Morocco.
Shayne and Yvonne Konar are retired teachers who enjoy off the beaten path adventures.
We met Mohamed on an internet camel site… OK, it was a blog that mentioned his outfit, Camel Trekking Excursions. He sounded fine online and, as several other trekking outfits hadn’t bothered to respond – we were left with little choice. Upon reflection; it was a great choice.
After several back and forth emails between us, we have a camel date with Mohamed in Merzouga.
Mohamed and his driver picked us up 2 hours north in the town of Errachidia. From there we travel in an SUV south through spectacular gorges, villages and palmeraies (palm groves).
Later that day, with the sun setting over the desert dunes, we are now in the wild, empty, vibrant, silent Sahara. We are there to spend two nights in the desert at Mohamed’s camp.
Trust gets us everywhere we want to go when we travel. No different here in Morocco.
We see how that the little voice of fear, pounded into us by the everyday noise and naysayers, erodes and poisons our dreams and journeys.
We ignored the doubters and are here, under the deep blue sky and golden sands of the Sahara. It seems to be at the ends of the earth near the Algerian border.
Base camp.
Over 3 days, we spend 6 hours on the camels, these quiet ships of the desert. Just us in the camp, along with Mohamed and several others to watch over us, feed us and guide us among the dunes.
We visit an oasis, full with a ‘new age’ power source – solar panels, eat Berber pizza made fresh in a simple ground oven, wander through an old, abandoned Kasbah and climb a sand dune to watch the setting sun.
For 3 days, we sleep in and wear the same clothes. We do have a western-style toilet, a six-person tent to ourselves and a wash basin. It is cool at night, so we layer up with our clothing and pile on the extra wool blankets. So cozy as the wind whistles through our woven door flap.
The young man that guides our camels walks for hours over dunes and on the hard packed, flat desert.
He has a few Arabic camel commands and, it seems, only a few English words…”Good”….either asked as a question or exclamation and, “hold on.
We spend hours together, just the 3 of us, tethered by rope, in the stillness, as Ali and Hassan, the camels plod along.
Our last morning starts early. Yvonne goes to capture the blossoming sunrise. We eat a simple breakfast of bread, jam, cheese and tea. We pack, say our goodbyes and shokrans. Then, we climb onto the camels for one last hour and head back to Merzouga.
An abandoned Berber village.
Our time in the Erg Chebbi is over. We leave with an appreciation of the ancient camel trains that traded along these routes, bringing spice and cloth, while sharing knowledge and passing history.
We leave you with another quote from P Bowles: “The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a perfect moment. And, perhaps, even more than that, it’s having the ability to recall such moments in their totality, to contemplate them like jewels.”
Our moment in the Sahara was just such perfection, to remember.
Shayne and Yvonne Konar are retired teachers who have have traveled extensively the past 5 years with only carry-on packs. They have visited nearly 2 dozen countries. To read more about their adventures check out their blog: Backpacks and Flipflops at sykonar.blogspot.com