Camping in the Sahara Desert

This is probably one of the coolest things I have ever done! While in Morocco my friend Krista and I went on a camel trek in the Sahara Desert and slept out in a Berber nomad camp. I would never have done this if it was just the two of us, but we met up with about 20 other people for the experience.

We drove to Efroud, took a jeep 1 1/2 hours into the desert to where the camel trek began, treked on the camel for about 1 1/2 hours and then ate dinner at our Berber camp. We slept in tents that were merely blankets on the sand for the floor and blankets thrown over wooden poles for the sides and roof. I slept like a baby, I can sleep almost anywhere very, very easily. We had heard it could get really cold, but it wasn't too bad with a few Berber blankets on.

For dinner we had traditional food, tagine, which is kind of like a crock pot dinner and then were entertained with music and dancing. After dinner the boys tried to teach us how to play the drums, and I was told I was really pretty bad! We stayed up and talked and told jokes and played games with the boys until pretty late and then went to bed. They spoke very broken English and some Spanish, so thank you high school spanish for being a common broken language between me and some cute boys! Haha. We got up early the next morning and watched the sunrise and climbed the dunes then treked back to where the jeep dropped us off.

The Sahara Desert is really beautiful and had the charming lonesomeness that deserts do. The sand was unbleivably orange and desert grass was a pretty pale sage green, the contrast was lovely.

I got to be the lead camel on the way in so it made me feel like I was in some movie, or the Bible or something: Rebekka (?) leaving on a camel to go and meet her future husband Issac across the desert!