Camping In The Sahara
By Unknown 3:00 PM Africa, Atlas Mountains, camels, camping, desert, europe, Meknes, Merzouga, Morocco, sahara, sahara desert, sand dunes, Sevilla, The Sahara, traveling
Our wake up call was at 7am to begin our trek down into the Sahara, where we would be staying for two nights. We drove up and over the Atlas Mountains, which had very small, curvy that I am still surprised our bus made it up. The landscape was pretty amazing, the only buildings you could see for miles was maybe one small shack that had been abandoned on the side of the road. After about 5 hours we stopped for lunch in this oasis of trees in the valley of the dessert. It was a beautiful little hotel that graciously let us take over their dining room. From there it was about another 6 hours until we got to Merzouga where we would switch to jeeps with men who somehow knew how to find our campsite in the middle of the desert at night. Once finally arriving to our campsite after a very long day of traveling, we were able to put our stuff down and explore a little bit. The campsite was set up was a small little community of tents made out of blankets that were basically all connected. But they provided a mattress pad and warm blankets which was more than I expected. It was strange walking around the campsite at night though because we could see maybe one or two dunes right next to the tents, but then it was just complete darkness. Dinner was served at about 9pm with similar food that we had been having all week, still delicious. But by this time it was starting to become apparent that a few kids were really starting to feel sick. We are not exactly sure what the culprit was that started this epidemic, but it seemed to be just a mixture of strange food and strange water that our bodies could not handle. I was still feeling good at this point in the trip, so after dinner me and a few girls went and laid down on the closest dune to look at the stars. Nothing will ever compare the night sky in the Sahara desert. The milky way way so clear and vibrant and we saw about 10 shooting starts in the span of an hour. Nothing has ever made me feel more important and insignificant at the same time as staring up into that sky.
