The first thing that we did when we got to M’hamid, even before running around in the sand, was to go shopping for a guided excursion the next day. Thankfully, we had been practicing our negotiating and walking away skills earlier in the trip. It was pretty easy, as the potential guides were all offering mostlv similar things, and though we knew we didn’t want to buy from the first person we talked to, we ended up signing up with the third- the hardest part of the experience was graciously accepting (or refusing) tea from everyone we talked to.
The place we ended up with was Diafa Voyages, where we both liked the salesperson/tourguide, Yousef- extremely friendly, not pushy, and the best French of anyone we talked to. So consider this a plug. And if you are ever in M’hamid, a place to start; the tiny, tiny town seemed to have about 10 agencies offering excursions.
We agreed to set off at 8:30 the next day. Our hotel took so long to bring breakfast (which was just bread, anyway), that we ended up speedwalking through town while eating it. It was a strange feeling, though, to know that it didn’t really matter if we were late: we had hired them, and they would never leave without us.
So Yousef, the driver (who didn’t speak anything we did, so I can’t remember his name), Cari and I set out for the desert. At first it there was scrub and trees- including some wild arugula which we stopped and sampled, but about an hour into the drive the green stuff stopped, and gave way to rocks. Not rocky- it was flat, and all the rocks were small. It was as if all the land had been the bed of a huge river for ages.
We stopped at an oasis, which was quiet and beautiful, and the saw the water (pictured above) springing up out of the desert. Although it was only a trickle, it was enough that there was a permanent population of animal herders there, who kept all their goats and camels inside a huge walled area right next to the oasis.
After the oasis, we went to the Chegaga (or Chiggaga) dunes, which are the highest dunes in Morocco (we were told) and very close to the border with Algeria. At some point, the lunar landscape of all rocks stopped and there was nothing but sand.
We took a camel ride through the dunes (camels tied together, led by a Berber with a leash for the front one). The next time I ride camels, I would like to be untethered, but considering how hard it was to stay on, especially on the downhill, I was probably lucky to be led. My camel’s saddle didn’t have much of a pommel, and I was taking so many pictures that I usually only had one hand to steady myself.
Because camels sit down when you get on and off, Cari and I were spared the hilarity of trying to mount that always seems to trouble us with horses.
Part of the deal was that lunch would be provided- I didn’t have high expectations, but it turned out to be delicious: chicken tagine and moroccan salad that was definitely one of the best meals we had in Morocco. There was a group of “tents” at the base of the dunes which usually, I think, serve to sleep large groups of tourists, but as we were there in the middle of the day the silence was profound.
After lunch we got wrapped up again and ran around the dunes under our own power before heading back to M’hamid at the end of the day. While we were on the dunes, the wind was strong, blowing a ton of sand over the crests, but as we left it picked up into a full-blown dust storm. Most of the way back we couldn’t see much of anything except the blowing sand.
The ride was entirely off-road, and going over all of the rocks was of course rough, but it was especially exciting on the way back when the driver went a little too perpendicularly over a fold in the land, and sent everyone bouncing off the ceiling of the land cruiser. Everyone was fine, though there were no seatbelts. Cari, in the front, and me, in the middle seat, stayed basically put, but somehow Yousef, who had been sitting behind me in the last row, ended up next to me in the middle when he landed.
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