Ladies and gentlemen, I have been to the Desert. After three abortive attempts to make my way to the Sahara, I finally found a group that didn't dissolve at the last minute. It was quite an experience.

We took off from school around 8pm on Friday. As a group of ten, we still only needed two Cold War-era Grand Taxis to get to Meknes. Grand Taxis provide an incredibly useful, if oftentimes terrifying, mode of transportation around the country. A significant Moroccan Thoughts entry will someday be devoted to the institution of Grand Taxis. So we arrive in Meknes and buy tickets for a seven hour bus ride that will take us to Erfoud, one of the last towns of any respectable size before the desert. I passed a surprisingly restful bus ride and awoke in Erfoud where a man offered to take us all to the Desert. We waited while he served us tea in an outdoor cafe and scrambled about to make the necessary arrangements. This was just as the sun was beginning to rise and people of Erfoud were beginning their day.

After about forty-five minutes of huddling over our cups of tea in the cold desert air, two grand taxis arrived to whisk us away to Merzouga, the last town before the desert swallows pretty much everything up. The ride there as the sun was rising was beautiful, but not for the usual reasons. Never in my life have I seen such flat flat country. Imagine driving through Nebraska but, instead of fields of wheat or corn flanking the road, there were only rocks. But then suddenly you see this giant sand dune in the distance, with patches of green at the base, indicating a small village and the oasis that enables it.

Upon disembarkment, we (there were ten of us, by the way) engaged in an hour and a half haggle-session over the price of being lead into the desert on camels, where we would spend a night. Having been ripped off on all sorts of goods and services before, we took our time and made sure to get price estimates from various auberges. 500 dirhams? Seriously? After a few pots of tea and several accusations of my being a Berber (cheap?), we got him down to 300.

While Hassan's assistant prepared the camels, he took us to the oasis that was the reason for the town's existence. I must admit, it was pretty crazy walking from desert to badlands into a lush oasis. Having seen this it makes a lot of sense that nomads would conceive of paradise as an oasis or a garden. The disparity between the hot, dry, sandy desert and the green, lush, shady oasis couldn't have been more pronounced. Small canals carried water all through the oasis, with patches of land growing trees and peppers and fodder for the camels. Adults planted and watered discreet patches of earth while little kids ran to and fro with buckets of water, doing chores for their respective families.

We weren't in Merzouga for more than a few moments before we had seen all there was to see. It's a desolate place. There's a picture of a typical dusty Merzougan street on the photo album. The buildings all appeared to be made of mud brick and there weren't very many people outside. It struck me as a very lonely place, but I'm sure people get used to it.

After a meal and some music in the hotel, we were introduced to the camels that would carry us into the desert. The procedure for mounting and riding a camel is very different from that of a horse. Firstly, you get on a camel when it's sitting on the ground and its legs are folded underneath it. Then, the great beast stands up, back legs first. This leaves you dangling precariously for a moment, looking straight down at the back of your new friend's head. Then the front half raises itself and you're struck by how high in the air you are. Then the camel starts walking. They lack the skittishness that plagues many horses, but their gait is pretty crazy. There's a lot more back and forth than up and down movement. It seemed so unnatural to me that it felt like I was riding some kind of mechanical walker. That is, until the thing swiveled it's serpent-like neck 180 degrees and looked at me. THAT was an unnerving experience.

Our two Berber guides (each of whom spoke a little bit of every language on God's green Earth) led our little caravan into the desert. We kept looking back until eventually the town of Merzouga was slid behind a sand dune and out of sight. And then it became very quiet. It was the kind of deep silence that I had read about people finding in the desert. Sometimes a camel would make some bizarre sound and sometimes the wind would pick up a little bit, but by and large the desert is a very quiet place.

After a few hours spent traveling and becoming increasingly uncomfortable on our unfamiliar steeds, we stopped at some tents set up in a dell (I guess would be the word) between two huge sand dunes. As our guides tended to the camels, a group of us started climbing the tallest dune we could find. I won't waste too much space trying to describe the view. Needless to say, it was an absolutely incredible sight. It's so strange how the dunes move in the wind. Little bit by little bit. When we were perched on the crest of one, we could feel the stinging of an endless stream of sand blowing up against a static wave. As though an ocean wave took years and years to reach the shore.

Oh, and our trusty Berbers happened to bring a beat-up old snowboard for what they called "Ski Berber." I got a few runs in, enough to satisfy my curiosity. Of course, however, the fun of sailing down a sand dune was mitigated by the knowledge that I would have to trudge every step back up it. Despite the cold, it looks like I'll be sticking to the snow.

We spent a bitterly cold desert night in our tents, arising to watch the sunrise. Again, my words will fall pitifully short in describing what it was like to watch the sun slowly creep over a vast ocean of dunes. So I won't try. Maybe the most fun part of being in the Sahara (at least for a history nerd like me) was imagining what life was like living in such a place. How that would change how you acted and interacted with people (tribal hospitality as a prerequisite for survival) and how you thought about the world and your place in it. Food for thought that I enjoyed while looking out over a limitless expanse of sand.

http://haverford.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012854&l=f04ad&id=7501428

It has been pointed out to me that this blog "needs some love." In an effort to keep my public happy and avoid another moment-by-moment retelling of some trip, I am including what I call "Moroccan Thoughts." I've been walking around with a notebook in my pocket filled with Arabic vocabulary and that same notebook has served as a place to jot down notes about interesting things that I see before I have a chance to forget. So, without further ado:

• This weekend I spent the better part of a Saturday hanging out in an apartment some of us rent off campus. Both Moroccan and American students were there. A guy named Ibrahim taught me the darija (Moroccan dialect of Arabic) phrase, “Do you think I’m stupid?” It’s idiomatic slang and should convince overzealous shopkeepers that I have SOME idea of what I should be paying for a wool hat or a taxi ride. Here’s hoping.

• That same weekend, a student named Yassin told me the story of why humans have differently colored skin. As he carefully explained to me, there is a story of how God put all of humanity in the oven to let us bake to life. Some people came out sooner, and some later, thus darkening their skin more. “So,” he went on, “Blacks from Africa stayed in the longest, and Arabs somewhere in the middle, and then, well . . .” His voice trailed off because the conclusion was obvious. The story-telling had been triggered by the sight of my pallor, sunning myself on the balcony.

• One interesting thing about Moroccan culture that I have observed almost every time I’ve entered a medina is a good old-fashioned shouting match. Here’s how it works: You’re walking through a narrow street with merchants on either side peddling their wares. All of a sudden, you’ll hear a commotion from around some a corner, turn it and see a crowd eying a pair of men whose voices are rapidly escalating in volume. The fight’s catalyst is impossible to determine, but money or a faulty weighing device is usually the culprit. The two men are now really into each other’s faces, gesticulating wildly and looking skyward, imploring the Almighty for justice. Just because they are nose-to-nose, though, doesn’t mean that a fight is about to break out. People here can hold this pose (while yelling at the top of their lungs) for an impressive amount of time. In the States, it would seem, someone would have backed down or thrown a punch long ago. Different ways of resolving conflict, I guess.