Million-Camel Baby

We awoke early, as we had a long day of driving ahead of us. Most importantly, though, it was my father’s birthday! We snuck down early to give the riad staff a candle to put in my dad’s breakfast corn cake. Alas, those were not yet prepared, so a single little candle came riding to the table atop a fresh orange. One “Happy birthday to you” rendition later, we were heading out to the car for the long ride to the desert.

Our first stop was in Ifrane, also known as Little Switzerland.

This town is up in the Atlas Mountains and gets snow, and its architecture boasts peaked roofs unlike the flat-topped dwellings in the rest of Morocco. We stopped for just a moment for a “comfort stop”, but we did make a point of checking out the giant lion sculpture.

The Ifrane lion sculpture, there to honor the last wild Atlas lion killed in the area, I believe by the French, in the early 1900s.

We continued on our way, noting the changes in the scenery outside. We saw snow and then melt, monkey crossing signs and then sandstorms. It was strange to watch the scenery, including the road in front of us, turn hazier and hazier.

Luckily, this was a light sand storm, so we never lost visibility to the point of being unsafe. Still, it was strange when the sand cleared and saw sand dunes and pale red rock faces to our left, while snowy peaks rose to our right. It felt like we were truly in the middle of nowhere.

We stopped for lunch named Midelt, or “ascent”, because it is on the steep climb up into the Atlas Mountains. The town is also famous for its apples; each year it hosts an apple festival where a “Miss Apple” is named. The lucky maiden is apparently chosen for her “apple-red cheeks”. The highlights of lunch were a rosemary-stuffed trout dish and having the guide for the group at the next table tell me that in these parts, men would trade a million camels for a woman like my mother. I told my mom that I, too, thought she was valuable, but that with some haggling I could increase the price by 50%. I later learned that someone had (jokingly) offered my dad some camels for my sister the previous day in the leather shop. It seems our popularity is growing. Little do they know we are very obstinate wives. They’re probably better off with the camels.

As we kept wending our way deeper and deeper into arid desert, we passed fewer and fewer houses.

At times, the only life in sight was a small band of 2-3 nomads crouched by the side of the road selling soda bottles filled with wild honey, their goats foraging what little grass grew from the rocky soil. Occasionally, the highway would pass a sign for a hotel, though it was hard to imagine they could drum up enough business this far from anything to do. The mountainsides were littered with rocks and steep enough to be treacherous, so hiking didn’t seem like a big draw. My favorite name was “Hotel Jurassic”. Speaking of ancient times, our last “comfort stop” of the day had fossils for sale.

The rocks here are rich in fossils, mostly trilobites and ammonites, with some fossilized coral. It also had incredible views of an oasis that had sprung up along a creek. There seemed to be an invisible dividing line between the lush green of bushes and trees and the peach-colored sand and rock.

At long last, we reached our desert destination. We disembarked from the car and… embarked on our camel adventure! We mounted our four furry beasts, with our baggage draped over the saddlehorn. The camels lurched to their feet, rocking back and forth several times before reaching the full, upright position. The camels were tied to one another and our guide, Said, began to lead them, still lurching, through the desert.

Let me tell you, camels do not offer a smooth ride. It is very different from riding a horse or even an elephant. But their surefooted lurching through the desert at sunset made for a beautiful ride. Plus, the lurching was dampened a bit once they reached the deeper sand. The wind whipped in all directions, blowing grit into our mouths as we practiced counting in Berber (Said was thoroughly entertained) and whistling as it passed through the straggly grass fronds that grew in small patches at the bases of some of the dunes. We could see the sand taking flight from the tips of dunes and marveled at the sharp edges in the sand created by the wind, as well as the lapping fronts of sand that looked like memories of waves on sand at the beach. We meandered around and over dunes, with the camels protesting when they thought the grade too steep. I got the grumpy camel, and he protested the whole way.  As the sun set behind us in a dusty haze, a full moon grew brighter ahead.

We could see a cluster of tourists at the top of a faraway dune, the bright burst of their camera flashes popping against the sky as they tried to capture the celestial changing of the guard.

At a point that looked no different than any other we had passed (at least to me), Said commanded the camels to kneel and we dismounted.

We trudged up a dune on foot, and our camp appeared in the valley below.

We had been told we were staying in a luxury camp, but we were still in for a surprise. Our tents have working electricity, including outlets and light switches, as well as en suite bathrooms with running water and flushing toilets. Honestly, the toilets here work better than any others we have in Morocco. We had packed every warmth layer we brought after watching the temperature plummet on the weather forecast, but our tents have sturdy sides and even space heaters.

At 8 o’clock sharp we reported for dinner in a larger tent. While the courses were bland, the company was not. The ringleader of the camp staff, Omar, was able to flit from table to table and greet each guest in their native language, including English, French, Italian, and Chinese. He spoke to our table mostly in Spanish, having heard from Ahmed that we spoke it. Omar was a chubby-cheeked late-20s guy with a mop of dark curls and a personality that took extroversion to new extremes. His energy, and the way that he punctuated every sentence with an “Afreeka!!!!!”, was infectious. Every table went from shellshocked to engaged in a matter of minutes. At the end of dinner, Omar brought out a cake for the birthday boy.

 We sang in Berber and then Arabic, greatly entertaining the staff (a running theme of our trip). Then, it was cake all around. The true entertainment, though, had yet to start. The staff - Omar, bubbly boy-faced identical twins named Walid and Jalid, and a sparsely-toothed older man who remained quiet – sat with drums and castanets and began to play and tell jokes. They invited the guests to come and play the drums, but only our family took them up on the offer (shocker). I think my mom and I did pretty well! Walid and Jalid certainly seemed impressed.

The evening complete, we retired to our tents, climbed into unbelievably comfortable beds, and slept deeply.

Spotted: the royal family. They’re everywhere! Many shops have a picture of the king, queen, both, or the entire royal family framed inside or even on display in the store windows.

Additional pictures from the day:

See the camel caravan in the distance? (click the picture to see a larger image)