by tadd_debbie

Erfoud in southeast Moroco

The Sahara desert is so vast it spans the African continent, but one way to access it and the way I took is through Morocco. The town you need to get to is Erfoud in the southeast of the country. Make sure you have hired a guide because in these parts of the world the roads aren’t necessarily visible and it just takes a couple of gusts of wind to hide the tracks of other vehicles. The guide I had, knew the area very well and was able to navigate by identifying rocky outcrops, he was also well equipped as I’m sure he was aware more than most of the dangers of remaining stranded.

We reached the edge of the desert in the late afternoon. There where a handful of building around us, one which we entered was relatively cool and had running water. My guide told me to rest as we were to set out into the sands at sunset, when the temperature had dropped a bit. It wasn’t long before he awakened me and showed me outside to the back of the building, to my surprise less than 10 meters away was a dune of the finest golden sand that simply emerged out of the rocky ground. Beyond it was another, big enough to fill the horizon. I scrambled up to the top of it with some difficulty and when I got there all I could see were thousands more dunes stretching out in every direction as far as the eye could see. It was an amazing site. My guide caught up with me and in broken English he said, “three colours: yellow, orange, pink,” he pointed into the distance and slowly moved his outstretched arm along the skyline. He was right those three colours were the only ones you could see in the dunes. It must have been they way that they were angled in the setting sun that gave the impression.

Within half an hour I was seated on the back of a dromedary which was being led by a different guide on foot. I had been told that this guide spoke no English or French, all he knew was his native Berber language. We trekked through the dunes for the best part of 3 hours before we circled far enough around a dune the size of a mountain to see a flickering light in the distance. As we got closer it became apparent that it was a fire next to two traditional Berber tents and in the darkness I was able to spot a couple of palm trees. We had reached an oasis in the middle of the desert and even though no water was visible it couldn’t have been far below us. We bedded down for the night.

There are a couple of things you ought to know about sleeping in the Sahara desert. The first is that it is quite cold, enough to warrant a warm jumper. The second is that since there isn’t any light pollution whatsoever or humidity in the air, each and every star seems to shine brightly making every spec in the sky clearly visible. If it weren’t for the fact that the sand is drenched in the eerie light from above, it can’t be too different from the view you may witness by peering out of a window on the shuttle. Finally the coolness of the night brings out sand beetles that must shelter underground during the day. They are as black as coal and scarily big, about the size of your palm. Fortunately they were harmless and kept their distance if they sensed movement.

by mtsrs

Sand dunes in the Sahara

Just before dawn my guide ushered me to the top a dune, it took about half an hour and it took us quite high up. We were facing the east as the sky was quite a bit brighter in the distance. Slowly a fiery line appeared on the horizon, it steadily became thicker and brighter. It was the sun rising, because the light wasn’t direct, it was being refracted around the earth I was able to stare right at it without it hurting my eyes. For about fifteen minutes I was able to witness this spectacle of nature before it was too bright to look at. Before going back to camp I checked the colour of the dunes, they were still there: yellow, orange and pink.

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