Monday March 11, 2019
We woke up, packed up and had breakfast at Auberge le Festival. It was a good sized spread, including yogurt with granola and honey, Berber pancakes and omelettes. We were ready for Abdul when he met us at 8:40 am, and he drove us through the gorge to the meeting place for our rendezvous with Mohammed.
Mallory decided that she did not want to do the via ferrata, so she and I watched the guys harness up and complete the course.
It took them a couple of hours, including the hike back down from the top.
They were the only ones on the wall and garnered a lot of attention from the tour groups passing through!
When they finished, we hit the road to Merzouga. Along the way we passed through Erfoud (where we mailed our postcards) and a place called Melaab where we stopped to buy our head scarves for the desert.
That was a really fun stop, as the proprietors had us dress up in full traditional garb and took us across the road to a palm grove for a photo.
We only purchased the head scarves though.
Approaching Merzouga was fascinating, because the desert begins so abruptly as the dunes rise up out of the black hammada, and the size of them is a sight to behold. Once we got to Merzouga, we were met by Youseff from Desert Luxury Camp in a different 4×4. We transferred our luggage to him and said so long to Abdul, and left for the desert.
The drive out was a 4×4 trip through black rock, with a stop along the way to examine fossilized turtle shells, and another one to peer across the border into Algeria. Finally we made it into the camp, which was just recovering from a windstorm bad enough that several guests had left camp early, and the staff were frantically cleaning up massive drifts of sand, righting furniture and collecting scattered belongings. It was fairly breezy as we arrived, though the wind died down as the day progressed.
Once at camp, we settled in to relax after a drink and snack, and spent the rest of the afternoon playing on the sand boards and running up and down the dunes. A number of camel caravans came through camp which were fun to see.
As sunset drew near we climbed up the high dunes nearby to watch the sun drop, and then came into the dining tent to eat.
Dinner was semolina soup, a veggie tajine and a beef and prune tajine, pasta with cinnamon and sugar on it, and a fruit plate for dessert. After dinner a bonfire was lit, and gnawa musicians played music and invited everyone to dance. There are a million stars outside, but eventually we dragged ourselves away and made it to bed.
Cook Family Travels 