southern excursion day 3

So about that predawn wake-up, it really felt like I was going to hop into a boat for crew practice instead of onto a camel to ride around the dunes. Some of our camels were late, creating initial fears that some students would not have a camel all to themselves, but they eventually arrived. Camels are smelly creatures and very flatulent. Another thing, did you know that camels have a special snack stomach? That’s right, they eat some food items whole and store them in s separate stomach that allows them to regurgitate, chew, and eat it again. All the camels were tethered in lines of four or five, so I was able to hear the camel directly behind me access its snack stores. Vile.

We rode the camels out to the nearest high dune to watch the sunrise. The moonset directly behind us was more spectacular if you ask me.

The Land Rover drivers went crazy driving us back to Rissani, doing desert donuts and swerving all over.

After yet another fulfilling handful of hours on the bus, we stopped in N’qob for lunch at one of the many kasbahs in the town. In the south, Kasbahs are not walled towns, they are more of a fortified house. The grounds of the kasbah had fruit trees, a small museum, and a pool. We all wanted to stay there instead of continuing on to Ourzzazate.

Possibly the most irritating incident of the day was the fly storm in the bus. One of the boys had left a bag of garbage on the bus overnight in the desert and it had spontaneously created a swarm of flies. We had to drive with the back door open to get rid of them, and even then there were some devious ones that managed to remain for the rest of the trip.

On our way to Ourzzazate we passed through the Draa River valley, which looked remarkably like the Ziz except it was a different color. And probably had many different cultural stuffs but we didn’t stop to find out and drove right on through.

I don’t think I can adequately describe the roads on which we were driving through the Middle Atlas, or the speed at which our driver was taking them. Remember that our driver has balls of steel? They must be titanium or something because these roads had only a guardrail between you and a 1,000-foot drop and he was driving in both lanes at once. We had to have a sick break for one of our number once we got to the valley floor because we’d been lurching around so much.

We stayed with other students in a dorm in Ourzzazate. The dormitory is the result of a foundation called Association Tischka, which provides housing in the city for girls from distant towns. Since they live so far away, they wouldn’t have been able to get to Ourzzazate for high school everyday by themselves, nor would it have been acceptable for them to stay in the city alone. The dormitory, Dar Taliba (House of the Students), gives them a secure environment for them to stay while they study in the city.

We slept on bunks, so it felt like one enormous sleep-over. But I got sick again that evening, so it wasn’t all fun and games for me, especially as they only had Turkish toilets, and that’s all I’m going to say. We got to have dinner with the students and chat, so far as we were able in our mélange of languages. The girls at my table were all from Zagora, a town east of Ourzzazate. Three were still in high school but one was studying film production (Ourzzazte is the capital of Moroccan film) They were eager to hear about what we were doing in Morocco, and gave us suggestions about what to see in Marrakesh the next day.

I don’t even know if I can count this evening as being in Ourzzazate seeing as I didn’t actually see any of it. I’ll save it for the next visit.