Day 45: Sahara Poolside

Day 3 of our 9-day trip. 

Plan: Desert to Merzouga to Rissani to Merzouga

At sunrise

We were woken up by 6 so we could see the sunrise. Our legs were so stiff that we had to waddle around camp. Half of us climbed up the big dune, but the other half of us went out to the small dunes on the other side of the camp to watch. I did the latter and we had so much fun watching it come up and taking goofy pictures. Some of the girls and I may or may not have gotten naked a few times and taken some goofy pictures. Don't get mad! I really needed to work on my butt tan! We climbed on the camels at 7:30 to head back to Kasbah Tombouktou for breakfast. It was even more uncomfortable than yesterday because it was like reopening fresh wounds. My body is seriously hurting. I fashioned a Laz-e Boy variant for riding a camel where you put more weight on your lower back and hook your legs under the handlebars of the saddle. Downside is that your head bobs a lot more, but the upside is that you look so fly. 

Early morning dunes

We met up with Lla MJ and Si Ron there because her knee was too bad to ride the camels.
After breakfast, some of us showered and then we drove to Rissani to see the royal families palace and a newly built shrine. We were too dead and dirty to really appreciate it though. Made it back for lunch and then we had the afternoon to ourselves. I put up pictures on Facebook and hung out in the pool for four hours.
I had a pretty big revelation during this time. I had been hypothesizing recently that I have lost weight since I got here. When I found out today that I basically need a belt to hold up my bathing suit, I changed my hypothesis to a conclusion. Data needs to be collected but I haven't seen any scales since we got here, most likely due to the lack of Bed, Bath, and Beyond's in this country. However, this weight loss has been negated by a red pimple on the end of my nose. I saw three small children pointing and laughing at it today, which was pretty detrimental to my self esteem. I think they wanted to throw a rock at it to see what would happen but I jumped in the van before they could formulate any kind of plans. Because of the zit, my ego has stayed at a pretty constant level.

At the palace of the royal family

We had dinner at 8 and then took wine out to the desert to look at the stars. We took some goofy pictures jumping off the dunes and had a blast. Elle, marissa, and I went back at 11:30 and fell asleep at some point.

Also, pictures are already up so check those out. Yes, the booty ones are there too but they're appropriately censored so don't get your hopes up, pervs