Day 46: Gorging Ourselves

Day 4 of our 9-day trip

Plan: Merzouga to Todra Gorge to Dades Valley

We rolled out of the hotel at 9 in the morning because we had a long drive ahead of us. We drove for 5 hours through the hot desert in our van to the Todra Gorge. During the ride, I blogged, took photos, and listened to music. Alice and Ron sang in the back of the bus for four hours straight which didn't make them very popular with the four people who were reading and the three who were sleeping. 

We got to the Todra Gorge at 2 and had some lunch. The cliff walls stood on either side of us, over 500 feet tall with a width varying from probably 40 ft to 200 ft across. We had lunch at a nice restaurant situated right in the middle of it. After lunch, we had free time to explore the gorge and climb the big rocks for an hour. Marissa, Elle, Meredith, and I set out on an adventure and basically started hiking/climbing up the hillside. They went over to a path but I continued my way up in hopes of summiting the mountain. I got really far up and even had to free climb for some parts of it. Unfortunately, due to the time constraints, I only made it 2/3 of the way to the top. It was fun though scrambling up the rocks and then turning around and seeing the whole valley behind me. I took a lot of neat pictures, including some of the girls way down below me.

After our hour of fun, we got back in the van to drive to the Dades Valley. We got there at about 5 and stayed at a 4-star Xaluca hotel, the nicest one yet. The hotel was all contained within one post modern building but had staggered stories like small American office buildings. There was a pool on the third floor, a tennis court on the second, and a fitness room too. We tried to find a grocery store to buy alcohol, but couldn't find one. We ended up swimming in the hot tub instead and having another delicious buffet dinner. Winning item of the meal: stuffed peppers filled with rice, ground beef, and some spices. I've decided peppers are going to be my new big food when I get back to America and one of the items on the list of Andrew's Favorite Moroccan Things of 2012 (similar to Oprah's Favorite Things list but with better items).

Here goes:

Bell Peppers - Red, Yellow, Green. No matter the bell pepper, you're bound to have a good time. Stuff it with rice for some extra fun or grill it for a kabob.

Childish Gambino - Probably better known by his name Donald Glover, this American actor has been making waves in the music scene when he's not busy performing stand-up comedy or acting on the hit NBC show, Community. He has been producing mix tapes for a couple of years.

Blogger - This nifty little site is what you're currently reading this blog post on

Bose Noise Canceling Headphones - Help drown out that acoustic noise on big trips like the wheels hitting the pavement or jet propellers. These little doo-dads are also useful to help mitigate the noise of people singing the Beatles behind you for an hour during road trips on small buses.

Scarves - Keep yourself warm AND keep that pesky sand out of your eyes while you sit astride beasts of burden in deserts worldwide. Get your bargain on and get yourself a sexy scarf in a medina for under 60 dh while watching them make them for you by hand on looms in family-owned factories passed down from generation to generation.

Jacuzzi's - There's literally nothing better after a long day in the car than finding yourself at a 3-star hotel with a rooftop jacuzzi. Don't dunk your head or you might get diseases, but invite your special someone to wear their most conservative bathing suit and split a bottle of Sidi Ali with you while you get cozy together.

Genie Pants - Not for men, but they look comfortable and many of the women on the trip wear them almost religiously. Go for the kind that has elastic cuffs.

Pantene Pro-V - Don't expect every hotel you stay at to have basic amenities like shampoo or soap. You'll enjoy having a small bottle of Pantene in your bag to keep your fine hair full of volume. I first discovered Pantene back in high school on a weekend trip to Sarasota. Because of all the compliments I got that weekend, I've used it religiously ever since.

Get those for your friends and family next holiday season. Unlike Oprah, people who read this blog post won't get all these items for free.

That night, after the buffet dinner, we hung out on the bar over-looking the town and smoked hookah. I didn't smoke but opted to split a bottle of wine instead. Hit the pillows just after midnight.

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

Day 44: Sa-here-ah

Day 2 of the 9-day trip. 

Plan: Erfoud to Merzouga to Desert Camp

Today started with some explosive diarrhea. 6 of the 12 of us (including Si Ron) got sick from something we had for dinner last night. I spent 7 - 9 on the toilet and then purged myself the rest of the morning by sweating it out in the hot tub for an hour and lying in the sun for a half hour. Being able to wear shorts/board shorts has been great!
We left for Merzouga at 11, but had to stop in "downtown" Erfoud to pick up medicine and water. All the towns we've been passing through are date palm oases and look exactly like something out of Indiana Jones movies. We drove through Rissani, where the royal family is from, and got to Merzouga at like 2:15.

Our hotel, Kasbah Tombouktou, is like a more desert-y version of the Xaluca but without a jacuzzi. We had a couple hours to relax after lunch before we climbed onto our dromedaries at 5:30 to head out to the Sahara. We each took a backpack and met our rides right behind the hotel on the edge of the dunes. Mine was named something like Asmahan but we renamed them after Aladdin characters, so his name was really Robin Williams as The Genie.

Riding the dromedaries was soooo uncomfortable. Our two hour trip was both a blessing and a curse. The red dunes were beautiful and magestic and there was a nice wind so it wasn't too hot; however, your groin and your ass get KILLED by the saddle. I had to shift my seat and my poorly-wrapped head scarf every two minutes. I joked that I spent 70% of the riding trying to get comfortable and 30% of the ride trying to figure out where we were!
We got to our oasis campsite in the shadow of the biggest dune at 7:45. The dune was over a thousand feet tall. They had some old skis we could use, but my size 12 feet were way too big. Elle, Meredith, Marissa and I climbed up the dune as the sun was setting anyways so that Elle and Meredith could ski. It was like walking straight up hill, except every step you took, you slid 6 inches back and you went up to your ankle in the sand. I was pretty happy I didn't have to carry skis and boots too cause I would have died. We were dead tired after a half hour of climbing, but Meredith and I left marissa and Elle a couple hundred feet up and made it to a crest on the side of the dune. We took some cool silhouette pictures and then rejoined them. They ended up skiing down in the dark. Elle did really well but only one of Meredith's boots would click in so she had to ski on one ski! I had fun bounding down the slope though and we ultimately concluded it was worth the effort. 

Meredith on the dunes

We drank some wine when we got back and had dinner at 9:30. Afterwards, we took the bottles of wine we brought with us and carried them a little bit up the dune to watch the moon rise. We had a full moon, the biggest one of the year according to NASA, and could see a ton of stars too. We sat on the dune for two or three hours and then went to bed in our tents at 12:30.