Tafilalt Part IV: The Dunes

At 3:30am on Sunday morning, about 8 of us gathered in our hotel lobby, in my case wide-eyed thanks to the 9 cups of mint tea I'd had the night before. It was of course still dark, and we stumbled out to the two jeeps waiting for us. Our professors had refused to come with us -- our mission was "too touristy" for their discriminating taste.

We were mostly quiet on the hour-long drive out to the dunes. Our guide was dressed in Tuareg costume but fortunately didn't try to push it on us too much. About half way, we went off-road, bumping around through sand and desert scrub. It was still completely dark except for our own headlights, those of the other car a little ways off, and the stars.

Our jeeps dropped us off outside what appeared to be an abandoned auberge, and the drivers wandered off. Once our eyes had adjusted to the blackness, we realized that the start of the dunes of Merzouga was just a few feet before us. We were slipping and sliding around when a caravan of shadows passed silently. As they moved in front of our jeep's headlights, we made out the outlines of our camels.


After a few minutes, the guides, also dressed in picturesque Tuareg get-ups, grunted at us to get on the camels. Getting on wasn't too difficult, as the camel was sitting down. We weren't secured in the saddles, really, just holding on to a a little handle, so when the camel lurched to a standing position I was pretty alarmed. (Although sitting down was even weirder.) We were divided into two trains of four riders each, with each camel tied to the one in front of it and the front camel led by a walking guide. The guides were remarkably friendly once they found out later that we spoke some Arabic -- maybe this made them realize that we weren't completely the typical tourists, because they never once tried to push the Tuareg spiel on us, and in fact took great pleasure in teaching us words in Tamazigh, their native Berber language.

We rode for about forty-five minutes hour in the darkness. Regardless of how cynical many people are about camel rides, it was incredibly fun. I actually liked the rhythm. And while our camels didn't seem especially well cared-for, they were quite gentle and didn't spit. We then dismounted and climbed to the top of a tall dune to await the sunrise. One guide drifted off to sleep while the other, Ahsan, taught us new words. It was a little cloudy, but the sunrise was still spectacular. We could see a few other camel trains off in the foothills of the Sahara, but far enough away that it felt as if we were completely alone. (Except for a mysterious little black dog and some troublingly large beetles.) What was most stunning was the way the dunes changed color from minute to minute, from white to beige to brown to yellow to red.



We sat there for a long time, sitting together in a long line across the top of the dune. When the sun had fully risen, our guides almost ruined the moment by half-heartedly trying to sell us fossils from little backpacks they'd brought. But we were soon back upon our camels and enjoying the same landscape -- this time in the light.