It's begun, I'm slowly but surely turning into my husband starting by adopting his attitude to cleaniness. Skanky is good (maybe not but it is convenient). I feel nasty, I'm wearing the same (stinky) T-shirt, the same muddy shoes, the same smelly socks (with the sweat all dried in), I did stop short at the same undies – I still have some standards.
I got woken up before dawn by the strangest sound, imagine the noise a cross breed of pig/dog would make were it ever to walk the earth, it came from one of the many small storks walking down the road outside our hotel at 3 or 4 in the morning. I wasn't impressed at all but had no idea what was making it, it was only when the sun came up and I saw them in the trees (and heard them) that the penny dropped.
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| From Todra Gorge, Morocco |
We decided to forgo a guided tour of the Gorge as our guidebook had one and it looked fairly simple, so we set off after breakfast, which was delicious savoury pancake/pastry for once not bread and honey – a very welcome change. Unfortunately we were a little bit too slow organising ourselves and didn't leave enough time for the 3-4 walk round the gorge. We left for it anyway, taking a grand taxi which we had to wait to fill up (six people plus the driver) before it would leave the station by which point it was already mid morning and our plans for a 9am start were well out the window.
We arrived in the middle of the Gorge which was incredible, I took a joiner photo but was hurried along by Djalma and so missed some essential photos to complete it, boo! We headed for the starting point of the tour which was a little trek in itself and very beautiful, canals fed off the river and irrigated lots of little crop patches. Along the riverbed was like a little oasis with lots of palm trees and lots of little black goats lined the rocks on the edges.
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| From Todra Gorge, Morocco |
Due to D's cracking pace and the previous day's 22km trek I was in no condition for another walk in the mid-day heat and had to stop. I'm such an English rose – although sissy would cover it better! We stopped and waited for the dizziness to pass in the miniscule shade of a big rock. I waited there for a little longer while Djalma bounded off to check out what was round the corner. He set off at such a pace that he had to stop as well and catch his breath before carrying on.
We met back in the Gorge where we stayed for more than an hour sitting with our feet in the river eventually jumping in to sit.
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| From Todra Gorge, Morocco |
It was so cold and so so good, we started walking down to a little village but ended up hitching a lift with some Berbers in their 4x4back into Tinghir. We collected our bags and went to wait for the bus to Merzouga. While we were waiting we met Norwegian Nils and his Dad who were going in the same direction so while I worked on our photos D chatted to his Dad (I'm very ashamed to say that I cannot remember how to spell his name) on the way to the SAHARA DESERT!
The trip was long but good, thank Allah for air conditioning and we ended up going with them to their hotel – The Palais des Dunes. I thought it was a bit of a mistake at first because the place was so nice it was very nearly out of price range but as it turns out it wasn't so bad AND lovely Spanish Ana bought us our camel trek which almost covered the hotel price as well so it turned out quite well. We had a very late dinner and chatted with the two guys until it was time for bed. The hotel had a terrace and naturally we headed there to sleep under the stars and I saw the milky way for the first time (that I can remember) the stars were so bright. It was so quiet out in the desert that I slept like a baby and woke up only when the snoring of a man, who was also sleeping on the terrace, got too loud to ignore. Heaven.
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| From Merzouga, The Sahara Desert, Morocco |
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