The Sahara and more...

In advance

Following breathless, rave reviews of a desert adventure from a group of Canadian backpackers over a dinner of chicken tagine i headed to the tourist office in Marrakesh's Ville Nouvelle to make enquiries. Strolling down the tree-lined boulevards i passed fashion boutiques, beauty salons, luxury hotels, upmarket restaurants and the latest addition to Marrakesh's cuisine scene - McDonalds. [Get here fast before Mickey Mouse pitches up a fairground in the Djemaa El Fna. McSheep's Lung Burger, now only Dh30. Baa! Dedudededa, I'm Loving It.]

Leaving the tourist office with directions to the relevant tour company (unsurprisingly owned by some or other scion of the royal family) i dodged across a traffic ensnarled boulevard through blue exhaust fumes and the grunts of donkeys and their masters - Marrakeshi traffic, wheeled or hooved waits for no pale face tourist. On crossing i was hailed by a large man in a black leather jacket and blue jeans, with black and blue eyes and an unfeasibly large white bandage covering the remnants of a nose. I was greeted with a broad smile usually reserved for old friends (or small lottery wins):

- You look for Sahara tour company, my friend?
- Yep, I'm on the way there.
- Ah, well then, sit down, i am the driver, and

he says waiving at a three-legged table and two chairs outside a down-at-heel cafe;

- this is my office.
-I think i'll go to the main office around the corner.
- No, no, you dont understand i am the driver. Sit, sit, is good.
- Eh, no, i think i'll go the main office.
- There is no one there. Today i am only one. I am taking coffee break. Sit, sit, we talk.
- I'm gonna go see where the office is, even if its closed.
- I am telling you, you are wasting your time. Sit, please and we will make good deal.

No thanks, i said, continuing to walk. And so it went as he followed me around the block protesting his excellent driving skills and his fantastic car. Needless to say the office was open and fully staffed by people who had no idea they had a "representative" working the street outside. Seriously, some days its amusing and some days it taxes my precious reserves of sanity.

The Trip

Arising the next morning at the human rights violating time of 6:30am I lugged my 15Kg of worldly possessions to the departure point, where i met my new travel companions: three Ozzies slowly making their way home from a summer of teaching summer camp in the States; three English fashion students; two social workers, one English, one Welsh; and one English guy who had spent the previous twelve months as a ski instructor in the Alps and as surf instructor down South in Morocco.

After the initial getting to know you on the minibus - i opted out to catch some Zzzzs - we settled into a comfortable grouping. It transpired we had each been promised the opportunity to ride camels in the desert. An underwhelming experience i had previously endured. Though it appeared i had caused almost sacrilegious offense when i suggested i would happily go without the camel if they could shave the difference off the price. Unfortunately the camels were to prove mandatory.

After traversing the snow shrouded Atlas Mountains - as well as taking to the beach you can also ski in Morocco at this time of year - we stopped at a supermarket for extortionately priced supplies of bad beer, terrible vino, and unheard of brands of whiskey and vodka. A cultural trip this one.

On the first afternoon our driver - who very definitely was not offering guide services or much in the way of communication - took us to a couple of toilet-break cafes - where he was treated to free coffees - and a restaurant for lunch - where he dined for free. Doubtless the freebies were doled out in exchange for the bound, votive offerings he routinely delivered up to the restaurants. I balked at the price of the fixed lunch menu and strolled off on my tod to find a small, busy local place around the corner offering similar fare, with a poorer view, for a third of the price. My initial hygiene concerns were fleetingly exacerbated when a large white van pulled up beside my table with "Hygiene Inspectors" marked in large red letters. Anxiety diminished when it became clear that the occupants were merely stopping for lunch at their restaurant of choice. After a satisfactory 2,000th Chicken Tagine, i rejoined an equally sated, trebly fleeced group.

In the darkness of early evening we finally disembarked at Ouarzazate to saddle up our dromedaries and strike out for camp. This part of Morocco's desert terrain is barren, dusty, rocky, inclement to foliage, pockmarked with small craters and steep hills and littered with stones. It was a short camel ride to base. An hour that, at this time of the day, seemed particularly unnecessary seeing as the path was clearly traversed at regular intervals by 4x4s and motorcycles, but dont us tourists just love the experience? Well, no, actually. Sitting splay-legged on my smelly beast caused heretofore unknown levels of discomfort. I shifted this way and that, readjusted appendages and baggages unceasingly - prompting groans of disquiet from my steed - and eventually, with numbness seeping down my thighs, lightening bolts in my back and a pulsing dull ache in my groin, i threw one leg over and slid off my camel, resolving to walk the rest of the way. Not having factored the darkness and terrain into my pain relief, i stumbled and fell on numerous occasions before reaching our tent to the great amusement of the camel jockeys.

Our Berber guides, appropriately dressed in gleaming blue Tuareg costume, laid on a lavish feast of chicken tagine - or for the two vegetarians, chicken tagine with most of the bits of chicken picked out. Apres dinner we retired to the main tent for a traditional Berber music session. It was lively and enthusiastic stuff and the leader of the group had sufficient charisma to paper over his broken English - which suspiciously seemed to improve and disintegrate depending on what was being asked of him. In intermittent bursts he would hurl instructions in English at a non-plussed cat lying on a pile of cushions in the corner - who he insisted on addressing as Shakira. And as had been hinted by the Canadians his enthusiasm was fuelled by a fondness for the firewater. So much so that when our meagre rations of spirits were not being proffered at Mrs. Doyle-like intervals he summoned sufficient English to request, if you please sir, another glass. And another. Perhaps one more. And maybe, sir, one for the drummer - who didnt drink. Eventually, like Old Mother Hubbard, he found the cupboard to be bare, but undeterred our (anti-)hero moved his attentions to the smoke being disseminated around the room.

When the music - and with greater mourning the fire - eventually died we retreated to our sleeping tent. Each received a floor mat and as many heavy, heavily fibrous blankets as we desired. For the asthmatics the combination of fabrics and cats created inhospitable conditions. For the remainder the bitter, bitter desert cold was the greater barrier to sleep. I shivered in the clothes i had worn that day, weighed down by the collated mass of a mountain of blankets.

In the morning after the usual breakfast of pastry, marmalade and mint tea we saddled up. Facing into the brutalising light of the low early morning sun we experimented with possible camel-back positions - kneeling on the camel's back had its merits but eventually wore tired on the knee joints; same went for hip joints when leaning back and hitching legs up onto camel's neck; sitting, facing backwards was a novelty that was discarded due to frequent and violent camel farts. I eventually settled for the groin-easy side-saddle position, to the mirth in particular of the hardy Ozzie crew who favoured the less stable option of standing upright in the saddle.

In the afternoon our mini-bus meandered through the Valley of the Kasbahs, a string of small and sparsely appointed towns sited beside or within ancient fortifications. In the largest town our driver gave way to a guide who led us through unpaved, covered alleys, stinking of urine and other waste, with rivulets of darkened water coursing through the centre, eventually arriving at an old Berber town house. Invited to leave our shoes by the door, we sat on cushions on the living room floor. One of the fashion students used the toilet and - she told us later - inadvertently knocked a ceramic ornament into the hole in the floor, understandably not having the fortitude to retrieve it. Over mint tea we received a demonstration of traditional weaving skills and began to cotton on to the purpose our visit - the even more traditional hard carpet sell. Much, much later, after our "guide" appeared thoroughly (dis)satisfied that none of us wanted to buy a carpet, that none of our wives/ partners/ daughters/ sisters/ mothers/ aunts/ neighbours/ friends/ acquaintances/ complete strangers at home desired a carpet, we were released back into our minibus to proceed to our next camel stop at Merzouga.

Now in sand dune country, the soft rhythms of our camels padding on sand was much easier on the groin and elsewhere. Further experimentation with the camels involved attempts to have our mounts alternatively breathe or fart at close range in the direction of the the person before or behind. It was a close call as to whether the fumes from fore or aft of the desert ships were most noxious. On decameling we used the brief interval before service of the chef's speciality of the the day- chicken tagine - to scramble up the nearest sand dune. Hundreds of metres high, under a clear moonlit sky, we sat and lorded over all beneath us - more sand, and a few wildly disinterested hump-backed bearers of noxious fumes. Sliding, tumbling, rolling down to dinner, we were treated to another evening of music and cats, and a mercifully abstemious bunch of Berber musicians. Later we feigned sleep on the cold, cold ground under a dune of blankets wearing the same clothes of the previous days. With no showers, we were rivalling the camels in the stink stakes.

Returning to Merzouga in the early morning one of the Ozzies had unanticipated success in trying to persuade his "beaut" to breathe on one of the fashion students. An irate camel zoned in where directed and sunk its Ronaldinho-esque gnashers into the rear of the camel in front. The malodorous beast in front responded with a loud, doleful groan and lashed out its hind legs, creating a snap-reflexive broncing motion that propelled the fashion student onto the ground with a muffled thud. It was unclear who was most surprised, the fashionable one with the sore arse or the Ozzie's camel who took fright, and forgetting he was shackled to the remainder of the camel convoy, attempted to sprint to safety with the Ozzie on board. The terrified beast succeeded only in whipping its neck around as the combined weight of our camels and riders yielded not an inch - cue another loud round of disgruntled groans and spitting from a befuddled humpback which brought severe admonishments from our Berber handlers. The stunned and sore fashion student did not remount, but struggled fashionably onwards on foot.

Day three was spent in the gorges - immense dried up former river beds narrowing to a few feet in places and climbing to hundreds of metres of parched orange rock face. Dramatic scenery in which to eventually find our hotel - yes, a hotel with a shower and a bed. No heating, but positively a mirage of five star luxury by recent comparison. A wash, a change of clothes and a chicken tangine later we were lacing into our recently renewed stores of beer and liquor. No traditional music, or cats named for pop stars, and best of all, no fucking camels.

The Aftermath

The final day was one of hangover, sleeping on the minibus and tracking back through the frosted Atlas Mountains to Marrakesh. I had developed a cold that would linger for ten days. But it was a blast and, truly bonded, our group headed to the foodstalls in the Dejmaa El Fna for dinner. Early next morning the others took a grand taxi back to the mountains for a day of skiing. Yet to arrange my travel insurance, i demurred and set about arranging my travel insurance.

The next morning the group disintegrated into our individual itineraries. The ski/surf instructor and i teamed up for one last evening. Over chicken tagine the idea formed of taking his guitar to Djmaa El Fna and busking amid the snaking charmers, medieval dentists and witch doctors. Too inspired a notion to put down we hurried to our hotel, retrieved the guitar, and in no time at all Eagle Eye Cherry's "Save Tonite" was mingling with the aromas from the food stalls and competing with the local entertainers for a highly amused Marrakeshi audience. A half crazed, street lunatic soon latched on and forced some clear, burning contraband liquor into us and would eventually benefit from the not inconsiderable amount of Dhirams contributed by the onlookers. One more nite of craziness in the Djemaa, and then it was onto Meknes.