Waking up in the Sahara

Waking up in the desert is simultaneously simple and impossible to describe. I came out of the tent and there was sand everywhere, with patches of rocks scattered here and there. And aside from our camp, nothing else. There are other camps in the general area, and I occasionally would hear a car or ATV, but mostly it was silent. More difficult to explain is how it somehow felt cold and hot at the same time, and what the emotional effect might be. I found it moving and I don’t think it was sand that made my eyes tear up a bit. 

Muhammed brought me a cup of coffee up on the dune where I was sitting and pointed at where the sun was just starting to peek over the mountains. It wasn’t one of those multicolored sunrises, the sun just came up. You can just see it right over the hill in the center of the photo.

As the sun rose, it created cool shadows on the dunes. These were my favorites:

From that point, we had a nice breakfast and then it was a travel day, once again, six hours from the Sahara to Ouarzazate, an unpronounceable town that was a significant stronghold back in the day (I don't remember which day, but back in the days of the Pashas. It's on the Road of 1000 Kasbahs, though we didn't see quite than many. Along the way, we spent some time walking through the Todra Gorge, which was pretty spectacular

We then stopped in Kalaat M’Gouna in the Valley of Roses, where the annual Rose Festival was in full bloom (sorry). We went into a shop selling a crazy large number of rose products, then stepped out the back door to see women sitting and picking through rose petals, we were guessing a step. in the process of making rose water, rose oil, and whatever else one makes out of roses.

We drove through winding valley roads until we got to Ouarzazate. The hotel there was lovely, and we rested and then had dinner (pizza!), then wrestled with the TV a bit, but the room is set up strangely for TV watching.

So we went to bed. It's getting to be a lot of driving, though there really isn't a good alternative.