Erg Chebbi - Mediterranean Backpacking Trip - Day 5 (Part 4)

With a sudden jolt, our ride became much bumpier. Mohammed had turned off the left side of the highway at a seemingly random place. He cheerfully told us that we were almost there, and that we were turning off the highway just before Merzouga to head toward Erg Chebbi. I was a bit disappointed that we would not get to see the desert town of Merzouga, but I suppose we've had our fill of oasis towns this drive. He continued on in a seemingly random direction at a surprisingly high speed over rocky barren terrain punctuated with the occasional bush or a tired looking tree. I was afraid that the old Mercedes would fall apart from the violent jolts. Although I had no idea where we were, I figured I might as well as just sit back and enjoy the ride, as he's gotten us this far through some dubious situations.

As we joined a few other tracks in the dusty terrain, we suddenly became aware of a line of golden hills on the horizon, shimmering and reflecting in the water-like mirage that was all around us. Mohammed pointed out to us that those are the dunes we are heading for, with the tallest dune towering 150 metres over the surrounding terrain. We drove up to Kasbah Erg Chebbi, a hotel at the edge of the dunes, built using the traditional materials in the the style of a traditional Moroccan kasbah. It looked very graceful as we approached, a collection of mud buildings blending into the backdrop of gracefully rising mountains of sand. Surrounding it are a few green trees and bushes to give its visitors some escape from the scorching desert sun overhead. We were led to a room that we could use for showers changing, and were told that our camel convoy would depart in just over an hour.

We sat at a table in a dusty courtyard looking out at the dunes. We drank some lemon pop to cool off after a long sweltering ride in the car. I bought Mohammed a pop to help him cool down as well, and chatted for a short while. At some point, Mohammed asked me to give him my shirt as he wanted a tip and a "souvenir" from Canada. Since I only have four shirts, I had to decline. After resting up, Felix and I took a short stroll through the dunes by the hotel. I was surprised to see how suddenly the rocky desert transitioned to the sandy desert, as there was a clear line separating the two just outside the courtyard. As we strolled behind some dunes, I noticed how silent the surroundings became. You can hear every step you take, as well as the wind howling across the sand. I picked up a rock, threw it, and heard a soft whizz....... plop as the rocks sailed through the air and buried itself into the soft sand below. The sand itself was an interesting shade of orange-red, which I commented looked like Cajun spice, to which Felix immediately drew parallels to Frank Herber's Dune. We also saw a variety of insect trail, and caught an occasional glimpse of a scarab busily scurrying around between its burrows in the sand.


When time came to leave for the camp in the desert, we met other travellers coming with us, three Slovenians and one Canadian from Québec. We each got to our camels and sat on the saddles in preparation to depart. The convoy leader walked down to make sure we were ready and to direct the camels. When he walked by me, I heard "hold on!" and as I was still trying to figure out what he meant, the front of my camel suddenly jumped up, and jerkily tilted me at a precarious angle. I grabbed the handle in front of me by instinct and held on tight as I was about to fall off backwards! A second later, I felt the back of the camel raising up and soon I was seated comfortably surprisingly high above the sand. The motion of the camel standing up reminded me very much of the AT-AT Walkers in Star Wars. As we started into the dunes of the Sahara, I enjoyed the colours around me. I was told, and it was true, that the colours of the desert change constantly throughout the day, and that every angle yields a different palette. Nearing sunset, the desert was reflecting a warm orange-red glow all around us, except while looking in the direction of the sun, where the desert seemed to take on a pale metallic and sterile shade of blue, fading to a yellowish-brown as the sun became lower in the sky.

As we rode on, our shadows became longer and the light grew softer. We stopped once for a rest, where we climbed up a nearby dune to get a view of the desert. From the top, one can see large dunes surrounding us to the north, east, and south, and the village of Merzouga was visible at the edge of the dunes to the west, where the sand disappears into a vast flat dusty plain lined with tall hills on the horizon. I also admired watching the sand blow across an amazingly well defined ridge at the top of the dune, separating the sunny side from the shady side with razor-edge precision.

As we rode behind the tallest dune, we entered a well-used campsite with other camels and groups. The ground was a minefield of camel droppings. Camps of various sizes were scattered around the area, and were all built as a cluster of tents made of worn-through rags held up by weathered wooden poles surrounding an open space in the middle of each site. The rag walls around the mini-courtyard made this quite a cozy place for a few cushions and a table to relax at.

As the Berber guides started cooking dinner, Felix and I decided to climb up the dune to try and catch the sunset. This is when we learnt the hard way never to climb up a dune directly - always walk around to the ridge and follow the ridge up. It took an amazing amount of effort to reach the summit, as with every three steps we took, we slid back two. By the time we reached the top, the sun had long set, and night was starting to blanket the desert with darkness. We sat for a while watching caravans in the distance below us. As this small northern dune field of the Sahara is only five kilometres wide, we could see the western and eastern edges of the dune field, but to the north and south, the dunes seemingly go on forever. As it became darker, a shifting blanket of dark blue, indigo, and purple was cast above us, highlighted by the sparkling stars fading in. We could see the soft yellow glow of a few lights emanating from the oasis village of Merzouga at the western edge of the sand, and to the east, over a barren plain and distant mesas, the dim light from distant Algerian villages over the border.

When it was time to head back for dinner, we slid down the dune, which filled every part of my body with sand, which included some parts I had never felt before. As we ran down the hill, we disturbed the sand on the steepest parts of the dune which warned us by grumbling a deep ominous rumbling sound, which made us slow down and descend more carefully. When we got back to camp, the candles were lit, and dinner was nearly ready. On our way back, we heard singing and fires crackling from the other camp sites, which made for little sheltered oases of light and merriment in an otherwise dark and deserted expanse.

Dinner consisted of Moroccan bread with two huge pots of hearty Berber tagine. Although we had only two candles at the table, everything was covered in a layer of small flying insects and sand, including the food. We watched the stars come out above the dunes as we ate, talked and relaxed with Moroccan tea, lounging on the cushions, protected from the wind by the gently waving rag wall around us. We discovered that the young Québécois fellow had been diagnosed with an incurable medical condition, and was given only a few years to live. He immediately dropped what he was doing and set out on a journey around the world to learn about its people and about himself in the short time that he had left. This was a very touching story indeed, and we all wished him the best. It takes a lot of courage to do what he did, and I hope that he will live a fulfilling life and find what he set out to find in the short time that he has left in this world.

After dinner, some of use ventured out of the comfort of our camp. I dragged our a cushion just outside of camp, around to where the cloth walls blocked out any candlelight from the courtyard. I lied down there and watched the stars. Soon, some others joined me, and we chatted for a long time while watching the brightest stars I have ever seen in my life. Even though the waning moon was still quite full, this was one of the few times in my life when I could clearly see the Milky Way splashed across the night sky even without my glasses on. As we talked, I watched as shooting stars shot across the full starry night at a rate of one every few minutes.

As it became late, the guides made our beds. Some chose to sleep inside the tents, while some chose to sleep in the courtyard. Me, along with another person, chose to sleep just outside the camp. As I went to go to the washroom before sleeping, I suddenly realized I had no idea where the toilet was. I had seen some tiny tents with toilets inside them at the other camps - a form of rudimentary porta-potty, but I had not seen them at our camp. When I asked the guides where the toilet is, they looked at me and said quite casually "anywhere." With that, I used my dim camping LED headlight to walk out behind the camp near the base of the dune, and peed into the dark desert beyond.

I climbed into my bed for the night, a thick bedroll with a surprisingly thick and heavy blanket on top. It turns out that sleeping outside the camp was a bad idea. At night, the desert became cold and windy, and I found myself longing to be inside the courtyard or one of the tents where I would be protected from the wind. I had a very poor night of sleep that night, due to both the discomfort of sleeping in a windy environment and to me thinking of how many wonderful experiences I am going to go through in the next two months, seeing how much I have already experienced and learnt in the past few days. Even a year ago, it had never occurred to me that I would ever find myself sleeping under the stars at a camp in the Sahara desert which we rode to by camel. As compensation for not sleeping well that night, every time I opened my eyes, I was treated to a beautiful view of the stars and the Milky Way drifting across the sky lit up by the numerous streaks of shooting stars. Surrounding it all are the mysterious dunes in the distance lit by the pale moonlight. I drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep all night comforted that I had the company of the camels who mooed, grunted, and groaned softly in the howling wind.

Banff and Calgary - Day 5 (Part 2)

After brunch, I continued my walk around. I crossed Louise Bridge into downtown and followed a pretty park trail that follows the Bow River. The downtown core was clearly visible just outside the park, but it was like a separate world inside, with joggers, families spending time together, tourists with large cameras, trees, bridges to portions of the park on islands, and signs warning of coyotes. I walked though Eau Claire Market, which was in the trendy Eau Claire district. There were some cool shops and whatnot, but nothing that's worth mentioning individually. After Eau Claire, I walked through the very impressive Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre. It is a large brick building where the centre portion rises into a dramatic pagoda. On both the inside and outside, the pagoda is very meticulously decorated with paintings and colourful wooden beams, just like any of the large historical pagodas you can see in China. This pagoda atrium connected to different offices and rooms on multiple floors, and there was even a theatre from which the sounds of a Southern Chinese opera was emanating and floating up to fill the entire atrium. After marvelling at this unexpectedly majestic building, I ducked into the downtown core of Calgary where I was determined to explore the +15 system, their vast system of sky bridges connecting the buildings of the downtown core.

Seeing a +15 sign, I walked up and pulled on the door handle. It was locked! It turns out that most of the office buildings that the +15 is connected to are locked during weekends and holidays, which is not the case for the underground PATH system back home in Toronto that I was so familiar with. For the next half an hour, I wandered around town pushing and tugging on any doors that I felt had even a remote chance at granting me access to the +15. I passed through bustling Chinatown shopping centres to post-apocalyptic scenes of streets surrounded by looming office towers abandoned for the weekend. I went though dozens of doors and up and down many stairs trying to find my way into the +15 system. It felt like I was inside a computer game where I had to find the one open door to get to the next level. Just as I was about to give up, I found a way into the +15 system through an entrance to an underground parking garage.

Although the +15 system is not as large and Toronto's PATH or Montreal's RÉSO, I found it much more modern looking and futuristic. This was enhanced by the glowing electronic signs at all the doors advising you of the direction you are travelling in. At nearly all of the junctions, there are large round electronic podiums with touch screens with which search for your destination and scroll and zoom around the map. If you type in where you want to go, these podiums will plot a path for you. The system was also filled with automatic doors that open for you when you approach and close right after you pass through to prevent too much airflow between the buildings. It felt very futuristic to be walking between the lobbies of the large buildings through glass corridors carrying you above the traffic and the occasional park below. From these corridors, you can see a line of similar sky bridges stretching down the street, some of them towering up to three floors in height when connecting busy shopping centres! I was also extremely impressed by how clean the corridors, and the city as a whole is, which earned Calgary the distinction of being named the cleanest city on Earth by Forbes Magazine.

After exploring some of the nooks and crannies of the +15 system, I made my way to the Devonian Gardens. The Devonian Gardens is a large indoor park on the upper floors of the buildings connecting the busy Calgary Eaton Centre and the Hudson's Bay Company. The lower floors contain a bustling multilevel shopping centre stretching over three continuous blocks. Unfortunately for me, the gardens were closed for renovations, so I peeked through the windows and saw lush vegetation, paths, and small streams. It must be great for the office workers there to have such a beautiful place of serenity within a few minutes from their cubicles. If I worked in the downtown area, I would probably eat lunch there at least once or twice a week.

Since I was not able to see the Devonian Gardens, I walked to the adjacent Stephen Avenue Mall, a wide pedestrian street in the middle of downtown Calgary surrounded by shops and restaurants. This looks like it would be a great place to spend a day when it is warm outside.

Eventually, I wandered into the Calgary Tower, and although I was not originally planning to go up it, I decided that it was still early and I didn't have anything better to go. This turned out to be a great decision, as I really enjoyed the view from the top. For one thing, you can get a bird's eye view of all the major attractions in the Calgary area from the top of the tower. I enjoyed an interesting section that protruded out from the tower where the walls and floors were all glass so that you felt like you were hovering in mid-air. However, what I found most interesting was that from the top of the tower, one can clearly see the vast, flat landscape of the Canadian prairies. From that vantage point, the City of Calgary, and especially the downtown core looks like it just springs up in a vast expanse of emptiness, much like a patch of mushrooms after a spring shower, which all of a sudden made me feel very far from the rest of society, as this city appeared to me as a lone metropolis in a sea of emptiness. It was a very humbling and unsettling feeling that nature can just easily take over this city without its citizens fighting together for their existence. I wondered what will happen to Calgary after the Alberta oil boom is over. The view to the west was just as gorgeous, as one can see in the distance a jagged impenetrable wall rising abruptly from the flat terrain forming the Canadian Rockies. The soft orange-yellow hue of the sun getting low in the sky made the entire scene appear extraordinarily beautiful, but excruciatingly lonely and unsettling at the same time. I sat there for a while just enjoying the scenery and reflecting on the thought that our existence is much more fragile and at the mercy of nature than I had previously thought.

After the tower, I took the tram south and walked to the Mission District from the Stampede Grounds. There were some good views of the city along this walk. The Mission is a trendy neighbourhood with a lot of small shops, restaurants and bars. I feel that I would be very happy to live here. I noticed that there were a lot of French speakers around here as well as the city in general. I was eventually surprised to find that Calgary is surprisingly diverse, and that over 12% of the city's residents has French ancestry, which was only the 7th largest group in terms of ethnic origin.

Although I was very attracted to some of the restaurants and bars in the area, I decided to continue on as it was starting to get dark. Following Kevin's prescribed route, I walked into a residential neighbourhood and started going up icy, slippery hills. I came across a mysteriously narrow path leading into some bushes which were reduced to bunches of thin sticks for the winter. I decided to follow it. After a short hike, I found myself at the crest of a hill. Looking down, I saw a network of trails and a sea of buildings below me, which was very pretty against the setting sun.

Returning to my original path, I walked to Hillcrest, where I was greeted by a spectacular view of the downtown core. Apparently others have also taken note of this view, as the area was filled with large mansions and estates, including an extraordinarily large castle-looking manor flying the Union Jack.

I eventually made my way back to Kevin's apartment through some treacherously slippery and steep hills and roads. After dinner and hanging out for a while, we went to sleep early as I had to wake up to catch a 7:30 flight to work the next morning, and Kevin had graciously agreed to drive me to the airport.

Banff and Calgary - Day 5

After a standard morning wakeup routine, Kevin suggested a walking tour route and offered to drive me to where I would start my tour. He was going to play ultimate with his friends a bit later on, so he also gave me the keys to the apartment in case I needed to get back into the apartment before he was back.

After a quick breakfast at Calgary Court in Chinatown, a favourite restaurant of Kevin's for great cheap food and congee, and a quick stop at a park on Memorial Drive NW for a hilltop view of the downtown area with an island park in the foreground, I was dropped off in Kensington, a happening area of Calgary with many small shops, restaurants, and bars. Keven wrote the summary of my route on a parking receipt he found on his car after we realized I wouldn't remember all the places I should visit. As I forgot to bring my paper and pen with me, I stopped off at a Shoppers Drug Mart where I picked up the cheapest writing equipment I can find, a pack to two Bic pens and a pad of Post-Its. After making sure I have a means to record my day, I went about the next important piece of business, finding a map.

After a bit of searching through bookstores, I came across the City of Calgary Parks and Recreation Outdoor Information Centre located in the historic Kensington Fire Hall. There, I talked to a very friendly and soft spoken agent who fit the "Prairie farmer" stereotype very well. He was bearing a dark green shirt with buttons and wearing a baseball cap of a similar colour with the Calgary logo on it, which reminded me of a John Deere cap. He had the appearance of a hearty, old grandfather and had a large, glowing dimpled nose, the kind that some get from drinking too much. He happily offered me a free map from Calgary Transit that had a map of the region as well as a map of the downtown core, along with all the tram and bus lines. It was perfect. I took it, and after biding each other a pleasant day, I decided to walk back to the centre of Kensington to sit at a bar to plan my day over a drink.

After a short walk, I arrived at the Kensington Pub, which was suggested to me by someone at the bookstore. I liked it immediately as I entered. It was done in a stereotypical English Pub style. There was a lot of wood panelling inside, and it was rather dark. I immediately went to the bar and asked for what I had came to the pub for: a Caesar. Calgary is the birthplace of this very popular Canadian cocktail that is virtually unknown outside of Canada. It is made by mixing vodka, spices, and Clamato, which is a blend of tomato and clam juices. Although it is very similar to the Bloody Mary, its adherents assured me that without the clam juice in the cocktail, a Bloody Mary just tastes empty like it's missing something compared to the Caesar. In addition to having clam juice as an extra addition compared to the Bloody Mary, most bars also have a habit of garnishing the drink to add their own extra flair. The most interesting Caesar I've heard that you can get in Calgary is garnished with a skewer of pickled vegetables, onions, and sausage, topped off with a layer of fries. My drink was nowhere near as complicated. It came with a pickled asparagus added to the drink, and it was delicious.

After getting the drink, I sat on a small table by the window and pulled out my map and the parking receipt on which Kevin wrote the places I should see. I tore out the small portion of the map showing the zoomed-in view of downtown, and started to plan a route. At the same time, I pulled put my pad of sticky notes to record my trip so far. The waitress from the bar came over and asked me if I wanted anything to eat. Although I was quite full from breakfast, I noticed they had poutine of the menu which I couldn't resist. Poutine, a Quebec speciality, are fries covered in cheese curds and smothered in gravy, and is one of the foods I must eat every time I go back to Canada. After placing my order I suddenly realized that I forgot to leave a tip when I got my drink. I was really embarrassed, but since it was the same waitress, I decided just to leave the drink tip along with my food bill.

As I was sitting there marking my map while happily sipping on my drink and occasionally nibbling on the asparagus, my poutine arrived. I was horrified when I saw it. Although it was huge, it didn't have cheese curds on it! In the place of cheese curds, there was shredded yellow and white cheddar and it was baked. This was nearly as bad as the "Canadian Chips" I tried to order in an American pub once when I was actively searching for poutine in the US, which replaced the cheese curds with melted shredded yellow cheddar. Perhaps I should have heeded the warnings of the people I met on the trip who warned me that Western Canada doesn't really eat that much poutine. I also should have clued in when the menu said this dish was their "twist" on a dish from their "friends out East." In any case, I did end up enjoying my "faux-tine", but I still have not obtained my poutine fix for this trip which I had been looking forward to fixing as soon as I booked my flight.

Merzouga - Mediterranean Backpacking Trip - Day 5 (Part 3)

As we drove on, the terrain became sandier. From time to time, we would drive past small piles of sand on the side of the road and some sand blowing across the road. We passed fields of fences built in patterns of connected squares, which Mohammed directed our attention to and explained they were built to slow the expansion of the desert. We noticed that in many places, these cubes were filled with sand and seemed to do a good job of stopping the sand from blowing across the road. We also saw a lot of interesting desert plants. I saw some plants that appeared to have clusters of fruit much too large for its size. I asked Mohammed if those fruit contained water. He told me "Never touch one, they are filled with acid!" It turns out that these plants are of a species called Calotropis Procera, and that the fruit were just leaves folded in a peculiar way. I had hoped that what we were seeing was evolution creating a desert plant that, like cacti, stored extra water, but just to protect it from animals, also make the water unusable to anyone else. I was disappointed to find that that this was not the case. However, Mohammed was right in that the plant was filled with acid. Calotropis Procera contains a toxic and an acidic resin, likely used as a defence mechanism.

As the terrain became sandier, we started seeing large piles of sand on the surrounding hills. I was so excited the first time I saw the steep slopes of a distant mesa covered in sand. The sand was crawling up about two thirds of the mesa, forming ripples. One can also see the sand being blown over the top of the mesa in thin wisps dancing in the wind.

We decided that it would be a good idea to buy a headscarf before going into the desert. Mohammed decided to take us to a trading post called Maison Touareg, named after the Tuareg people of North Africa. Little did we know that Mohammed seemed very buddy-buddy with the owner of the shop. We suspect this was another of his standard stops for tourists, unless people in Morocco are just always very friendly with each other.

Upon arriving at the trading post, we were led in some gates to a relatively large compound of mud buildings. Upon entering, we were immediately served mint tea and the owner and his aides unrolled a variety of different carpets for us to see. Apparently Morocco is known for its carpets. Two interesting things that I learnt was that many of their carpets were made of cactus fibre, which I found fascinating. Cactus fibre made a very smooth, thin, and cool-feeling carpet in contrast to the thick wool carpets. The second interesting fact is that the Berbers in the area are divided into a number of tribes. These include the Glaoui tribe along with some other tribes with exotic sounding names, one of which I think was named the Sahara tribe. All of the tribes except for one follow the Islamic faith, except for one, whose members are Jewish. Since Islamic beliefs forbid depicting God's creations such as humans and animals, all of the carpets made by the Islamic tribes are decorated only with patterns. This makes the carpets from the Jewish tribe easy to identify, as theirs are the only carpets that are also decorated with stylized animals and human figures. We were shown a gorgeous example of such a rug, which had pictures of birds on a red background.

After being shown the carpets, we were ushered into different rooms accompanied by different aides. This was done quite subtly, and when I found myself separated from Felix, I tried to re-join Felix, but was blocked on my attempts. Although I was a little bit worried about being separated, I realized that this was a very clever negotiating tactic. They were separating us so that each of us would have to deal with multiple opponents during negotiations. Having no desire to purchase a rug that day, I was not worried about ending up with a overpriced carpet, but only mildly annoyed at this delay is us getting to the desert.

The owner moved between me and Felix, and while he was gone, his aides stayed with me. I kept telling him that I was not interested in buying a carpet and that I probably won't have enough money to buy one anyway. He kept badgering me and eventually I agreed to write an offer on a sheet of paper. I wrote 600 dirhams for a large cactus fibre carpet, in which he responded by offering me a smaller cactus fibre carpet. After a series of refusals, he got the message that I was not willing to pay a price that was acceptable with him, so he took me back to the headscarves that we picked out earlier, upon entering. He told me that it was 150 dirhams for the headscarf, which I knew was overpriced but not wanting to negotiate with him any longer, I accepted. I was then led to a room filled with interesting antiques in which I would have to wait while they finished dealing with Felix. After a while, we were reunited. Felix had his headscarf with him, which I found out he paid a different price for. I can't remember exactly now, but I think he paid 200 dirhams for it. On the way out, the owner picked up a fossil and gave it to Felix. If I remember correctly that Felix paid 200 dirhams for the headscarf, this was probably to prevent us from finding out we were dealt with unequally later on. However, I may have been willing to pay 50 dirhams for a fossil, as Mohammed told us that this area was famous for producing fossils, which the many shops and signs along the highway would attest to.

As we were just about to enter the car, the owner ran up to me and tried to make me a new offer. He wrote a number, which I think was between 1100 and 1300 dirhams on a sheet of paper and pointed at my pants that I was wearing. He told me that the offer was for the cactus fibre carpet I had liked and that he would take credit card and the price included shipping. It didn't surprise me that my pants became part of the negotiation as I had been aware that it was common to use articles of clothing in negotiations in Morocco. I had been told that if you wear a baseball cap in Fes, people will offer to exchange a fez cap for your baseball cap. I don't know what I was thinking, but I thought he was going to give me that much money and the carpet for my pants. Since I hadn't seen any pants like the ones I was wearing (pants that had zippers to convert to shorts when needed), I had thought perhaps these kind of pants were very valuable here. In return, I wrote a higher number, which he stared at in a confused manner and said okay. The whole time Felix was trying to tell me not to buy the carpet as he had also had enough of this negotiating and felt we were being ripped off, but was silenced by the owner. It was only after we shook hands on the deal that I realized I was to pay him the money along with my pants in exchange for the carpet. I felt so bad and was very embarrassed about the misunderstanding. He didn't seem very happy with me but accepted the mistake. I took his business card advertisement to make him feel better.

Merzouga - Mediterranean Backpacking Trip - Day 5 (Part 2)

After a another short drive, we passed through the Draâ Valley and the town of Agdz. I had contacted a Couchsurfer in Agdz before our voyage, but didn't think I would be in the area. The Draâ River, flowing from the Atlas Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, cutting across Southern Morocco, is Morocco's longest river. The valley it carved now contains important population centres in South Morocco. Along the river there were lush fields of green, accompanied by a wide swath of a dense, dark green palm jungle maintained by the residents of the valley for the production of dates. It was an amazing sight to see the thick canopy of the palm trees against a barren and dusty background. The villages and old, abandoned kasbahs were located behind the palm trees, climbing up the shallower walls of the valley below tall, rocky cliffs.

After leaving the Valley, there was not much to see, as there were no significant water sources for a long while. At one point, Mohammed pointed to a house in a tiny village we passed and told us he was born there. Mohammed got into a long discussion of Islam, as well as Iraq and the US invasion with Felix as he was from the US. He explained to Felix that Iraq actually had a good quality of life, health care and education before the invasion, but American propaganda made it look like a horrible place. He told us that other countries the US did not invade are just as bad, if not worse than Iraq. As an example, he told us that in Morocco, anyone, especially Berbers, who speak against the King would be flown to a prison and had his tongue cut off. He even pointed us to the supposed site of the prison later that day as we passed it. At first Felix believed some of it, but as his opinion of Mohammed became more negative, he started believing less and less of what Mohammed said. In my opinion, the American media did make Iraq look like a much worse place that it actually is. Coming from Canada, I saw many scenes in our media that were not shown in the American media. I had even seen a documentary comparing the American media's coverage of the Iraq war with media coverage from other countries. I had been very surprised to learn that even iconic moments, such as the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue, had been staged and strictly controlled by the American military. However, I did not believe everything that Mohammed said, as I am sure the media in Morocco is also very biased and painted Iraq in a more positive manner than it actually is.

Throughout the long drive down the dusty road, we saw many hills, mesas and the deep scars of water erosion from torrential floods that occur once in a while in the area due to the lack of vegetation to catch the water from the rare rainstorm. We stopped once for a flock of sheep that a shepherd was herding off the road as he saw our car approaching. This scene, viewed from inside Mohammed's car, reminded me of scenes from movies such as Babel and Syriana. We stopped in Tazzarine for lunch. I ordered brochette served with fries, as brochette was of the three main things to eat in Morocco, the other two being tagine and couscous. As we ate on the balcony on the second floor, we heard the calls to prayers. Under the scorching midday sun, the town was nearly deserted, only to become even more desolate after the calls to prayers. Even the restaurant staff dissappeared. I felt bad that we were eating during the calls to prayers when everyone else was praying. After enjoying the view of the oasis town from the comfortable couches and pillows, we paid and went downstairs to wait for Mohammed. I realized that Mohammed probably stopped at this town specifically to make it in time to pray, even though he claimed that he was napping.

We passed a few more oasis towns on the way. It was amazing to see a field of green pop up in an otherwise barren landscape, surrounded by a town that would begin and end very abruptly. Leaving such an oasis town, I felt as if we were leaving behind civilization, and I would watch the swatch of green palm trees in the rear window disappear into the distance until we were once again surrounded by an empty rag desert. To pass the time, we made a hobby out of searching for dust devils. Most dust devils, being relatively weak, left only light traces of dust streaming dozens of meters up into the air. It took a certain skill to identify them. However, we did see a few powerful ones, including one that was a few metres wide that sent thick plumes of spinning dust high up into the air. This one passed in front of our car, which prompted Mohammed to roll up the windows. I imagined how much fun it would be to jump into once of those, but then realized I would probably just end up curled up into a ball on the ground as soon as I was inside as I would get sand all over me, in places that I probably didn't even know existed.

Shortly after, we reached a road sign written in Arabic and English. The sign indicated the fork in the road would lead us to Erfoud and Errachidia to the left, and Er-Rissani and Merzouga to the right. The large Arabic letters on the sign, the dusty road and terrain around us, and the palm trees of yet another oasis town in the background really made me feel like I was someplace very exotic. We took the right fork, and stopped at a gas station to refuel. We also bought a few bottles of water to drink and to use for the night in the desert. While Mohammed was fuelling, I took a look around at the landscape. It was exactly like something out of a movie. It was blindingly bright as the landscape had turned much lighter in colour. There was some sand drifting in the breeze, and the mud buildings stood in the midst of numerous palm trees feeding off of the water from the oasis.

We passed through a town with a pretty gate, which we were told is a very famous town as it was the birthplace of one of the famous rulers in Morocco. Throughout the trip, Mohammed had been telling us interesting facts about Morocco. One of the interesting things I learnt is that Morocco has a unique style of minarets. All of the minarets in Morocco were square shaped. They were pink in colour, decorated with painted green and white sections, and had a balcony at he top covered by a small domed pavilion. After learning this, I noticed that every single minaret in Morocco followed this basic style and had a very distinct architectural shape and style to it.

Merzouga - Mediterranean Backpacking Trip - Day 5 (Part 1)

We woke up in time for a quick walk to the pâtisserie we saw last night on our stroll. The shop was very simple, with concrete walls, a scale to weigh the pastries, and a simple counter with a few trays of food, some with flies crawling on them. We picked up a few interesting looking breads and pastries for a very cheap price and ate them back at the hotel. At 8am, Mohammed showed up. After loading our gear into his car, we were off for a two day trip to the Sahara Desert. We agreed to take a southern route to Merzouga and a northern route back to see some different sights along the way. Although we had the choice of visiting Zagora for a lower price, we decided to visit Merzouga as it came highly recommended from nearly everyone we met. From what we had heard, Zagora was a town on the southern edge of the Draâ Valley, past which is the rocky rag desert which had only a few small dunes. Merzouga, on the other hand, had some enormous sand dunes which were supposed to be like the ones in the movies.

Our first stop was on a mountain road close to Ouarzazate. Mohammed stopped the car by a curve in the road where he told us we can get a very nice view. As we stepped out of the car and closed the doors, we noticed the car started up again and slowly drove off! We were scared that this was the plan all along, that Mohammed would steal our stuff and dump us in the middle of a desert to give him enough time to escape! After exchanging some nervous glances with each other, we decided to just enjoy the view and hope he doesn't drive away. However, Felix and I were interrupted by the sight of two men, dressed in the traditional robes and headscarfs were sprinting toward from a small mud brick building on the hill above the road. "Are they running toward us?" I asked uncomfortably. Felix responded "... I .... think so..." As you can imagine, we were quite confused and uncomfortable again, as we were standing on a deserted mountain road in the rocky desert of Southern Morocco, with our driver driving off with our gear in his car, and two men running at us full force from a small mud shack on a hill.

We just stood there as the men approached. As they did, we noticed that they were carrying lizards. It turns out that the the men displayed lizards that they catch in the deserts to passing tourists in hopes of getting a few dirhams out of the process. They were quite nice and showed us a chameleon and some spiny-tailed lizards, which had fat bodies and wide, segmented spiny tails. One of the lizards was obviously dead, which they did not realize until after showing it to us. The man looked stunned for a few seconds, then reassured us that is was sleeping and tried to explain that the lizard was a baby who needed his sleep, even though it was the same size as the others. He even petted the dead lizard to try to complete the illusion. The dead body just bounced a bit in response.

After taking some photos with us and putting lizards on us, they asked for a tip. When we asked how much, they said 50 dirhams. I knew this was too much, and luckily, I remembered that I didn't have much money left in my wallet as I carry most of my spending money in a hidden money pouch. I opened my wallet to show them it was empty, but to my dismay, there was a 50 dirham bill sitting right there. We stared each other for a few speechless seconds, then he pointed and nodded his head, saying "... yeah, 50 dirham." I quickly withdrew my wallet, and Felix and I both handed them 10 dirham and started walking toward Mohammed's car, which we were relieved to find parked a bit up the road. Although they followed us to ask for more money, Mohammed intercepted them and seemed to have a friendly chat. He claims that he parked the car up a bit to move it out of the way of the traffic. We are pretty sure that these were his friends and that they had an agreement for him to stop there with tourists. Felix was visibly angry at Mohammed and told him never to do that again.

Before heading off again, we enjoyed the view of the valley and took some more photos. One can see hills all around the area, rising into rocky cliffs. The terrain was dry and rocky, and had a dusty reddish brown tinge to it. There were some small but scattered plants on the hills. In the valley, one can see a few small towns and villages surrounding patches of green fields and palm trees. These were oasis towns. Although I was very excited to see my first oasis town, these turned out to be extremely common in Morocco, and other than towns surrounding three small rivers and streams, these were the only significantly inhabited places there.

A bit further into the drive, we stopped for another view of the gorges in the area. We saw a deep gash in the earth forming steep cliffs. We did not see any water, but can imagine that any rains in the area must form torrential flows as there were no plants or other obstacles to slow the flow of water. Mohammed mentioned that this was the "Grand Canyon of Morocco." We also noticed interesting rock formations as we drove. In this particular area, any hills or changes in elevation was composed of distinct layers of rocks. The rocks of the different layers all looked the same, but it was stunning to see not a single smooth hill. The layers were so distinct that the edge of each layer looked as if someone had built a rock wall there that had just begun to crumble. The entire landscape were made of slightly slanting horizontal lines, as if some cartographer had drawn close-together lines on the terrain to mark the altitude.