The Trip To Morocco (Part II)

Now where was I? Oh yeah, still in the Sahara.

What do you do when you are all but totally exhausted from an almost 8 hour drive through mountains, deserts, and oasis? You crash of course. I was out like a light, going straight to dreamland wearing four layers of clothing and a very thick wool blanket. The Sahara can get very cold at night. Contrast this with Dubai where we landed at 1 am and it was 36 degrees out.

I was sleeping the sleep of the dead when I was waken up by a howling noise. At first I thought it was dogs but then I realized that the dogs were barking. It was the wind that was howling. And shaking our tent violently. Sandstorm!!! My gulay, I was terrified that the tent would blow away and I would suddenly see the desert night sky. But it seemed that I was the only one that was concerned. All my other companions were still happily sleeping. I really hate being a light sleeper. Suffice it to say that I didn't get a wink of sleep after that.

I got up way before any of my friends and just barely managed to see the last moments of the sunrise. The sun rising over the amber sand dunes was just a beautiful sight. Just simply beautiful.

Breakfast was bread with honey and butter (which was so white we wondered if it was really butter) and paired with the ever present mint tea. Such a wonderful start to the day. Until we found out we had to ride the camels back again. The 4x4 we hired couldn't make it through the sand dunes so off we went on the camels again. We rode them till the nearest road.

And then it was another 400 kms back to Marrakesh. But not before we visited the casbah at Ourzazate. The casbah is supposed to be the residence of the King's servants. Judging from the size of the casbah and the many tiny and maze-like rooms they had, he probably had somebody to do anything and everything for him including go to the toilet. I wish I had more time to get lost in the casbah maze (there is no other word for it) but we had to make our way back because driving at night in the Atlas mountains is not a good idea.

Once again true to form, I almost vomited my internal organs. Dratted motion sickness. We stopped to buy some oyster mushrooms from some very cute Moroccan kids selling them by the roadside. I've never seen or heard of oyster mushroom before but Antoine (Amandine's bf who used to be a chef in the UK) assured me that they were delicious.

They planned an Italian dinner that night. Antoine was going to cook the mushrooms in some cream sauce and serve it with pasta. We're having a party! In my next post, let me tell you the difference between a French house dinner party and a Filipino one.