weekend desert trip

So, this weekend we went down to Efroud, which is about six hours south of where I am now, and stayed in a really nice hotel there. I roomed with Arann which was fun. We were going to visit Abdella and Elias, but Abdella gave us bad instructions to his room, on purpose of course, and we ended up on the roof of the hotel. Down below us, you could hear the live band playing faintly from the pool. The city lay in front of us, with the Mosque jutting up in the sky line. As we are standing there, the athan starts. I couldn't think of a more perfect Maghrib experience.

Then the next day we traveled south for another hour and a half or so to the Saharah desert. As we are wandering around the sand dunes, a sandstorm falls upon us. Arann & I are slightly separated from the group, but find our way back to them. We all end up making it back safely to the camp, but it was a surreal experience. Amazing.

At the camp, I begin to realize how tired and hungry I am. Dinner was amazing. Not really for the food, because I didn't really eat much, but there was live music, my professor started dancing. And later they had belly dancers. After most of the people had cleared out, the Americans took over with the dancing. Moroccan music is great to dance to, especially when you're in a tent in the desert.

I stayed up too late and couldn't fall asleep when I did go to bed, but it was hella fun, and I was plenty awake at 4:30 for the camel ride into the desert to watch the sun rise. We sat on a high dune, I was next to one of our guides and we talked a bit in arabic, (greetings and nicities, because that's all I know) and then he told me we were about 50 kilometers from Algeria. Totally not telling my parents that one. The sunrise was less than spectacular because it was foggy, but it was lots of fun.

The bus ride back kinda sucked. And sometimes I hate people.

However, I moved in with a Moroccan student, and she is really nice. That's all.