My trip to the Sahara Part 1

My trip to the Sahara was absolutely amazing, definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done. I left my site early last Thursday and got a ride to Ouarzazate from Marrakech via a 4 hr taxi ride. Since it was Eid Milad and everybody was trying to go see their families the prices were doubled so it ended up being a more expensive trip than I originally thought, but still well worth every Dirham! The drive through the high atlas is my favorite drive in the entire world and since it is spring time the mountains were full of greenery and water. In fact, since I was driving through in the morning the mountains were full of fog and morning dew which made it a somewhat eerie trip as it was impossible to see 20ft in front of you. Anybody who has gone through that section of mountains via Moroccan taxi knows how that can make it a little scary! Next from Ouarzazate to Zagora I took a bus which took a lot longer but was worth it to be able to take in the scenic route through the Draa River Valley which is amazingly beautiful. I was going through near sunset so the shadows and contrasting light painted the valley and small mud villages in a beautiful red tint with the insane amount of palm trees in a contrasting mix of dark and light greens. Now I know where Morocco gets its flag colors from. Seriously once you pass through the mountains you're in an entire different country, Berber country for sure. It is a different culture and different way of life-- I think I prefer it to the life I live on the other side of the mountains, but who knows maybe it will just serve me better as a vacation area. In total I spent about 10-11 hrs traveling to get to Zagora but then I met up with some fellow PCVs and spent the night with our awesome host Michael who wowed us with his cooking skills. He grows his own cheese which takes him days if not weeks to make for a very small amount. He made us pizza using the cheese and then told us how he made the dough and cheese and I honestly felt bad for eating it because it took him about 5 days of preparation just to make a small personal pizza, but my God was it amazing!

The next morning we woke up early and went out and bought water and other stuff not supplied by our tour guide, who is Michael's friend so we got the hook up on the price-- We spent roughly 800DH or $100 for 3 days in the desert, 2 nights lodging, transportation (5-6hrs in 4x4), meals, camel rides, everything. Pretty good deal considering we met a German couple who paid somewhere near 2,000DH for the same exact deal. From Zagora we took a transport (mini bus with 14 people crammed in) for about 8okm past Tamegroute and were literally dropped off on the side of the road where we met up with another guide and a small car (really small) which took us further into the desert. The first night we spent in a small section of the desert which had dunes about the size of Silver Lake, MI and went camel riding as the sun was setting-- which in fact we couldn't really see because a storm was coming over the horizon but actually turned out to look a lot cooler than any sunset could look like I suppose. Nothing like a storm coming over the Sahara!

I'll add more later, I need to go eat lunch!