Return to dreams in the mind...

The Sahara continued....



Here is a video of the Saharian music played by the Berber musicians who also prepared our food for us in the Sahara. It was dark outside so you can't see anything but the music is so ethereal....we were all in a trance as they played for us. Until the bugs attacked me.

This is a picture of Hamza, posing with Erin and Kim with the camels in the background.

Hamza was so sweet during the trip. While we drove, if he wanted to share something with us he would turn back and say "Escuse me..." and when he was done he'd say "Thank you very much" and sit back down. Anytime we ate he would insist that if we didn't like something to please let him know and he'd get us something else. And at the end of the trip he pulled out a bag of little leather camel figurines that he had picked out for each of us.

Here are some photos taken from the car during the drive:





This is a huge oasis photographed from above that we then drove down to and beside along the way:

An oasis that we stopped at along the way:




Another thing we saw that I only took a picture of with my film camera so I have no pictures to show you now...was the Moroccan motto "God, Country, King" written in stone on the side of a hill. That was pretty cool.

I learned a couple of other things. For instance, a thumbs down means water. We passed many people along the road putting a thumb down at us. There were also rocks stacked on top of each other topped by big Coca-Cola glass bottles. But, instead of Coke they were filled with home-made honey, though Hamza said it wasn't good honey. The bathrooms were also a new experience along the way. You had to bring your own toilet paper, which we knew beforehand luckily and one bathroom was just a hole in the floor. That was an experience.

There were also random checkpoints it seemed where the police would have us pull to the side of the road and they would check the driver's papers and let us go on. In one instance the driver just handed the police a bottle of water and they let us go on our way. Bribery. We had one incident that began to freak all of us out a bit. The cops were speaking to Abdou and Hamza in Arabic so we had no idea what was going on but Hamza and Abdou had to get out of the car and walk across the road and another cop showed up. Hamza called someone on the phone and there was constant chatter among them. This whole ordeal took about 20 minutes and we were really freaked. But, Hamza came back and when we asked what happened he said nothing is wrong. "I have my papers so we're not in trouble. There was a friend who got in an accident earlier".....it was all very vague and we still think it may have been something different. Either way, we made it through okay.

Some remaining pictures from the desert:







So I think that's all I'll be putting up from the desert experience. Coming up soon will be recipes!!! Khedija is going to email me some of my Moroccan favorites sometime this week and I'll of course share them.