Ksar Bicha Hotel Merzouga

... camel made. She would freak out when h** camel started walking... but then she would scream again when it stopped walking. We felt bad s******ing at it, but you had to wond** why she was on a camel at all if it was so t**rifying. Anyway, the dunes w**e fantastic. The scen**y was so much bett** than in Egypt, which had just mainly been rocks. These w**e your classic red-brown sand dunes. It was cloudy though, so we didn't get your typical des**t sunset ...

... it until then. Anyway, that was the extent of the excitement. <br><br>Everyone was exhausted and many slept most of the way - not me though. I still can't sleep in moving vehicles. I just stared out the window, trying to take it all in. I was practically delerious from exhaustion, and then we stopped for tea in Azrou. Tea??!!! Can't we just keep going? But, it turns out Mohamed had been hiking in the monkey forest. He ...

... road. He was at BOOM festival. At the moment he has a van and had picked up 6 hippy hitchhikers, a dog and a baby and has driven them to Morocco. He offers us a ride to the next town, nice guy. We give him our water and he leaves back to find his camp. Random. The next day we wake early and Merete and i climb the large dune again in time to see the sun rise over the dunes. Beautiful colours. An Israeli from the Aussie guys van crew took a staff and climbed even further ...

Took the one humped prehistoric beasts out to the middle of nowhere sandbox-land at twilight...I don't know how this guy made it out there. Had an amazing tajine dinner, slept in a tent settlement. Woke up at five only to climb a massive...massive...sand ...

... ice because you had no traction and your feet would just slide down the side of the dune rather than staying where you placed them. Some even rolled down. At the bottom, dinner was waiting. We enjoyed chicken tangine, a typical morrocan dish, and then sat in a circle listening to our guide telling us stories of the desert under the moonlight. He told us about one girl and her mother who had done the exact same tour we were now on , only several months or ...

... to have it. It was made with 45 spices and they found some amusement when I told them I could only taste 44. After buying pizza for my tour guide and the shopkeeper we were pressured into to organizing the camel trip from this place. It just didn't seem right to me so I said I wanted to see other places for camel excursions/berber tent camping. He took us to another one that was far off ...

... yourself, you went out into the desert with a roll of toilet paper and a lighter with which to burn the used TP. The key was to go far enough so that you got some privacy, but not too far that you got disoriented and lost. Hamid told us that his worst experience as a guide was when one of his group members went too far to heed nature's call and got lost. Apparently, once you lose your bearing in the dunes you are hooped. Hamid ...

... ate and slept in Berber tents, and our hosts were great - after we were well fed, they entertained us with some music, and Ed even got a lesson on how to play the drums. After 2 nights in the desert, we were all looking forward to a hot shower! We drove through the 'Valley of 1000 kasbahs' before arriving at our hotel in the Dades Gorge. After a few little luxuries like tv and coffee (mint tea is the drink of choice here), we were ...

... iron shutters. These sort of structures require vigilant maintenance as they tend to disintegrate in the heavy rain. (Not that it rains much in the desert!) Many of the Berber are Gnowa, descendents of slaves brought from various parts of Africa. While in the village we were entertained by a group of Gnowan musicians, Les Pigeons du Sable (The Sand Pigeons); their music is mainly vocals with percussion (drums and castanet-like instruments called "nakkous"). Later that day, we left ...