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Todra Gorge
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Only a few hours after falling asleep, we awoke again at 5am in the pitch black. We were led to our Camels, and sleepily climbed back on. The wind from the night before had gone, and it was a very peaceful ride over the silhouetted dunes back to the same spot as the night before.
I climbed back up the same dune from the night before, but this time took it a lot slower, and with out the wind was a lot easier. This time Megan's dad joined me, and we arrived at the top, just to see the sun rising above the low lying clouds and flood the dunes with the clear yellow morning light. It was magical.
After many photos, we made our way back down again to join Megan and her mother who stayed down the bottom chatting to the camel guide as he showed them how to rap their scarves around their heads to protect it from the sand.
We made it back to base by 7:30am for breakfast outside. It was four very tired people who then climbed into the 4x4 for our trip back to Rissani. Also after Rashid's ultra cautious driving, the speedy 4x4 driver was not appreciated.
We were relieved to get back in the Hyundai, and also the luxury of a much needed Air-con. The next leg of the drive took us through another amazing Oasis, to Todra Gorge. A huge gorge, with rock walls climbing as high as 300m. It was also the biggest tourist attraction we had visited in Morocco, after the past few days where we felt like we were on our own, suddenly there were bus loads of tourists around us.
We had lunch in the gorge watching some climbers navigate their way high on the cliff face. We then jumped back in the car for trip to Ouarzazate. However after the road of a thousand Kasbahs, we came to road block.
Rashid jumped out to check what the hold up was, and we discovered that the King was changing towns, and we were not allowed on the same road as him. the road had been blocked already for about 4 hours. While all the locals do speak very highly of their king, who does seem to be doing a lot of good with Modernising the country, I did find the experience typically African. However Rashid was unfazed, and just picked up a newspaper - coincidently with the king on the front page - and began doing Soduko.
Luckily our wait was only 45 minutes, and we were on our way again by 4pm. We arrived in Ouarzazate just after 5pm, where Rashid found a great hotel for us, and once again bargained for a great price. We were beginning to get worried that he was going to ask us to pay him extra for all the costs he was saving us.
He then took us to a nice restaurant for dinner looking out over a famous Kasbah. By the time we got to bed that night, we were exhausted and fell straight to sleep.
Lucky for us we were
Latest Comments (1)
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So sunrise... (reply)
Oct 21, 2006 21:25 EST by chevawnlea
...made up for it! I'm so glad. It does sound magical. I can't wait to see the photos. It's so funny to think of you being in Africa again. Every now and then places in Asia remind me of Africa, but actually being there... At least in Malawi you just had to get off the road when the president went past, but the rest of the time you could share it with him!
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6 votes 
