Day 131: Pistols At Dawn

Merzouga – El Rissani – Erfoud – Tinghir, Morocco

Dune of Merzouga Part 2

3 AM I wake up to the wind is roaring over top of our campsite and a mouth full of sand. The storm we had been watching from the dunes had made it to our camp and was hitting us pretty hard. Some of us sleeping outside hightailed it for the tents but a few of us braved the winds till they passed, tucked under wool blankets. Eventually it passed and we fell back asleep. The first light of morning peaked over the dunes and it was time to wake and greet the sun. The windstorm had turned us all into little dunes and we had to the shake the sand off.

The low dunes was a great spot to watch the sun come up. Excellent backdrop for photos which we took full advantage of. (Click the first picture for full on animation :P)

The heat of the day was beginning to build and it was time to say our goodbyes to the desert for now. We packed back onto the caravan where we were greeted once again by our camels who were a bit grumpy and groggy. Dragging hooves through the sand they carried us back to the hostel where we would soon depart back to El-Rissani to see if we could catch a bus to Ouarzazate. A cab would have to take us to  the nearby town of Erfoud to catch a bus, but on the way there Elys had struck up a conversation with a guy who told us that we couldn’t simply just skip to Ouarzazate without checking out Tinghir and the nearby Gorges of Todra. We then hired the cab to take us out the rest of the way to Tinghir, just a few hours ride.

The cab pull into the taxi station to drop us off where as usual we were bombarded by offers for places to stay, places to eat, guides for tours and we turned a lot of them down just so we can have space to take a breath. Well we turned down all but one…one seemed to be a particularly cool character, dressed as if he were from Jamaica. Bob Marley shirt, Rasta colors on his beanie and bracelets. With his help we found a place to stay for the night and he offered to take us trekking up to the gorge tomorrow for a few hours. Later he introduced himself as Lasshan, but we could call him Bob Marley if we liked.

The Hostel had a very cool laid back set up. The rooftop terrace offered great views of Tinghir, the surrounding mountains and made it impossible to fall over without landing on a sofa or a cushion.  There wasn’t a single other soul in the hostel outside of Elys and I, defiantly was looking like low travel season.