May 16, 2010 — Midday

No entry for yes­ter­day. Just too damned hot. Figured I’d make the effort today, despite my fatigue, before time and dis­tance dis­sip­ate my memor­ies like a camel fart in the desert.

Rashid. Guide, cook, keeper of the camels (keeping them away from us, at least).

I’m not a reli­gious man, but “prayer” is the closest thing to what was going through my mind as we struggled up and then crested each suc­cess­ive rise this morning only to dis­cover yet another scrubby valley to cross—prayer that each one would be the last, that we would finally see the dunes and scattered trees that might provide enough shade for our mid-day break. But valley after valley was the same baked hardpan. All we saw was more desert. Another shade­less expanse to cross. Another few kilo­met­ers before yet another rise and the hope that this might be it. We crossed about eight of these valleys this morning alone, and the tem­per­at­ure is above 40 degrees out here.

I have blisters and arch pain in my right foot, as well as growing swell­ing in the ankle (pos­sibly an old injury acting up). Laura is about the same, with blisters, sore knees, bites, and what she figures is heat rash on her legs.

Although it is day four of five, we still haven’t ridden the damn camels, and the black thoughts that run through my head as we lumber on, watch­ing Rashid and two camel asses get pro­gress­ively further away with our dwind­ling water supply strapped to their backs should not be repeated in polite company. Let’s just say I have con­sidered several of the ways a body could be dis­posed of in the desert.

Rashid and the camels.

This was prob­ably the most brutal section of the trek, with no shade or change in the rocky land­scape for at least 12 km.

This is what this place does to things. This is an old pack camel who died in one of the biv­ou­acs from disease. After it’s death, the owners brought it out to return to the desert.

Every step hurts, but we only have one more after­noon trek to reach the massive 300m dunes of Erg Chigaga, our final des­tin­a­tion. We’ll spend the night there, hope­fully after a camel ride of some sort. I’ve asked Rashid about the camels, as I know Laura is really looking forward to riding them, but his response is the same: “apres, apres.” He actu­ally seems to feign a bigger lan­guage barrier than usual whenever I bring up the camels. It’s odd.

The Tamarist trees in the dis­tance marked the end of one of the toughest stretches we faced, and were the answer to the prayer men­tioned above. They were a happy sight indeed.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be driven from Chigaga back to Zagora, after a couple of inter­est­ing stops along the way, and it will all be over. Of course, it’s not all pain and misery. Overall, Rashid has been a great guide, if a little stoic. I’m not sure if it’s just the lan­guage barrier holding him back, or if he’s just quiet, pre­fer­ring the solitude of his own thoughts to chatter. Of course, this is an ideal mindset for the desert, where even speak­ing, reach­ing for a water bottle, or bending over to pick up an inter­est­ing rock can require an iron will. The heat and exer­tion rob all thought and sap all extra energy. For me, retreat­ing into my own head has helped keep me focused on just taking the next step.

Of course, we’d be lost without Rashid, at least in a fig­ur­at­ive sense; actual nav­ig­a­tion out here is not as dif­fi­cult as I had thought. There are plenty of land­marks, includ­ing distant hills, trees, dunes, and the far-off moun­tains to the north. The desert is stun­ningly beau­ti­ful, and far more diverse in its land­scape and wild­life than I would have believed. No we wouldn’t be lost, but Rashid has been indis­pens­able in myriad other ways. As Laura and I lounge in the shade, even as I write this, Rashid is pre­par­ing tea before start­ing on lunch. He rises before us, pre­pares the meals, does most of the washing, and tends the camels. He is also neces­sar­ily relent­less in march­ing us on to Chigaga, never varying his pace at all. Even though at times I have con­sidered bludgeon­ing him with a rock, deep down I am grate­ful. It has occurred to me more than once that if Rashid were to take the camels and abandon us, we could easily die out here. Even though we’d know which dir­ec­tion to go, without food, water, and shade, we wouldn’t last long. Of course, we could prob­ably flag down one of the 4WD vehicles that occa­sion­ally go by in the dis­tance, kicking up dust on the rutted tracks to Chigaga, car­ry­ing tour­ists too lazy (or too smart) to attempt the 60km trek. We haven’t seen any other trek­kers except a small group on the first day, and a few guides bring­ing camels back from Chigaga.

Not that we really signed up to walk ourselves. What we thought we were buying was a camel ride into the desert, perhaps sup­ple­men­ted with some walking. Hell, we’d have been happy to have a walk sup­ple­men­ted with even a little bit of riding, but so far nothing. Shariff and Mimoun, the camels, do have a large burden in car­ry­ing our water, food, gear, and other essen­tials neces­sary to sustain us out here. Not to mention our own baggage, which although only amounts to about 25 kilos, still con­tains such desert “essen­tials” as our two com­puters, two rain coats, and Laura’s blow dryer.

We’re not looking to strain the camels, which carry them­selves like big, stinky cham­pi­ons, but we can’t help think­ing that maybe Mohammed should have engaged a third camel if the baggage load is too much to add the weight of a person.

I have been doing my best to help out when pos­sible (as has Laura), in setting up camp, loading and unload­ing the camels, and with meals and clean­ing up, but Rashid is the main bread winner around here. And since it’s our bread he’s winning, we don’t let that bother us too much.

But here we are, in rel­at­ive luxury. For the moment we have shade, a large blanket to lay on and our sleep­ing mats to cushion the stones below. We have hot mint tea, cookies and peanuts. The tea is actu­ally good to drink in the heat; the body has less work to reg­u­late the tem­per­at­ure and process the liquid. We have enough mineral water left that we should be abel to get through to tomor­row without resort­ing to treated well water. We have a hot lunch on the way, and one more night in the Sahara to look forward to.

Tea, cookies, and salted peanuts. Our pre-lunch snack. I’ll never be a good enough writer to be able to convey how good this stuff tastes after four hours in the desert. That’s Laura’s fossil and lithics (stone tools) col­lec­tion in the background.

This is just one part of a six-part series on our camel trek in the Moroccoan Sahara. To read the full story, please click here.