
Josie's Mug
Life slowly illuminates as the dusty red Sahara dunes lazily charge with the rising morning sun, embracing the world from the underbelly, quelling the brisk 05:30 morning breeze. The blackness is retreating from behind; however, the tightly suctioned desert turban and my rather puffy eyes from the sandalwood smoke of last night’s Berber campfire work twofold to prevent my intentions of engaging my oblique muscles to watch it.
My right thigh is rhythmically heated by the sticky breath of the snotty camel in line behind me, his over-stretched nostrils often resting against my knee cap in a surprisingly comforting manner.
The camels greeted us well this morning with huge, guttural bellows and flails of slobbery foam. The entire scene screamed of Star Wars: from the Tusken-raider grunting of the camels, to the Mos Eisley dunes of the Sahara, to the draping cloaks of the desert guides pointed at the top in a hood, reminiscent of the droid-sellers.
Coupling the fantastical aura with the magnificence of the full moon silhouetting the massive dunes led to a magical night of newfound friends chasing each other around the dunes, rolling down them in memory of childhood hills, and star gazing into the void of an oasis of peacefulness.
Katie and I peaced out of Marrakech for a four-day-three-night jaunt to the dunes in Morocco; first to Zagora, then onwards to Merzouga.
It took a full day of driving full-speed through the Atlas Mountains in a bumpy passenger van before we reached Zagora and hopped on our first camels. Fortunately, Katie and I have the innate ability to entertain ourselves, much to the chagrin of our Berber, relatively-toothless driver.
Zagora, as described so beautifully by the turbaned, Moroccan Chris Rock who we met outside of a couscous cafe in Errouha, is the “coca-cola desert of Morocco”. It was a grand first experience, and spending the night in a Berber camp under the stars after a drum-featured campfire is my idea of a good night any time.
But Merzouga was where it was really at.
Massive, expansive red dunes. The spray of sand whipped over the crests much as the shadows of clouds pass over a meadow on a windy day or the lazy snaking of whispy snow over a highway.
The dunes were great, the guides were hospitable and welcoming, the camels made my already sore obliques ache from laughter.
But, much as the trend is, it was the people that made it all so magically delicious.
I find it relatively rare to find a group of people that I click so well with as to make a 22 hour bumpy van ride through the High Atlas Mountains enjoyable. But this lot was definitely that kind of gang.
And again, going back to my post on the hostel in Bosnia, I was continually reminded of how much the people around me matter. How much they make me smile, how much I love people and crafting friendships based on nothing in common except a sense of adventure.
I love the culture of the backpacker. The sense of non-obligation to societal hygiene or interacting norms, the feeling of weightlessness. Backpackers tend to me…so much more open, so much more inclusive. Less selective.
For someone like myself, who is desperately unsentimental, the friendships are almost perfect. We get to appreciate and love each other for this moment and for this very intersection of our lives; but then, when we depart, we depart cleanly because we both have a great purpose to follow. But yet we remain thankful for our interactions and what we did for the other.