Sahara Desert Camp

As we passed small desert villages the houses were painted amazing shades of yellow, trimmed in every shade of blue, and clustered Kasbahs rested in valleys next to a stream. We arrived in Erfoud and the temperature must have been 42 degrees C. Omar had a friend who ran a hotel in town. It had pool, so off we went, no bathing suits, justs shorts and T shirts.
We arrived at our tented Berber camp in Merzouga in the late afternoon. The tents were covered in a fabric of woven camel hair. Festive rugs on the floor and camp cots furnished our new homes. A huge colourful tent housed the bar and restaurant where we enjoyed our meals at the edge of the largest sand dunes in the world at Erg Chebbi.
At sunset and sunrise people climbed up onto the camel of their choice and off into the desert they rode. Some even opted to spend the night far into the desert. I sat in the open air lounge and took pictures of the ever changing colours of these awesome dunes.
This is fossil country. We have seen the brownish gold ammonites from Madagascar, but the basalt and granite ones come from here. Trilobites and all sorts of other fossils can be purchased from several fossil workshops in the area.
Out of the desert and back into the mountains we drove. We passed Nomads living in tents, in the beautiful green valleys. There were little streams and rivers running in every direction. Fields of red poppies, and a huge splash of an iris blue flower with no name. A quick stop to buy freshly picked cherries, and back onto the road again.
The majesty of the High Atlas Mountains is home to the finest Cedarwood oil.
Cool cool air and then old growth Cypress and Cedarwood trees appeared. Were we still in Morocco with all of this cool fresh air and Alpine looking villages? Then the monkeys appeared along the roadside, and we knew we were still in Africa.
Fez and the Sacred Music Festival awaited us.