Day 7 - Todra Gorge - Merzouga Sand Dunes

12 July

Setting off from base.

If we could live in our minds, experiences would always measure up. If we could live in our minds, nothing would push us further than we mean to go. If we could live in our minds, camels wouldn’t clumsily slip down the sides of sand dunes and threaten to toss their hopeless riders. The sunset would be an intense orange spectacle instead of a murky white blob and you could look at it clearly because there would be no whipped-up, stinging sand in your face, nose and ears. You wouldn’t have had excessive phlegm in your lungs and hacked your way up an impossibly steep dune on foot while your guides just assumed you were soft. You wouldn’t have run out of water dangerously early because your tour guide told you the trip would be half an hour instead of two and half. You wouldn’t have been given a sales pitch for desert trinkets and junk before being allowed to reach your campsite. You would have had a great sleep the night before and you wouldn’t have had a pillow made from what felt like crushed bricks. You would have danced and sung around the campfire with your fellow travellers and eaten great Moroccan food without getting diarrhoea the next day. You wouldn’t have sat up all night trying to avoid enormous flying bugs and waiting for morning. You wouldn’t have considered that the overwhelming heat was the least of your worries. And, you would have had one of those intrepid stories of grit and adventure with which to try and impress your grandchildren. If we could live in our minds….

There were, however, some highlights of our desert stay in Merzouga - ones like sitting on the crest of a dune and having the wind suddenly drop away to reveal a peaceful, ridged expanse. I also found strange pleasure in having your legs buried in warm sand and chatting with your Berber guides in Spanish while waiting for the sun to sink. I felt sad for our capable guides who tried to entertain us with music and riddles but, unfortunately we were all so tired from a very long day’s drive and then the desert experience that all we really wanted was sleep. Getting ready for bed, I walked the 100m or so out to the toilet, desperately hoping that my torchlight would not fall on a resting snake or scorpion and happily discovered that our toilet was guarded instead by 100s of minute bobbing frogs. These frogs, as it happens, were nosy wee critters as I woke to find their prints in the early morning sand. As we slept, they’d hopped all around every bed.

(Nosy desert frogs)