Arriving at our small hotel in the Sahara after a long drive along corrugated roads (reminiscent of my time in The Kimberley, Western Australia), we organised our gear for our night in the Sahara. We had a relaxing drink and enjoyed the surroundings: a vast expanse of reddish sand dunes. Now, THAT’S a desert! We met our camels, who were tethered in two lines, and started to climb up. The camels have no names, but I named mine Mo-Mo (short for Mohammed). He was gorgeous with a scruffy patch of fur on his head. Off we went into the dunes, up the dunes, down the dunes. It took a while to get used to the lurching sway of the camels and I decided, I do not like the downhills much! We rode for about an hour to our desert camp, unloaded and took in the scenery, big dunes as far as the eye could see. Our original idea was to skip the tents, which were decked out with rugs on the walls and the floors, and sleep out under the stars……the weather had something to say about it. The wind sprung up and we were blasted with warm and very very sandy air. We moved inside the communal tent for a delicious dinner of chicken and vegetable couscous, warm flat bread, and fresh honeydew melon and oranges. After dinner the wind died down somewhat so we dragged our mattresses (yes! a luxury I had not expected!) onto the large central carpeted area. Listening to the camel guys and our guide sing and play instruments, and watching our one intrepid member of the group dancing, we lay under the sky, waiting for the cloud to disperse, and a few hours later were rewarded with the incredible starry night sky of the Sahara….priceless.
