One Thousand and One Nights in Morroco
Autor: Ayrton Ribeiro | Publicado: 2012-05-06T13:59:00-07:00

Morroco is one of those places I never dreamed I would ever put my small Avarenese feet on.
This Northern African country with such a long and rich history was also one of the destinations of our (always worthwhile to mention it) beloved cheap-flights Irish airline Ryanair.

"But are you sure you want to go there? You can be kidnapped by terrorists!" or "I've heard the locals sell western tourist girls in change for camels" are some of the not so wise advises I heard before joining our joyful group of brave students from Santiago de Compostela.

So after crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and landing in Marrakech the cultural shock was, indeed, everywhere our eyes could see, our noses could smell and our ears could hear.
No wonder that the epicentre of the muslim and mercantile milenary soul of Marrakech is condensed in the enourmous central square of Jemaa el-Fnaa, where merchants sold fresh apricots, goat meat, handcrafted carpets, musical instruments and all sort of medicinal plants and powders, alive animals, and maybe one or two relics from times of Ottomoman Empire if you wish to buy it.








By the way, demostrating that you have wills to spend your money to a seller is your certification that you will pay the highest price for something you could get incredibly cheap otherwise.
Bargain is a necessary art you learn very fast on those narrow milenar market streets. After a while, you actually realize that better than buying those curious and rare objects and foods is talking to the seller for interminable minutes until you reach an agreement that fits both interests (no matter, of course, the real price the object would get in a formal economy).

Let's get off of the third largest city of Morrocco and get some real adventure: joining a caravan to the desert of Sahara in a 3-days trip with an unknown guide!
The big journey to the biggest and most famous desert of the world has arrived and we are all excited for finally meeting the camels that would take us to such a remote spot in the planet!

We start by car, though. The landscape changes dramatically from someone already getting used to the buzzy and agitated streets of Marrakech. The way is all silent and unnocupied around us - Berbers, the dominant people of North Africa, occasionally appear walking around the dry and rocky Atlas mountains, carrying animals or just protecting themselves from the merciless African sun.



















We had several stops to relax after feeling that our lives were at risk as consequence of those sharp bends in the highness of the mountains while our driver preferred to use his hands to clap Arabic songs instead of holding the steering wheel!

So suddenly we were at a spectacular canyon craved by the work of&nbsp;thousands of years of a river between Marrakech and the desert of Sahara: The Throat of Dodhra is a hidden paradise of which view we could not avoid to have,&nbsp; being so close as we were. The pictures should speak by themselves, but they still do not express our emotion of being in such a special spot without even planning for it!

Until we finally got to the limits of the road, there were 2 days of driving, singing, eating Tajines (a typical dish made of potato, meat, peas, tomato and a delicious salt salse) and getting to know better our fellow travellers from London, Australia, Spain and Italy. From there on, the only way to get to our camping place in the desert was by riding camels - which are way bigger than in the movies or the pictures in books.












The journey in the desert is an experience apart! The slow and persistent way my camel crossed those eternal sands made be shake forward and backward in a non-stop and&nbsp;oscilant movement.&nbsp;Almost hallucinant&nbsp;was to see that infinite desert around our caravan as a sign that no matter how much we kept that walking, we would never get anywhere.

The sunset in Sahara! Something from another world. The peferct melange of the yellow sun with the endless yellow sand. Something to never forget, indeed. But the Nature Show kept going as the dark night came and, with her, the most shining and numerous stars we never thought could be above our little planet.

Being in the middle of the Desert of Sahara definitely instigated us to think about ourselves from a different perspective - and this thought-provoking place got even more inspirational with the reception the Berbers prepared for us in our camp!






















They were dressed in their mantles and turbants and brought their handcrafted drums which we played for what seemed many and many hours. And of course there was dinner. We all seated in the carpet-covered desert floor, eating our delicious Tajine and immersed in conversations irrigated by the forbidden arabic beers and wines. (although officially banned for the praticants of the Muslim religion, our Berber fellows didn't take the obligation so serious that time).

That was a long night of dancing, laughing and climbing a sandy hill close to our camp. One night to close with a golden key what became to us a travel full of stories, emotions and discoverers. You might leave Morroco after 1 week in its territory, but Morroco will never leave you and your memories for 1 thousand nights.