ATLAS/SAHARA

We left Marrakesh with a van almost full. I was sitting at the front of it, next to the door. Most of the tourists in it were Spanish (with the exception of one couple from Italy). They were all around my age - but they did speak only Spanish and Italian, so I felt like this was going to be a bit hard to bound with them. I was still very excited to just see the Sahara and the atlas mountains. The van stopped on the side of the road. The driver was now on the phone, not hiding his annoyance at whatever the caller was saying. About 10 minutes later, the van’s door opened and we let two new travellers in. They sat at the back of the van, in the only places left. I didn’t made anything of it at this point, but they would later become my Sahara bffs. The van then made it’s way through the Atlas mountains. This was absolutely gorgeous to see. The peaks were covered in snow -my first sight of it since more than a year. We stopped for a coffee at the top, and then drove about another hour before our first official activity. We were going to visit Ait Benhaddou - an historic settlement along the former caravan route. The guide turned out to be a young guy that didn’t give a single fuck and we had about no more information after the visit, then we had before. It also kinda felt like a tourist trap. They kept bringing us to artisans and trying to sell us paintings -almost forcing us to buy a scarf for the desert, too. I did ended up buying one -the one I had bought in Egypt was too small to do the cute turban I wanted for my camel ride. It was kind of expensive for the quality it ended up being, but I didn’t really mind. We then went for lunch, in an overly touristic restaurant, and I had a chat with one of the couple that turned out to be from Canada too. They were older, originally from France and Morocco, and we exchanged a lot while eating our tajines. We went back in the van and had to drive another few hours until our next coffee stop. It’s where Andrew introduced himself to me. He was one of the two guys that were late to the van party this morning. We started talking a bit and his friend (Kai) joined us. They were both Australians, working as software engineer -they had quit their jobs and decided to travel the world, before finally settling in Germany. Kai had a girlfriend (I wanted to ask several time during the trip, how he was managing the long distance thing, but I ended up forgetting or never finding the right moment). Andrew was single and later at night we would go over a basic bitch list he had in his mind, while parsing through tinder. It did made me laugh, because I have the same but for guys. We talked a few more minutes and I could already feel like we all had a similar humour. We were all called back to the van, for our last stretch of drive for the day. It lasted about four hours, before we started to drop some of the tourists to different hotels. I recall hoping I would get drop with the Aussies - because I didn’t want to end up not understanding shit while Spanish people had their blast with each-others. To be fair, I also hoped because I though Andrew was cute and both Kai and him were hilarious. I think the driver might have read the whole situation quite well (even though he didn’t understood any of our languages) because I did ended up getting dropped at the same hotel. It was in the middle of the Dades canyon - a gorgeous landscape that we were going to explore a tiny bit more in the morning. We had time to all relax or take a quick shower, and then we had to all meet up for dinner. Kai, Andrew and I sat next to each-others. A couple from our van sat in front of us. There were about 4 other travellers, that joined, coming from another group. One of them was physically totally my type of guy, but he couldn’t shut his fucking mouth. At the beginning, it was kind of interesting - he kept explaining where things were coming from, the history of who conquered which countries, and so on. But after about 35 minutes of monologue, we kinda all realized that this would go on for ever without us being able to place a fucking word. At one point (and I don’t even know why it went there), I heard him say something about Crypto -and unintentionally my eyes rolled and met the one of Kai that were rolling too. We both laughed -we now knew we weren’t alone being annoyed at that backpacker. Everyone finally decided to go bed, we had to wakeup early tomorrow for even more time on the road. I felt asleep very quickly, although it was freezing in the room.

We were in the van around 8AM. One tire of the van bursted wide open, about 10 minutes into the drive. We had to stop on the side of the road, to change it. Andrew, Kai and I just chilled outside the van, commenting on the situation with more stupidity. At some point, a second van pulled on the side -the backpacker from the hotel coming out. “Here we go, he is gonna save the situation with an explanation of where the tires are from”, said Kai. I laughed so hard, because that is exactly what I thought when I saw the guy come out. About 30min later, we had a new wheel and were ready to continue driving. Our first stop was in a berber village. The berbers are the descendant of the pre-Arabs inhabitants of North Africa. They were once called ‘les barbares’ (or the barbaric) by the greeks, because of their use of extreme violence to protect their land and families. Our guide was an amazing guy named Mulai, coming from a very rich family. He didn’t want to get paid (by the tour or in tips), he just wanted to share about his culture, which he was so proud about. We passed the next two hours walking with him around the fields and their village -and having tea watching people trying to sell us home-made carpets. The whole tour ended up being super interesting -and we felt all very grateful to have Mulai as a guide. We then had a very fucking quick walk through the canyon of Dades and proceeded to the restaurant for our lunch. I sat next to Kai and Andrew again, and we all chatted around our meals. We were then called back to our van for the biggest stretch of road to date -but one that was promising the Sahara, in the end. The drive was long, but after about four hours, we finally started to see the beautiful orange dunes forming in the distance. We dropped the first couples (which were different sets of people, from the day before), and I started to think that there would be a chance that I don’t end up with Kai and Andrew for the night in the desert. In the end, I do believe that our driver was intentionally picking the people that had affinities together -because I once again ended up with the two Aussies. Only with them, this time (no extra couples). We were drop at an hotel, so we could prepare for the camel ride that was about to come. I helped them both with their turbans and we continued to talk and learn more about each-others. The humour was definitely clicking. We kept throwing jokes at each-others and just amplifying them with more stupid comments. I knew this was going to be a great night. They both had such an amazing vibe, and they included me in it right away. We jumped in a 4x4 in direction of the dunes, where we watch the sunset before jumping onto our camels. Honestly -we didn’t watch the sunset at all. We were too busy doing stupid poses for our pictures and just having fun together. There were more tourists in our group now, and they all though I was also from Australia. “No, we just met today”, I said. “Oh my. I thought you knew each-others since forever”.  It did felt like it. I was so happy that they were going to be in my camp -I am sure the Sahara would be amazing regardless, but I have learned over the past months that most of the memories I cherish the most aren’t the ones of the places or the activities I’ve done -they are the ones of the people I met. “The camels are ready”. Oh god. I was a bit concerned to have to sit on this for an hour. Last time, in Egypt, my ride was only about 15 minutes and I ended up feeling pain around my ass for two days. Andrew decided to name our three camels. Kai was on Stacey (which we all know her mom’s better), I was on Winston (that had another name at some point but Winston is cooler) and Andrew was at the back, on a camel that I can’t recall the name but now I am in doubt if it was also a Winston. Anyway, we started the ride and turned out that the camels were way more comfortable than the ones from Egypt. We joked that they must have had Moroccan suspension. Half way through the ride, the sun finally set and I played Arabian nights on my phone. We sang in the night, watching the stars appearing and planning to escape the camp later on, to go stargaze together. These are the kinds of moments that you never forget. After way more than an hour, we finally arrived at our camp. It took about 3 minutes of us being off the camels for one of the berber to present a fuckery of merchandise to buy, in front of us. No one bought anything, a bit annoyed at the whole thing. We were then escorted to a first tent, where they tried to make us buy more activities. Once again, no one bought anything. I had to leave the Aussies to go in my tent, while they figured out the mess that was happening with their tour options. We later all met back in another tent, for dinner. There, we met other girls who were annoyed at the whole organization -and we all shared laughs around the very bland food. We were then escorted (i will keep writing this, because the berbers were literally everywhere and wouldn’t let us go out of their sights for one single second) to the fire. I had to pee, at some point, and when I went out of the bathroom one of the berber was waiting for me. It felt like a fucking cult, to be honest. The distance between the fire and the toilet was about 25 steps. I can manage to do it alone. I went back to the fire, sat on a carpet and watched the berber played tamtam. Andrew and Kai were still in their tents, trying to figure out what they would do tomorrow -their tour being a bit different than mine. I noticed a guy, sitting on the left, watching me. He smiled - he looked pretty damn cute. I smiled back, but I was with the Aussies and looking forward to escape the fire session and go stargaze with them, so I turned by head and continue to stare at the fire instead. The Aussies finally joined me, and after about 20 minutes we decided to escape. We faked being tired, were escorted back to our tent, and then we manage to escape while no one was watching. Once on the top of a nearby dune, we saw a berber searching for us. We all dive toward the ground, now laying flat on our backs. For the first minutes, we stayed silent, as we watch the berber walking around. He ended up leaving without finding us. We stayed there for about an hour, watching the stars, talking and laughing about all and nothing. “Have you lost something?” We got scared by the voice of a berber standing in front of us. He came straight out of the desert. What the fuck. We tried to make sense of what he was saying. “I don’t know if I lost something. What have you found?” He refused to say. It was so fucking weird. Like if he thought we were going to steal what he found? We were all confused. We ended up saying that we didn’t lost anything, and he left. We started to talk about how weird this whole place was, and after about 10 more minutes we decided to go back to the tents because it was starting to get cold. When we stand up to walk back, we noticed a berber was sitting a few meters away, watching us probably since the moment we laid down. What. The. Fuck. We walked back to the tent (escorted). I went to pee and when I came out, I was going to go with the boys in their tent so we could chat for a bit before all going bed. BUT, i was strongly advise by a very insistent berber to just go back in my tent alone. Okay. I said bye to the guys, went in my tent and tried to fall asleep but could hear parties all over the other camps. One of them seemed particularly lit- the song Gazolinaaa resonating from miles away.

We were back on the camels, early morning, direction of the hotel. We had more banters on the way back, watched the sunrise and then had to say our goodbyes because I was going back to Marrakesh while they were moving to Fes. I hopped in the van -asked my driver about 6 times if he had picked up my bags- until he finally understood and had to go back to get them. We then picked up all the other travellers (the same we had on the way to the Sahara). Half way through, at a lunch break, one guy asked if he could sit next to me at the table. I could have swear I saw him somewhere before. He was hot, y’all, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint why I felt like I knew him. He ended up telling me that he was at our camp, the night before. That’s when it clicked: the cute guy by the fire. He was now in our van, sitting at the back where the Aussies used to be. We talked through lunch- His name was Stan and turns out he was Bulgarian, like my best friend Rali. It obviously made something to talk about, and we extended on other random topics from there. We went back in the bus, after lunch, and met back a few hours later during a coffee break. We exchanged socials -he was going to be in Marrakesh until the next afternoon. We planned to meet again sometimes before. We finally arrived in Marrakesh, about 10 hours later, and all part ways to go back to our respective hotels. I took a shower and texted Stan telling that I was dead for the night- we could meet tomorrow morning instead. He felt the same, so it was perfect. I felt asleep like a damn rock.