Sahara desert, Day 1

Another amazing day! Started with a camel ride across the dunes. The camels here are single hump, so each person gets their own. No muzzles on these camels, but they were very well behaved. Next stop was to learn something about gnaouan music (people from father south in Africa who ended up in Morocco). We had a lesson on drumming, then played along to a couple songs.

Next stop a nomadic family. They stay in one place for the winter now, and have built an adobe house (with solar power) in the desert near a well. Climate change means the desert is expanding, so not clear what will happen. As usual in Morocco, we were served mint tea and homemade bread. They mostly make money now by renting out their the camels for tourists. Soon they will head to the High Atlas to get out of the heat.

Then to our tent camp. Rather miserable afternoon-- temperature 100+ degrees and windy so sand everywhere. But then it finally cooled off enough to enjoy a bunch more activities: watched them prepare the chicken trainer tagine we would later have for dinner, visited an amazing farm (they found the water by dowsing) that's been going since 1954, went to a place where we climbed some sand dunes and just sat for a while enjoying the view and finally went to eat that yummy tagine we saw prepared earlier.