Life Lessons and Saharan Autostop

06/04/2010

Moroccan Sahara days sit at a perfect 33 degrees Celsius with barely a cloud in the sky, and the nights are cool with thousands of stars visible above. The small towns of Zagora and M’Hamid are the last towns on the southbound road in eastern Morocco and are heavily marketed to tourists as the “gateways to the Sahara”, but thankfully tourism has only had the effect of opening a few colorful souvenir shops, and so you don’t have to go far to see that the traditional Berber lifestyle still dominates. Spending an afternoon trekking south towards the Algerian border on camels belonging to a friend of Aziz quickly explained how easy it is to get lost in the desert; orientation is nearly impossible because of the lack of any type of trail or notable landmarks (unless you can read the stars), and apart from the luck of coming across a nomadic family you are on your own - even nomadic families necessarily travel with goats and other animals who have a sixth sense that takes them to water. 

Full article is hosted at my old blogging website: Travelblog.org