of german hospitality

As I fell asleep plugged into a saxy, airplane-supplied Branford Marsalis CD, I woke up courtesy of the captain’s PA come morning. The yogurt drink was all I dared try of the breakfast to-go offered by the flight crew. Besides, I was still working on the bag of pastries generously sent with me by my friend Nikola at Iggy’s bread.

Arrived in Frankfurt, we had a whole day to spend exploring. First stop: hot shower. It took us thirty minutes to find the well-hidden arrivals lounge, but it was a welcome place to put down our carry-drag-ons, clean up, and relax. The food was simple and welcome: perfectly-boiled eggs, olives, and soft cheeses, among others. A nearby baggage storage facility took our bags for the day as we went into town.

Note to the uninitiated: if two or more of you are going into the city for a day trip, splurge the extra euro on the Frankfurt Pass. It wasn’t even presented as an option to us, but would have saved us money later on our museum visit. We went first to the Staedel Museum and then onward to feed our grumbling stomachs. We walked down a long stretch of storefronts looking for the right place, occasionally asking the brusque locals for suggestions. We ate first at a chain-like though redeeming-looking currywurst joint, armed with an array of sausage-saucing squeeze bottles ranked from 1-10 based on the underlying chiles’ hotness. There was no redemption to the bratwurst we shared: it just wasn’t very great. Onward to greener pastures.

Wagner was our next (and final—I just can’t eat the way I used to in my youth) stop, where I started with my first taste of appelwine. Great beverage! Everything apple cider should be (and sadly usually isn’t), but without bubbles: funky, dry, acidic, appley. The meal that followed was, as a whole, good but not great. I did really enjoy the sauerkraut that came with the sausages.

Back to the airport, where we waited only a short while as we learned of our fate in Beirut and I helped myself to some bubbly.

In parting, another note to the uninitiated: if you

see a couple of sweaty folks lugging enough bags for four travelers when going through airport security, avoid that queue no matter how short it may seem. They’re going to take (and I quote from The Sandlot) for-ev-er.

a bit of the bayou

We went crayfishing the other day. Armed with traps that reminded me more of hanging fruit baskets for the kitchen, we’d strategically (read: right side up, in the water) set them down in the muddy stream, wait a few minutes, and then pull them back onto land. The  traps being little more than glorified nets, it was key to get it out of the water and onto land before the big bugs would crawl through the net and back to safety. We baited with some old sardines Claudette had in the freezer along with special crayfish (écrevisse) snacks (read: not-so-slim dry blood sausage slim jims). The little buggers preferred what probably more natural to them: the sardines (or maybe it had something to do with the snackies not being organic).

We were worried at first that it’d go the way of my flopped turkey  hunt last fall (no turkeys in sight, thanks), but after a few empty nets we caught onto their game, and ended up with something like 80 of the American guys (turns out they’re not native: they’re a pest that somehow got transplanted at some point—the better, I’m told, native crustaceans of bigger rivers are only allowed to be hunted one day each year). Cleaning them meant carefully grabbing the body with one hand (careful not to lose a finger in their pinching claws), and pulling out their middle tail-fin, vein (and digestive waste) included. Cooking them was deliciously straightforward: a hard sear, ample garlic and parsley, and a flambé of Vincent’s prune (plum) eau de vie (literally: water of life, really: fire water). They yield even less than Maryland blue crabs, so you need to be prepared with a patient appetite and to make use of the guts, not just the tails. There were lots of mosquitoes and thorns about, but a hyper- (as they say around here) fun time.

my two Youssefs

It is difficult to completely convey what it is like to travel here. I say “convey,” not “describe.” I don’t believe I exaggerate by claiming to be able to give a good description of life out here, though I readily admit the chip on my shoulder. That said, as for conveying, it’s just hard to wrap your head around days like these until you experience them. I therefore accept that this blog will never convey everything, and you’ll have to spend at least a couple of weeks out here to feel it out for yourselves. It will be scary and stressful, but this is just all too amazing not to see for yourself. I took up Youssef_b on his offer, probably more as an excuse to chronicle the escapades than any other reason. And so the adventure goes on:

My family’s time in Fes being limited, I first took them to the famous tanneries in the morning. Shower time was amazingly time-consuming as always and, despite the best of intentions, we weren’t ready to leave until 9. It remains a mystery why I decided to wait for the maid for another hour. Finally fed up with waiting, I texted EB to let her know that the maid had not arrived on time. Perhaps this was a sure sign she was indeed our thief… So we made like fetuses and headed out for our rainy adventures. Lesson learned (duh): one umbrella, regardless of size, is never large enough for three to share. A pocket umbrella, however, is hardly enough for one.

The tannery continues as it has since the tourists arrived sometime during the latter half of the 20^th century: the experience begins with a relentless onslaught of locals smelling credit cards (a feat considering the stench in the air): “welcome, come in, you don’t need to buy anything.” They’ve pulled you into their shop before you can react, with a sprig of mint to shield the nostrils and promises of great views; a harmless man offers an explanation of the goings-on down below (and of course becomes your shadow for the duration of the visit). You look, sample their overpriced (tourists shop here, not locals) wares before pushing aside your shadow who is now asking you for a tip.

I headed us toward where I imagined the closest taxis would be, as we had to meet up with Youssef_a, the driver from the crazy midnight Casablanca journey. I instead walked us the long way to the pickup spot through a miscalculation of our position. Still, we were right on time, though Youssef_b was getting ansi and had called twice already. In all honesty, so was I: it was 11, we hadn’t yet hit the road, and we were still hoping to visit several towns an hour out of Fes.

Suffice to say that, as far as tourism was concerned, the day was a bust. The souk (market) at Azrou, our first and farthest stop, was rendered one giant mud pit—I was glad my sister imported my boots. It was great to see and experience nonetheless—amazing produce  and hundreds of shoppers out braving the sleety rainy mess. Next stop: the cedar park where there was snow on the ground and the apes, smarter than I am, were safely tucked away in their homes, up in the trees?  Youssef_a, Youssef_b, and I watered the trees before moving on, obligatorily backtracking through Ifrane for a much needed pot of tea before taking the turn toward Sefrou, Youssef_b’s birthplace. Youssef_a was tired of getting out of the car by this point; we should have taken the hint.

The rest of the afternoon seems like a whirlwind. We stopped in a town by Sefrou for a good ninety minutes, being offered food and awkwardly drinking tea at an old friend’s dilapidated house. We browsed his third-hand shop next door, and then my prayers were answered when Youssef_b agreed that we were too short on time for a meal. So we booked it to the waterfall for a quick peek. We next ran to the cemetery along with his old friend, where we snapped a group photo and escorted Youssef_b as he lit candles in remembrance of his mother (dead at the age of 38) and other, more distant relatives. Then it was off to the medina, where we spent twenty minutes waiting for Youssef_b to drop off some gifts to a friend before being taken to another friend’s scary-weird (there were stuffed animals—taxidermy-style—staring at us from every-which direction) spice shop and offered awful souvenirs. All the while I’m whining to Youssef_b about our fast-approaching dinner at Mo’s, telling him that we must leave immediately for Fes. He doesn’t get it, keeps insisting that Moroccan’s always run an hour late (I’m not Moroccan). We stop to see another now-defunct synagogue/charity center.

Bless his heart, really. Here we are getting more annoyed by the minute (my mom could hardly stand him anymore, with his endless errands and friends detracting from our tourism), and he continues to try and be a good tour guide. I reminded my mom (and myself) that these outings are more about the crazy adventures of sweet old men than the sights in Lonely Planet. Youssef_b kept insisting we accompany him back to his apartment for tea/snacks, but I held fast to mission: get out of the taxi. All’s well that ends well: we made it to Fes perfectly on Moroccan time and had an amazing dinner at Mo’s, a fun reunion of my mom and sister with EB’s.

a bad omen revisited

[This blog was written at 4am on the way back to Fes from the Casablanca airport run]

We stopped for the traditional roadside fare: grilled meat. We tried to order a goat's head, but they were all out of them by 12:30am when we finally arrived to eat. Seeing plenty of ovine carcasses with male anatomy attached, we also tried for an order of testicles, never having tried the delicacy, but were again out of luck. So we settled for kefta (well-seasoned ground meat and fat).

The trip is longer than I expected. At 330 we were still a good 45 minutes out of Fes. In retrospect, a hotel for the night in Casa would have made as much sense as the taxi--I had imagined we would arrive in Fes closer to 2am. To compound the problem, tonight marks the beginning of daylight savings, so really it’s now 5 in the morning (my morning sobriety corrected this fallacy--Morocco does not observe daylight savings).

News Flash: About twenty minutes ago, on the final stretch home, the Benz made an incredibly angry noise. It growled, really. No, it was more of a roar. Suffice it to say that I have never heard a sound like it, not whilst riding in a car. The driver took the taxi out of gear and we coasted along in a very rough neutral for a several minutes, taking advantage of a gradual descent. It wasn't a flat tire, though the engine's screaming gyrations almost made it feel like one. The hill leveled out, and he shifted back into second to get whatever mileage he could. We made it all of two hundred meters before the car ground (actually ground) to a halt.

If I had to guess (I did), I’d say it sounded like the oil pan just dropped was ripped off of the taxi. The initial jolt was brought me back to full consciousness after dozing for a few minutes. The driver (Youssef) and I grunted and performed the manly ritual of lifting the hood and nosing around. It wasn’t the radiator, as one might have guessed given earlier signs. We took a look at the oil reservoir, and it was smoky. The driver began making the requisite phone calls when I went back out to investigate the trickling sound I heard. Youssef was just beside the vehicle, ruling out the bodily function the sound most emulated. The fluid streaming from the engine was black as the sky above--indeed, this was a serious mushkill.

Lesson learned: Listen to the car before hiring it for an eight hour tour. It's not all about the cheapest rate.

Fifteen minutes later we were hoisted onto a flatbed truck, to be hauled back to Fes. I’ve never had the privilege of riding in a car being towed. It was oddly unsettling in the darkness, though I reckon it would be fun during the day. A few minutes later and we rendezvoused with Yousef’s son, who brought an alternate taxi for the last few kilometers home.

Sometimes these blog entries just write themselves...

You all remember your lines, yeah? Everybody now, please; let's say it together: Fes. Saturday night. What’s gonna happen next?!?

an evening to remember

Warning: contains immature humor intended for mature audiences

Setting it up: Back when I worked at 5Ninth restaurant in New York (I really worked there for all of a month), the chef’s right-hand guy had this saying. Imagine, 11pm on a Friday night. A private party has just been seated on the third floor. The second floor has sixty-odd diners, and the bar on the first floor is rocking to a techno groove, brimming with well-off hipster 30-somethings with a drink in each hand. We, the kitchen are, as they say, in the weeds, and there are still two hours left until we're closed. The waiters keep making mistakes, and we cannot seem to keep up. Even if he has been imbibing, every word is stressed and meticulously enunciated: “Manhattan. Friday night. What's gonna happen next?!?”

The day: A rather uneventful day, I woke up and spent most of it on the sofa where I now sleep. At around 4pm I decided it was time to go shop for the remaining ingredients I required for dinner. Coq au vin over pommes aligotes had the starring role, preceded by a simple greek salad, and followed by Crème caramel, a dish often served here, and always lackluster. I went out with Jane and Mo in tow, stopping for sandwiches at his uncle’s butcher stall after the big hike uphill to the food market. We ducked into a Berber tea stall next door to eat our sandwiches, sip tea, and breathe second-hand hashish. By the time we were out, it had started dripping rain. By the time we were finally at the top of the hill, it was pouring with big, heavy, freezing gobs of water. These were not your ordinary raindrops: it was like large hail that had melted just before reaching our bodies. I quickly shopped, and we ran back home after stopping at Mo's for an umbrella.

The meal: I chose the rooster a few days ago, and waited as the butcher slaughtered it before my eyes. It was a handsome cock, if a little small. The bottle of wine was acceptable--nothing extraordinary, but definitely worthy of the bird. The eggs I used for dessert were free range, with bright orange yolks--the kind that are so hard to find in the states. The milk was milked yesterday, raw and sweet. Dinner was set, the main dish on the table, when the doorbell rang. Seeham and her boyfriend stopped in to say hi. Moroccan hospitality, our own courtesy, necessitated they sit down with us for dinner. Mo got right on frying up some more turkey cutlets--even though the wine was cooked for hours, they could not partake in the main course: their religion forbids it. Not to toot my own horn, but my housemates were emphatic in their praises of my cock. This had Jane and me giggling for the better part of the meal, and when Mo translated coq to Arabic (dick), EB and Whitney joined in the laughter. Not to leave them in the dark, we explained our amusement; our Moroccan guests were just as pleased. Dinner was great, dessert continued on the theme. Even better, Jane, bless her heart, washed the dishes.

Fez. Friday night. What’s gonna happen next: Jane’s leaving in the morning. The post office giving me the runaround here, I appealed to her to take a gift back home for mailing, and went to fetch some money for the stamps. Except my stash of cash was missing. Every last dollar, every euro. About $300, all told. EB’s similar stash had been recently noticed as missing as well. She had figured it had simply been misplaced as she organized her closet. Naturally, that is no longer as plausible of a conclusion. Must have been the maid, a rather affordable luxury up until now. And so, we remind ourselves, of all ways to lose something, and of all things to lose, money could not be any safer or easier to replace. Friday night is over; what will Saturday bring?

...leads to freak-out

(continued from Casablanca...)

The six of us shared a first-class compartment back to Fez on the 10pm train. We chatted a bit, fell asleep, and were woken at 230am by people trying to get into their (our) cabin in Fez. Dazed, it took us a moment to get off the train. We groggily made our way to the waiting taxis. It was chaos. There were more people than the taxis could possibly handle, and we needed two of them. True to taxi drivers the world round, the first available driver refused to drive to the villa (dorm) because of the distance/fare (too short/too small). His tune changed when more cabs arrived and the crowd diminished, but by then principle wouldn’t allow us to pay him any notice. Gabe, Caitlyn (sp?), and I got into one taxi, and we dropped off Caitlyn on the way to the medina.

[The following will read like an IQ test. Bear with it, as its (and the ride’s) relevancy will become apparent] She handed me a 10Dh coin for her part of the fare (I was too foggy to just shove her money back at her). Gabe and I arrived at the medina, the meter displaying 21Dh. I handed the driver Caitlyn’s coin plus a note worth 20 (30 total). He fished for and produced 4Dh. I questioned him: I expected nine. He pulled out a larger-than-normal 5Dh coin and politely informed me I had given him 25, not 30. I was tired. I was back in Fez, where I could trust the cabbies. I shrugged my shoulders, spun on my heel and left. [You still with me?] Five minutes later, my grogginess quickly being displaced by the knife-wielding vigilance demanded for a late-night stroll through the labyrinth I now call home, I answered my own idiot test. How do I know that I was ripped off? I didn’t have a 10Dh coin anywhere on me: we’d been duped, in Fez, on our home turf. Lesson learned: never, ever, trust the cab drivers, not even on your home turf. Again, nothing to dwell on, I shrugged and carried on.

[Warning: emotional content ahead]

EB asleep in her bedroom, Whitney and Jane in what used to be my bedroom, Gabe and I arrived to a house rife with the resonance of sleep. We hit the sofas and played dead. Except that as hard as I tried to slow down and sleep, my mind was picking up steam. Cab rides with crooked drivers were just the tip of the iceberg. Soon enough, my breath still with concentration, my head was at a flat out sprint: reality had found me. I slept a few winks that night, but only after unease had taken firm grip of my sanity. The following morning, when EB told me her family would be here before the end of March (sooner than I had anticipated), unease ignited and took on new shapes of dread. I was in a predictably pensive and aloof state for most of the day.

[I’m treading new territory here. Heretofore I have written about my experiences, my thoughts, the food, and the people. I’ve neglected to talk about what I’m really going through. In a large part, I’ve completely ignored why I’m here and what I’m feeling (uh-oh: the f-word). I’m not going to back-pedal here and try to fill in gaps: those of you who have been in touch know the gist of my mission (even I know scarcely more than the gist). Those who have not will gather through the context of prior and future posts (keep visiting). My goal is to let you all in a little more than I have, as much as I comfortably can in a public setting.]

Drum roll’s over: I’ve finally begun to freak out a bit, in the simplest and most familiar of terms. My time in Fez is near its end. Not only do I have the relatively abstract dates, but also I now have real, palpable, foreign suitcases exploding on what was just my bedroom floor. I’ve been relegated to the sofa. I will soon have to vacate the premises, what with EB’s family arriving. I don’t have a plan from here on out. My roommates in New York are talking about moving out, so I’m being pulled to deal with my belongings in a soon-to-be-vacant apartment in New York, a town I love to love, yet one in which my time may quite possibly be over. I’d like to spend a few weeks in Israel while I still can, as I fear that once I gain some momentum on a farm or in the kitchen, this blissfully ambiguous life I’ve found myself leading will become terrifyingly apparent (hardly possible, it remains a fear). I want to spend some time on some farms in Europe to see if I’ll love that life as much as I think I will. I want to, I need to, put some money back into the bank...

The list goes on. Perhaps you have or have had such a list of your own, and so are able to put yourself in my shoes. Even better, maybe yours has just started to creep up on you. Regardless, here I am, feeling more alone and out of place than I have felt lately. I'm carefully inspecting paths for silly fear of choosing the wrong one, unable to accept my conviction that they're all equally wonderful.

Essaouira

My first order of business: bee line it to wherever they sell fresh fish. We were, after all, right on the Atlantic Ocean. After a bit of haggling (the prices are fixed and published, but apparently the math often favors the vendors), we sat down and awaited our grilled selections. There's nothing quite like tucking into a pile of super super fresh seafood. And that's all it was: simply grilled, lemon wedges on the side.

I didn't do much more than here than eat and sleep and bum around. I did go to the bus station in search of my ticket out of this place, and was struck by immediate deja vu. Still, I needed a way out, and bought a relatively inexpensive (this always comes back to haunt you in Morocco) ticket north to Rabat. And inexpensive is what I got. The bus, though I was promised a modern, air-conditioned coach, was definitely out of date, if otherwise according to the man's description. The "direct/express" ride to Rabat was anything but--stopping in at least 30 small towns along the way to let people and animals on and off. Animals? Yep, we had a goat and a turkey on board. Really? Yep, really. The goat was tied around the horns and the turkey simply had his feet bound, both secured in the cargo hold below (no man down there this time). Sometimes we need a few tries until we get it right: Lesson re-learned: bus travel with anyone other than CTM (the national bus service) is to be avoided.

Marrakech: 'disneyland on crack'

Food, sights, sounds, smells, annoying people, crazy people, transvestites, crooks, and last, but not least, ass-grabbers.

The food: Sheep heads and brains, snails, liver 'pate,' cow udders, and orange juice--lots and lots of orange juice. Marrakech is known for a braised lamb dish called Tanjiya. Instead of being cooked for hours in a conical tagine over coals (begin gripe: while the best of the tagines are cooked this way, I'll be damned if I've seen it done traditionally more than once or twice in Morocco--the fancy restaurants tend to cook everything in aluminum pots and just transfer into a tagine when ordered end gripe), this dish is cooked in a curvy (think hips) ceramic pot for hours in the furnace of a hammam (traditional Roman/Moroccan sauna/bath). Spiced predominately with cumin, and usually prepared with mutton, it's a sure bet wherever you can find it.
Really, though, the big thing in this town (for this insatiable cook, anyway) is the array of evening food stands in the main square of Djemaa el Fna. The fun starts toward dusk at 5 or 6pm and goes on until midnight. There are five snail stands, where snails are cooked just as I found them in Fez. Moving on, a few different guys have smoky grills putting up little white merguez (lamb) sausages and liver 'pate': a spiced (mostly cumin, garlic, paprika, and harissa) mix of beef liver and fat, very much resembling blood sausage. And then there're the offal guys. Lined up with sheep heads, cow udders, and beef tongues, these guys don't cater to the tourists (in fact, this whole scene, though indeed a draw for tourists, is really still largely a local thing). I'll get some more photos when I visit again, but in the meantime, my album has a couple of fun sheep head videos. Though I could go on and on about the food, suffice it to say that I ate until I, and those around me, dropped (case in point when Gabe and his dad joined in on the fun: we started with a steamed lamb brain, a bit of cow udder, some calf's tongue, and half a sheep head, and went from there...).

Sights, sounds, and smells; annoying people, crazy people, and transvestites; crooks and ass-grabbers: Needless to say, Marrakech has its share of each. Djemaa el Fna is surprisingly clean and odor-free in the morning, as the food stands disappear in the middle of the night after a big clean-up. Mornings in the square involve truckloads of oranges--no fewer than 15 carts selling fresh-squeezed juice call out to passers-by in the hopes of selling a three dirham (40 cents) glass of the stuff. The snake charmers accost unsuspecting tourists, wrapping a snake around your head and urging your friends to take pictures before demanding hefty payment (both of you and the picture-taker) for the privilege. By night, henna artists and fortune tellers surround the square and prey on tourists and locals alike. Men in veils belly dance (for such a conservative country, this is shocking, really) and lunatics surrounded by hordes of locals tell their tales--good old-fashioned story-telling: now why doesn't anybody do this at the county fair back home?
Walking through the souks can be just as daunting as it is in Fez. We walked around with no plans, just for the sake of walking, and ended up in some spots devoid of tourists. At one point Lora had her ass grabbed by a local guy who looked back at us with the cavalier look of a toreador before disappearing into the crowd.
On my last day there, we went to see the old Jewish quarter (the Jews weren't allowed to live amongst the Muslim folks, and so were segregated into the walled Mellach--every town has one) and cemetery. A young English-speaking local smelled Americans and offered his illicit services as our guide (the tourist office was closed, so we couldn't get an official guide). After showing us around for a bit and taking us to his family's overpriced ("I give you special price") spice shop, he unsurprisingly demanded an astronomical fee that not even the most jaded of us had anticipated. Lesson learned: better not to feed the pigeons, but if you're insistent on employing an illegal guide, negotiate before-hand. We paid the crook a fraction of his demands, and upon being followed and badgered, we gave him a couple American quarters and told him they were worth $4. He let up enough for us to make our getaway, probably cursing us Jews for ripping him off.

Most ridiculous run-in: The night that Lora left for Casablanca, by far. A lack of late-night trains meant that getting to the airport for her 8am flight would require at least some modicum of sketchiness, and more than likely a chunk of change. Bus travel was agreed upon as the next-best choice. Little did we expect the crowd drawn to the bus and terminal alike. Wow. I felt really, really bad, letting her go alone on this middle-of-the-night bus with a bunch of freaky guys. The kicker was when the bus finally showed up and the driver opened the cargo door on the side, waking up the man laying down there under blankets(!!!). Lesson learned (this one should have been common sense): bus travel with anyone other than CTM (the national bus service) is to be avoided in general, but most definitely by lone women in the middle of the night. Left with no choice, she boarded. An amazingly generous young man seated near her would later take her under his wing through the sketchiness in the Casablanca bus station and deliver her to the train station at 4am--no small miracle.

Chefchaouen (land of plentiful kif)

In need of a weekend away to a chiller, less pushy town, we headed for picturesque Chefchaoen, where the locals smoke and peddle kif (hash) as though it were totally (not quite, though the police are said to look the other way in this region) legal. Of no matter, in any case, as I still won't smoke... My first bus ride in the country, it wasn't all that bad. The town, though hillier than Fes and therefore a bit tiring, was beautiful thanks to the sky blue whitewash they apply to their houses and pathways.

The people were indeed less pushy--indeed, hours after Lora took a photo of a group of kids, the shy one of the bunch caught up with us as we fixed on some pastries being sold by a man on the street. We didn't recognize her at the time, but she did something that neither one of us will soon forget: she started explaining to the man which pastry she wanted, saying in Arabic "not that one, that one." The man, wearing glasses a centimeter thick that made his eyes appear larger than they were, was having understandable difficulty finding the pastry she requested. Nonetheless, he finally got it for her, but instead of trotting off with it, she placed it in Lora's hands, as a gift. This adorable little girl, living in a land of kids who will beg for a dirham at the drop of a hat (and offer to help you find your hotel 50m away for much more), bought this pastry as a gift to these rich strange westerners.

I spent two hours with a Berber guy trying to sell me rugs and blankets and the like. I kept adding items to the pile, hoping to dupe him into giving me a better deal. Instead the price kept going up, and I started to go numb, not thinking anymore, but rather just bargaining for the sake of bargaining. In the end, the four pieces I purchased amounted to about $75, a good deal by western standards. Lesson learned: a good deal, though it may seem like one at the time, is likely too good to be true. What was camel turned out to be cotton, what was cotton turned out to be acrylic. Like I said, I just was not thinking anymore--in retrospect, of course that sweater is cotton--camel wool would be much scratchier (so really, it was for my own good). Though I could have bought the items for $40 at the over- and fixed-price place down the road, I feel confident that I've paid my 'white man's tax' for the duration of my trip.

The Sahara (Part 2)

Turban securely fastened, we were en route to the last frontier, a hotel on the edge of the dunes where we'd lunch in the shade before boarding our camels for a three hour tour.

[A little background]
When planning the trip, we were posed with the question of whether travel to the bedouin camp by means of a 4x4, or take the more traditional camel-back ride. Besides EB's desire to certify her Cambelback® truly camel-approved, the camels sounded down-right romantic: riding an age-old animal born by the desert into (okay, well technically we were riding in the opposite direction, but you get the gist) the sunset.
[end background]

Riding camel-back is not comfortable painful. We realized this as soon as we'd started moving, hoping that perhaps the pain would subside, fade into the surreality of riding into the red dunes of the Sahara. The sunlight faded; the pain did not. Lesson learned: if ever faced with the necessity of riding a camel for a prolonged period of time, the best thing you can really do is squirm--fidget, change positions.

Upon arrival at the sandy camp we took our obligatory shots of Berber whisky (mint tea) and made for the top of the nearest dune to spot the last rays of the sunset. Snowboards and sleds in hand, we trekked to the top of the 300m (1000ft) dune. Lesson learned: best practices for climbing sand dunes involves baby steps without exerting much force. This way you can walk on top of the sand rather than continuously sinking your feet in like you're climbing the Stepmaster 2000®.

At the top was a truly amazing sight--a view of Algeria to one side and the sunset on the other. The wind began to pick up as the sky darkened, and we made way back for camp under cover of darkness, literally running down the steep side of the dune. We stargazed for a bit before eating dinner, knowing that the full moon was on its way up and that we'd never see the stars once the moon took over the sky, we took the opportunity to gaze upward for a bit before eating. Nothing quite like staring at the night sky in the darkness of the desert.

Dinner was excellent despite the sandy bread (i'm sure one gets used to it), but the height of the evening was the post-meal entertainment. In came our hosts and their drums. It sounds cheezy to recount it, but it was much cooler than cheezy. We were all caught off guard when asked to sing/play a few of our own numbers for our hosts, but twinkle twinkle and frère jacques and finally our best-performed i will survive seemed to do the trick. We got back to the Berber tunes and tore up the rug. A dance in the brilliant moonlight to ensure a night to remember, and we called it a night. Final lesson learned for the day: come prepared for such outings with songs, jokes, and ghost stories. We Gabe, EB, Lora, Martin, and Andom told some alternatively good (Andom, Gabe) and bad (Martin, me) jokes and stories, and the ensuing laughter was enough to tire anyone out.

Of course the camel ride back was perhaps even more difficult given our already-sore asses, but we endured and were rewarded by breakfast and a largely uneventful, sleepy ride back in the lap of our luxurious 14-seat minibus.