It was so warm
beneath the mountain of furry blankets in my desert tent—I didn’t want to get
up on 10 March. Nonetheless, I had a modicum of hope that I’d be able to catch
the sunrise. Little did I know when I finally cast aside my blankets that the
sun had been up for quite a while. Ah, well.
Around the same
time, one of our hosts poked his head into our tent and informed us that
breakfast was ready (another good excuse for getting up). So, after taking a
few minutes to brush away the rum-, smoke-, and sleep-induced fuzz from our
teeth, and then taking a few more moments to absorb the stunning starkness of
our campsite and surroundings by daylight, we made our way once more to the
dining tent.
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| Campsite |
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| Two of the four beds in my tent. Mine is the one on the right, next to my bookbag. (The blankets are all piled on top of J. in another bed, in an effort to wake him up.) |
Breakfast was
rather simple compared to the meal we had the night before, but delicious
nonetheless. It consisted of bread, some kind of thick but creamy sweet-butter,
apricot jam, and
coffee.
Now, gurl, lemme tell you ’bout the jam and
the coffee: Best. Damn. Coffee. And. Jam. Ever.
Well, okay, in all honesty the
coffee wasn’t the best ever—merely the best I’ve had since leaving the States.
But the jam…my goodness, was it
amazing!
I’m not
typically a fan of jellied things. (Stop right there—get your minds out of the
damned gutter!) For as long as I can recall, I’ve eaten peanut butter and
butter sandwiches because the texture of grape jelly grosses me out. Orange
marmalade, in very small doses, is occasionally permissibly on hot, fresh
morning biscuits, but that’s about it.
During my desert excursion, however, I
discovered that bread was merely a vessel for the consumption of apricot jam!
First I went back for seconds…then thirds…and then, oh yes, I went back for
forthsies. And don’t think that I didn’t take the last piece of bread during
that final trip, because I damn well did.
At any rate,
after breakfast it was time to get ready to head out, sadly. We returned to our
tents and started to pack-up. I also asked JM to help me re-tie my tagelmust (which is a skill I still have not mastered even with the help of YouTube videos), resulting in the picture below.
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| Tagelmust: Before Photo |
Now, I point out
how my tagelmust looks here because, as you will soon see, it looked nothing like this only a short while
later…
Which brings us
to the next part of the story: Camel Ride (Part II).
Sadly, by the
time I made it to the area where our camels were housed for the return-trip,
Coco had already been claimed by someone else in the group…meaning I had to
settle for a different mount this time. But I didn’t name this camel. Why, you
ask? Well, there are two reasons.
First and
foremost, for some inexplicable reason I had the song ‘A Horse With No Name’ stuck in my head. Now, I
don’t think I’ve heard that song all the way through but once in my life, so
what prompted its presence in my head that day is beyond me! Nonetheless, it
was there, and so it seemed fitting at the time not to name my ride (despite
the fact that he was camel and not a horse).
The second
reason I didn’t name my camel is because he was a bad camel. But since I didn’t hate him enough to send him to the
glue factory (or whatever the equivalent is for camels) I did the next best
thing: I stripped him of his identity by denying him a name.
Now, I know that
sounds harsh—way harsh—but you need to understand: he would not allow the
saddle to be secured properly, meaning that every time I tried to reposition
myself and give ‘the boys’ some comfort, the entire saddle would shift and I
risked falling off. At one point, the guides actually made me dismount him
completely so they could re-tie the saddle, but he must have been puffing up
his belly or something, because it was even worse after that.
Bruised cajones = bad camel.
Fortunately, the
trip to where we met the bus was shorter than the trip to the campsite—only
about 20 or 30 minutes. But it was a rough trip! I was jostled about so much
that my poor tagelmust became hopelessly undone, and I couldn’t take my hand
off the saddle’s yolk long enough to even attempt fixing it properly. This is
why, in the ensuing pictures you see from this part of the trip, it looks like
a ’fro-meets-thundercloud-meets-alien-thing
is hanging over my head.
Of course, despite
the bumping and jostling, after seeing one of my friends light-up while riding
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to indulge in a Camel while on a camel.
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| See what I mean about the tagelmust being a wreck! |
This was its own
hilarity-filled experience—have you
ever tried to light a cigarette while rocking every which way on a relatively
wild animal? (So help me, I just know
that one of my gay friends is going to have a smart-ass answer to that
question!) I’m surprised I still have eyebrows left. But I did it…
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| Watch out for the eyebrows! |
When I finally
saw the bus it was a bittersweet moment. On one hand I was beyond thrilled to
get off of my nameless camel. But, on the other hand, I was saddened that my
time in the Sahara was already at an end.
There was still
one final hurdle between us and departure, however: a group of children.
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| [Image Courtesy of NJ and SP] |
I look like some
horrible taskmaster, don’t I? Or at the very least like a tourist who’s totally
oblivious to the circumstances of his own life compared to those around him. At
least that’s how I’m terribly afraid people will read it.
And yet, in some
regards, I secretly want people to
have that knee-jerk reaction because maybe it will force them to interrogate
their own social positions, which is why I’m posting it here like this.
(Though, admittedly, a better way of inducing such reflection might be simply
to encourage others to read Peggy McIntosh’s incredibly insightful and eye-opening White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.)
With that said,
let me now give you the back story:
Yes,
children—all trying to sell us homemade camels made out of palm fronds.
What you’re
actually seeing in the picture above is the look of someone (me) who’s incredibly uncomfortable and
conflicted. I wanted to help them all, but knew that I couldn’t, so I gave a
few of them some money (without taking the things they were selling so that
they could hopefully sell them to someone else) and started toward the bus.
Unfortunately, a gaggle of these kids was blocking my way, trying to sell their
wares to my friends who had boarded already. I stood there behind them, both
trying to make my way on and also smiling nervously because…well, I smile when
I’m uncomfortable, and I was discomfited by the recognitions running through my
head of all of the privileges I have in life compared to these children (e.g.,
the fact that I was able to spontaneously drop a not-inconsiderable sum on an
excursion to an area that at least some of those kids will probably never
leave).
And, it was in
that moment that my friend took the above photo.
Moving away from
the heavy (albeit incredibly important) stuff, once aboard the bus we began the
long trek home. There isn’t too much to say about the trip back—the only times
we stopped really were at a couple of vistas, and twice for food (the first
time at a place I never caught the name of and the second time in Ouarzazate).
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| Yup, that's a real-life oasis behind me. |
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| Tagelmust fixed (more or less). |
We finally made
it back to Marrakech at around 6 PM, at which point we moved en masse toward Djamaa el-Fna before saying our sad goodbyes. I would love to think that one day we will cross paths again.
Afterwards, I made my way
back to Waka Waka, where I rejoined the Djellaba Crew on the rooftop. Once
again, they immediately pulled me, and made me feel like I hadn’t missed a
second.
You know, that’s
one of the really incredible things about my time in Morocco—I feel like there
were these long stretches of time that just came to an absolute standstill around
me, so that you could just soak it all in. It was kind of like that whole ‘perfect moment’ scene from Star Trek:
Insurrection. (And yes,
I’m aware that from a critical Orientalist perspective that statement kind of
plays into the whole ‘exotic-erotic’ myth, but the bit about time seeming to stand
still for me is indescribable any other way!)
At any rate,
three or four hours (and a few glasses of wine and smokes) later, we made our
way back to Djamaa el-Fna for dinner at one of the stalls that’s set-up each
night.
It really was a
beautiful, fun-filled evening—perfect for my last night in Morocco!
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