Erg Chebbi
Woke up early this morning, for once though the sun was out and the sky was blue though I could see the clouds coming over. The camp was quiet with the only others up being the British couple Liz and Mike. For once there was an advantage to waking up early I got up and climbed one of the sand dunes and stood just watching as the sun rose above the dunes. A beautiful way to start the morning.
Others got up by ones and twos and climbing the dunes to watch the sun rise and shortly after when we walked back into camp, we were not that far out, ‘Berber Whiskey’ was served up with biscuits. The others were all bundled up and as the clouds started to close over once more we stood up on a dune over looking the parking lot and waved goodbye to the others as they headed back to the Kasbah.
We relaxed in camp for a couple of hours and after breakfast we headed off. The faint hope we’d had that maybe we’d get clear skies kind of disappeared as the clouds showed no signs of disappearing. Still we had some great views from some of the higher dunes and except for the occasional print from a camel no other signs of anyone else.
We ended up in a berber camp for lunch and shortly after we settle down to wait for lunch three little berber children set up shop in front of us pulling out little hand made camels, head bands and belts from their bags. They sat their quietly talking amoungst themselves for about 20 minutes before packing up their gear and running off to play.
Another couple of travellers pulled up on their camels though we found out they were spending the night here. Marcus and Tommy spent a couple of minutes saying hello before the lure of the sand dunes called and they bundled up their boards and began the long slow climb up a massive sand dune in front of the camp. It took them all of 45 minutes to climb to the top and about 20 seconds to get down. Mad, simply mad.
While the boys were climbing the sand dune it started to sprinkle then started to settle into rain. We ended up moving into the dining tent to keep dry. According to our guide we were still heading to our camp after lunch so neither Louise or I bothered to make sure all the mattress’s and blankets stayed dry or really got comfortable and settled in.
Lunch arrived in the tent and ended up being a Berber omelet with tomato, onion and herbs. It was good as usual, we really haven’t had too many bad meals here, but way too much food for us. This time however we passed the left overs to the boys who finished their own meal and polished off the rest of ours as well.
The rain kind of stopped, still got the occasional drop but you couldn’t even say it was sprinkling, so the boys dashed up the sand dune for another 20 second run down the dune. I still think they are mad. We waited since we were told by our guide that we were leaving.
We continued waiting, and did some more waiting then we saw some of the locals heading up the sand dune among them our guide as well as the guide that came in with the boys. They got to the top of the dune and sat down.
We continued waiting.
About an hour and a half later our guide and the others decided to come down the dune. Getting a little impatient since it was now about 1700 hours we asked what was going on only to be told we were staying here now and not going on to the next camp because it was going to rain. To say that Louise and I were a little bit pissed off at our guide who had decided that smoking on the top of the sand dune with his friends was much more interesting than taking us to our camp and certainly more interesting than telling us earlier that he just could not be bothered moving on is an understatement.
Louise asked where the toilet was since she had been holding on since 1000 hours that morning since they packed up the tiolet in the morning camp. The guide looked at us then waved off in the direction of the dunes telling us there wasn’t one. That caused some constanation but the guide assured us not to worry no one would follow or watch. Um yeah right. So off we tramped to find a dune that wasn’t visible from the camp or from the top of the dune. We were not all that successful but when you gotta go you gotta go and we each took turns being look out for the other!
Louise and I moved into the dining tent and moved some of the blankets and mattresses our of the way of the persistent drips. It was a little hard since there ended up being only one corner of the tent that was dry. The boys came inside and the skies decided to really open up and the rain poured down. We ended up with our bags under the tables to keep them dry and wrapped up in blankets to keep warm as it got cooler. One of the guides finally came in and noticed that the tent was leaking like a sieve and helped move the rest of the mattresses and blankets. He ended up getting an old stool and propping up the tent at the end we were sitting so the water would not pool and leak through the seams where we were sitting.
(It’s a little blurred but I’m sure you get the idea!)
Well after dark some other travellers came in drenched and joined our little group. Marcus pulled out his MP3 player and speakers so we all had some music, we had chocolate and the other two had some fruit that was all bundled on the table to share. None of us had thought to smuggle some alcohol in our packs though, oh well. We all ended up laughing. After all how many people can say they went on a camel trek in the Sahara and it rained on them? I mean seriously!
The night passed with much laughter and we all went off to the sleeping tents that had been prepared for us. It started to rain again. Of course our tent leaked a little and I heard Louise muttering to herself.
‘Lets go to the desert she said. Lets go on a camel trek she said and stay in a Berber camp. Great I said. What a wonderful idea I said…......’
One of the drips was falling straight on Lou’s head. At least she laughed. What else could we do?
