Morocco day 3

The hotel we stayed at last night was so amazing. In tombuktoe, (haha never thought I'd have the opportunity to say I've been in Timbuktu!) it was on the edge of the desert, and we all had to clamber on to jeeps for the last hour in order to reach it. Also once the palace of a pasha it's walls were created from a mixture of straw and mud. The beds were  covered with an brightly striped orange spread, and a rich blue canopy hung from the ceiling above it. Woven baskets strung from black cords added decoration and acted as a concealed for lightbulbs. Before going to bed (after a late dinner at close to 1am!) I walked up to the roof and studied for a while the stars, which hung so low that if you had wished you could have reached up and caught one. 

We woke this morning at 6am and staggered outside, to be greeted by the rising sun over the dunes of the sahara, and 70 camels, complacently waiting for their riders. Mine was named hadu, and in the chilly morning air (I  mean really bitterly cold), I watched the desert slowly paint itself deeper shades of orange. It was like being in a story book, and I don't think I would have even stopped to marvel if I had spotted the gene's lamp embedded in the dunes. After awhile we dismounted our camels, and climbed up to the the ridge of one of the dunes.  The sand was soft and fine and while climbing it felt as if one was going backwards rather than forwards. Stepping and sinking, I would watch as the sand cascaded around me, disturbed by my weight. feeling myself slip I would quickly step again and watch in dismay as I again felt myself sinking and the sand carrying me down rather than encouraging me in my journey up. Finnaly at the top, Shivering under the rays of the still cold sun I beat boxed with a Berber, and tumbled down the sand dunes with ahuvah. Rolling head over heels faster and faster till the horizon and the desert blurred and you came to a swift stop, covered in sand with the dizzying peal of laughter surrounding you, till you could once more see straight enough to crawl back up the dune. At one  point one of the Berber man who had lead the camels grabbed my ankle and started pulling me down the mountain. Looking up he gave a wicked grin and very seriously told me " Berber ski!"

After (an ice cold) shower, we got on the jeeps to depart from the hotel. Our driver would pause to let all the other jeeps go, before stepping on his gas pedal and taking shortcuts through the sand and stone, expertly guiding us through the treacherous landscape, to overtake the other drivers. We of course arrived first. After the jeep ride I asked our driver his name and about his family, and job. It's amazing the ways people have of communicating without sharing a verbal language. Though neither of us could speak the others language I learned that his name was uttmon, he had 5 children and he worked for the hotel taking American, Spanish and Japanese tour groups. It's interesting how essential body language is and how though we come from entirely different cultures, certain signals of the hand or body are universal.
We are now on a six hour bus ride back from the sahara. After the jeeps we stopped briefly at rabbi abuchatzara's tomb and a Jewish cemetery which was up kept by the Moroccan government, and was visited by both Israeli and Muslim pilgrimage groups, as it is believed that through the zuchut of the rabbi ones prayers could reach god.  Soon lunch :)