There is no doubt about it, we love the desert. And being true desert freaks, we are the happiest when we are far off the beaten track in a wild desert environment.

Previous travels had led us through the great deserts of the Gobi and Taklamakan in China, the Lut and Kavir Deserts of Iran and the Kyzylkum and Karakum Deserts of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Even the mountainous lands of northern Pakistan were extremely arid. We were in search of another mighty desert and the African Sahara had been calling.

After a good night's sleep we felt a lot more rested. Alan's back and ribs were still causing him considerable pain but he decided that he would keep going with our off road travels through the Sahara. After all, as he said we had come all this way to mainly see another great desert and nothing would stop him now. And one of the journeys we had been really looking forward to was the trip the following day to the remote desert site of Ouzina, right on the Algerian border.

As we drove through the dusty streets of the Merzouga village, we were surprised at how oriented the village and surrounds were for tourism. Signage advertising camping sites, hotels, camel rides and desert treks were everywhere. Merzouga shops sold masses of tourist items and the ubiquitous Moroccan Shesh - or Touareg* turban.

Mohamed seemed to have an inbuilt sat nav device in his head. We marveled at the way he would just drive off road across the desert dunes to a particular location with no roads or even pistes to follow. When we asked him how he found his way around, he just laughed and said "<i>It's all in my head</i>!", confirming our not-very-scientific biological sat nav theory.

The diversity of the geology and landscapes within a very small area of desert was mind boggling. One minute we would be driving across flat dry salt pans, another through extensive gibber plains, then we would be in black hammada gravel, then sand layered with gleaming brilliant blue desert stones and then back to crescent shaped red sand dunes.

A flurry of dusty sand and the excited cries of children caught our attention. Down the steepest red sand dunes ran two young boys, each clutching what looked like sandy coloured kittens. On closer inspection, they were not kittens but two of the loveliest baby Desert Fox cubs. The entrepreneurial young boys were from a local village and obviously established a small business in having their photos taken with the cubs - although interestingly, they never actually asked for money.

We have had a long association with foxes back home in Australia and are particularly fond of these much maligned animals. We were worried about the cubs. They were extremely young, still with their with baby fur and cute little button noses, and we were concerned as to whether they could feed themselves. We were also a bit disturbed about keeping such wild animals as captives. Mohamed kindly offered to drive to the local village to see if he could buy them - that is the fox cubs, not the kids - some food.

Meanwhile, we were left with the boys and the cubs. We were relieved and delighted when the the cubs were able to run around freely on the ground. They obviously thought the boys were their mothers and galloped madly after them, leaping into the air and playing with each other. It was quite a spectacle. Despite our concerns, I must say that the children seemed very fond of the fox cubs too - and they were extremely gentle with them.

True to form, we both nursed the cubs, mine of course licking me before giving me a playful but really sharp nip on my face. Really, I thought. We are simply mad - these cubs could well be rabid.. Well, a bit late now I guessed.

Some half an hour later Mohamed appeared in a cloud of dust on the
desert horizon, reminding me of a comical version of Lawrence of Arabia but in his ageing black Toyota four wheel drive. We laughed - Mohamed's shopping comprised two large tins of sardines which he carefully placed on some paper for the cubs. Well, one thing was good. They were not too hungry and were very half pawed about their food. Then again, how often does a fox find a tin of sardines in the Sahara?

A car with tourists drove up and had their photos taken too. These guys are doing well I thought, although once again, and confirmed by Mohamed - they did not ask for money. We gave the boys what Mohamed thought was appropriate and said our farewells. They were gorgeous kids and we wished them and the beautiful cubs well. It was a lovely experience.

After our rather spontaneous meeting with our fox friends, Mohamed obviously thought we were in need of some real tourist therapy.  A local group of Gnaoua musicians were about to perform a concert - and we just happened to be there on time. The artists, Mohamed explained were a group of refugees from Mali who were trying hard to make a living from their music. We had no choice, we were going to attend.

The Gnaoua people are an ethnic tribe originating in the ancient Ghana Empire of Ouagadougou - or the present day Sahara areas of Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia and Mali. Today, the Gnaoua are part of the Islamic Sufi order. The Gnaoua music refers to the practice of healing rituals through hypnotic trance music, singing and hand clapping. Today, Gnaoua music has become very popular with international musicians.

I was more interested in the musicians than the music. They were a truly beautiful looking people; oval faces with very little facial hair, long slender limbs and fantastic smooth chocolate skin. Their music and dancing was rather hypnotic, slow and rhythmic with a steady thumping African beat. Like all tourist performances, the audience was invited to dance with the musicians. At least Alan had the excuse of his broken ribs to refuse but things were looking grim for me, when out of the blue a group of Afro American tourists entered the tent. Unlike us, they seemed more than delighted to dance and - unlike us - these extroverted women really knew how to dance! Phew, saved in the knicker of time, I quickly bought a CD and we departed the tent.

Small irrigated communal farm plots surrounded the village. Mohamed explained one plot of land was allocated by the government per family who in turn must share their produce with the village. Apparently the Mali refugees also contributed to the village wealth. We were pleased to hear that such a simple socialistic system worked for these people as from what we had observed, the dominating industry in this remote desert region was tourism. The people lived simply but at least they looked happy and well fed. We guessed this was the village from where our young fox friends came. There was even had a rudimentary Internet Cafe.

Mohamed turned off the village road, plunging our car into the gravel desert. We were now totally off road, with no trails or pistes to follow. The sun was right overhead, making it impossible - at least for us - to gain our bearings as to what direction in which we were travelling. Thank god for Mohamed's inbuilt sat nav, I thought. Slight groans and moans emanated from the back seat passenger as Mohamed swerved to avoid ravines and dried up river beds. Sometimes, they were unable to be avoided and the car seemed to literally take off on all fours, before landing with a spine jarring crash. It must have been murder for Alan but he didn't complain and he sure wasn't going to get any sympathy from Mohamed.

This was now real desert with no four wheel drive tourist cars or motor bikes in sight. The occasional nomad tent with their donkeys and camels intercepted the long stretches of wild flat nothingness. An artist's palette of colours, the desert changed from red to beige to white to blue gravel, and then to clay pans before finally we reached what we called The Blue Desert. A platinum African sun reflected a brilliant azure from the gravel. Even when we stopped to look more closely, the individual stones glowed violet, silver and gold. The gravel it seemed did not support any vegetation at all. What the nomads' animals ate, we had no idea.

Mohamed's passion for the desert need not have been infectious. We were truly in our element. The desert changed to sand and a few lonely flat topped Desert Tamarisks dotted the landscape. So this is what Africa looks like, I thought. Yes, it was as truly beautiful as I had hoped. Alan, despite his acute discomfort, was feeling the same. It was a euphoric experience and one I will never forget. This is what we had wanted so badly wanted to see and to experience - the essence of the real Sahara Desert.

We stopped to take a walk and to our surprise were greeted by literally thousands of fossils - in fact as far as the eye could see - and just sitting exposed in the desert sands. Some of the fossils were embedded in large slabs of rock, others in tiny stones. We must have spent well over an hour just fossicking around. Mohamed appeared to be enjoying himself too. Each on our own, we were all completely absorbed with exploring the fossils.

A turbaned, thin gnarled man approached us on a rickety bicycle. He was selling fossils and wanted to show us his collection. We felt sorry for him. What a desperate way to try to make a living. We apologised but we were well and truly "bought out".

We enjoyed another lunch at Erfoud at Mohamed's friends' Cafe Restaurant du Sud. They made a great tuna salad which we enjoyed very much, as did the cafe cats who surrounded us at our table. Our visit to Erfoud also allowed us to complete the paperwork and collect the fossils we had bought the day before. We were somewhat surprised that we had to post them ourselves from the FEDEX office in Marrakesh. Mohamed was not pleased either. It was sounding like the process could be onerous.

A desert dust storm was brewing. In the distance, the sky had turned to a threatening black-brown. We were on our way to the famous Erg Chebbi, where the shifting sand dunes can reach a height of 150 meters and span an area of between 10 to 20 kilometers from east to west, running parallel to the Algerian border. The Erg Chebbi is one of Morocco's two large seas of massive dunes - or ergs - formed by wind blown sands.

Legend says that the Erg Chebbi sand dunes were sent by God as punishment to a wealthy family who turned away a begging poor woman and her son. And according to the legend, God buried the wealthy family under the dunes. It was a pretty permanent punishment but I guess the family would not be unkind again to poor travellers.

Our reading of Erg Chebbi sounded romantic, if a bit touristy. A great place to see the desert and to perhaps camp and sleep under the magic desert stars. Thankfully, we weren't camping but Mohamed assured me this was where I would be able to have my camel ride, which pleased me greatly - and did absolutely nothing for Alan.

We should have known. After experiencing the very best of tourism that morning, we were to experience the very worst that afternoon. It was that Ill Wind again...

As we drove through the sand storm to Erg Chebbi, our visibility was reduced to no more than 100 meters. Our car was buffeted by the howling winds and the fierce blasting sand, making it almost impossible for Mohamed to navigate his way across the desert.


To our dismay, we were not the only people at Erg Chebbi, a kasbah like resort with rows and rows of tents located at the base of some massive dunes. What seemed like hundreds of coaches and four-wheel drive vehicles descended on the resort, unloading masses of stumbling tourists who battled their way through the ferocious winds and sands and into a large brick kasbah building, next to which a number of men were trying vainly to erect even more tents. In the fading dusty distance a brave team of tourists embarked on a camel ride into the sand swept desert. Our hearts sank. Apart from the obvious storm and lack of any vision, this place looked like a frigg'n nightmare. And it was.

'<i>I'll meet you later</i>" said Mohamed, his voice fading in the gale force wind. And like the other tourists we stumbled as best we could against the blinding sand and wind and into the enormous tavern of the kasbah building. By then our vision was down to just meters, probably as Alan quite rightly said, because you couldn't open your fxxxx eyes because of the sand! We had no idea what we were supposed to see - or do for that matter. We had fully expected Mohamed to join us but he didn't.

Waiters dressed as Touaregs with elaborate brilliant blue shess fussed around the tour groups, handing them coffee and biscuits while we were once again unable to be served. It wasn't however all so terrible for us. The tourists provided great entertainment. In a way, we felt really sorry for them. A lot were a fair age - but then again, so were we. Mostly French, many looked unfit and a lot were grossly overweight. A considerable number appeared to be quite infirm; one woman was even wheelchair bound. And they all looked simply exhausted. We could imagine they had been carted around for days of sightseeing in their coach and now the poor creatures had to camp here in the wretched conditions of a sand storm.

Most of the tourists had to suffer the indignity of wearing a shess. Some had them wrapped around their faces while others had them wrapped around their stomachs. A hugely obese man with a bum bag hanging beneath his exposed large belly, wore his shess sideways. If it hadn't been so tragic, it would have been quite hilarious.


An attractive young tall blonde woman with Elle McPherson hair, caught our eye. Dressed in the skimpiest tank top and the briefest skin tight pink shorts she had sidled up to one of the more attractive young waiters and asked him to tie her shess. The poor incredulous young man, his eyes standing out like stalks staring at her bare long legs, looked like he was about to faint while the young woman just pressed herself closer to him. All tourists are advised to dress modestly in Islamic countries but we continued to be amazed as to what European tourists wore in Morocco. Perhaps we had spent too much time in Pakistan and the Middle East where not covering your head, let alone dressing immodestly could put you in a very difficult situation with authorities.

Amongst the commotion, grot and grime of the some 300 people jammed into the kasbah resort, a tour leader stood on a chair with a large hailer and screamed "<i>Tour One, Tour One!! As promised, we are providing you with your water and it is now here for you to collect. Remember, only take one bottle. If you take more than one, then someone else will go without. Is that clear</i>?". OMG!.......

We waited for Mohamed for nearly an hour watching this charade when Alan suddenly exploded. "<i>GET ME OUT OF THIS FRIGG"N PLACE</i>!!!" he thundered before storming off to see if he could find Mohamed. Thankfully, he did find Mohamed sitting in his car. I have no idea what we were expected to do or see but it didn't matter. And bugger the camel ride in these conditions. We were soon flying off across the desert and back to our Tamlalt Maison D'Hote hotel in Merzouga. It was suddenly looking like the Ritz Carlton.

We had a lovely evening. Our meal of soup and brochettes was excellent and our couple of  whiskeys were very very much appreciated. And Mohamed seemed to enjoy gurgling away on his own with his hookah. There was no one else at our hotel. Ahh, bliss... I do think however, a lot of the beauty of our evening was merely a matter of comparison....


*<i>The Touareg people (pronounced Twarr-egg) - often referred to as "The Blue Arabs" because of their characteristic indigo dyed turbans or shess and veils, are a branch of the Berber peoples. Most are nomadic pastoralists, living in the middle northern African countries of Niger, Mali, Burkino Faso, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco. They practice an Islamic faith mixed with traditional tribal beliefs. </i>