Bobbe's trip to Morocco, part 8: the Sahara Desert

Here is the eighth part of Bobbe's report on her trip to Morocco.

From Marrakech, I headed out on a long expedition into the Sahara Desert. The Sahara is the largest desert in the world. It stretches all the way from Morocco and Mauritania near the Atlantic Ocean to Egypt and Sudan on the east side of Africa. Along the way, it contains some of the driest, hottest, most barren, most inhospitable places in the entire world. But the desert is also a really beautiful place.

In order to get to the desert, I first had to drive over the Atlas Mountains. The mountains shield the desert by stopping the rain clouds as they come in from the ocean. The other side of the mountains experiences what is called a "rain shadow effect," which keeps it very, very dry. Those of you reading this blog post in Washington state will recognize that the same effect happens when the Cascade Mountains prevent rain clouds from going into Eastern Washington.

Here I am high up in the Atlas Mountains heading east to the desert.

The first place I visited in the desert was a little town called Aït Benhaddou. Aït Benhaddou is a fortified city built on a hill. This kind of city is known as a "kasbah." It used to be a stop for traders who were crossing the desert. Because the area around it is so hot and dry, the city was built out of mud bricks. These old houses are damaged every time it rains, which only happens a few days a year, so the houses are in continual need of repair. Because the old houses are very beautiful, Aït Benhaddou has been used as a setting for many films, including Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, and Prince of Persia. In fact, many of the people in Aït Benhaddou have pictures of Russell Crowe on their walls because he was so friendly while he was there filming Gladiator.

This is a view of Aït Benhaddou across the very dry valley of the Ounila River.

Here I am looking down into the courtyard of a traditional house.

Here I am sitting on the very hot wall of a house in Aït Benhaddou.

This is the view from high up the kasbah looking out over the rest of the city.

Here I am with Ali, the local guide who showed me around Aït Benhaddou.

After my visit to Aït Benhaddou, I headed off to another desert city, Ouarzazate. Ouarzazate is much larger than Aït Benhaddou. That's because when the French colonized Morocco, they made the small trading town of Ouarzazate into the base for the garrison that kept order in the Sahara area. Ouarzazate is known for having an especially big kasbah. Like Aït Benhaddou nearby, Ouarzazate has been in lots of films, including Lawrence of Arabia.

Behind me is the main part of the Ouarzazate kasbah.

I sit on a stump outside the Ouarzazate kasbah.

Here I am on a chariot prop outside Ouarzazate's film museum.

After Ouarzazate, I headed out even further into the Sahara Desert, to the sand dunes near the town of Zagora. Zagora is very close to Algeria. The only effective way to get around on the sand dunes is to do what traders have been doing to cross the Sahara for many centuries: ride on a camel.

I get ready to ride on a camel.

Having arrived at our destination, the camels are resting.

Look how patiently they sit in a line.

Riding a camel takes a lot of practice. It's a bumpy ride, and for the first part of it I worried that I would fall off. Eventually, though, I settled into the rhythm and really enjoyed it.

The camel took me to a campsite way out in the desert. All the tents were set up around a fire, where I had very sweet tea and danced with the Bedouins who run the camp. What a terrific way to see the Sahara!

Here is my campsite.

In the desert, people wake up very early. That's because you don't want to have to travel in the middle of the day, when the weather is at it hottest. But waking up early also means that you get to watch the beautiful sunrise over the desert.

The sun rises over the Sahara Desert.

What a beautiful place!

--Bobbe