10 years of my life or Spring Break the first half

To put it simply my Spring Break a few weeks ago lasted all of one week but in reality felt as if 10 years of my life had passed. Really it was an indescribable experience that in no way can be accurately described in a blog post. But you know, i'll try my best.

The first part of Spring Break I went to the Sahara desert to ride on camels and camp in the desert for 3 nights. It is the craziest, sandiest, wildest, free-est, dirtiest, most epic thing I think I have ever done. We hopped on top of our camels at 4 Saturday evening and rode, bumpily, into the never-ending dunes of the Sahara.

Well it turns out they did end somewhere and we got to that point. The dunes ended but the desert went on, in fact right up to the Algerian border. We "hopped" off our camels here and ran around the dunes until sunset. The rest of the night we spent with our wonderful guides whom we become best friends with instantly. Mustapha is a fun loving desert nomad who is also a rock star, but actually, he plays in a desert blues band. Ahmid didn't speak much english but made delicious tagines in the middle of the desert, had the biggest smile always on his face and ran around participating in all our shenanigans. So the first night at camp we drank tea and sang songs. Then we sat under the stars by a campfire telling jokes and listening to some awesome desert blues music.

It was perfect. The next morning we awoke to Mustapha's clapping at 5 am so we could watch the sun rise over Algeria. Later we trekked on the camels for a few hours, at this point starting to get sore. Our camels all had nicknames some that we gave others than they already had, mine was affectionately named Rex (my doing) Bob Marley (Mustapha's doing no doubt). Midday we stopped laid out some blankets and stayed for 4 hours! Now I'm not exactly sure all we did, it seems this starts to happen in the desert. I do know this is when we started to go insane! We ate lunch, drank tea, wandered, drummed, sunbathed, napped, sang for at least an hour straight every song we could think of, made capes, flew like super-hero's, wrapped ourselves in turbans, and various other insane-like activities.

Then we continued on to a Berber village. We walked this time leading our camels. We passed a wild camel and her baby on the way. The baby camel was as is any baby thing, the cutest thing ever!

The Berber village had about 5 homes all made of dried mud, as all buildings in the area are. We stayed in a small room of one. It was an active neighborhood. Little children running around playing, goats and chickens, women carrying clothing and food in and out, clotheslines swinging in the wind, all on barren windswept land of the Saharan desert. For dinner we had a delicious huge bowl of cous cous and then told jokes, taught Mustapha english, enjoyed Ahmid's drawings, and played with candle wax until we slept. The next day was spent at the Berber village. We ate Berber pizza which is kind of like a huge calzone filled with delicious vegetables.

Then we went a long walk across the desert to find the camels which wander at night. We wore Mustapha and Ahmid's wool djellabas and collected rocks, climbed a tree, and had plenty of fake karate fights.

We left and trekked back to the sand dunes. We left our camels close to camp to be taken back by Ahmid and instead headed to the Oasis with Mustapha. I can now clearly say that we were in the depths of insanity. It was at this point that I began to feel like I had no other life besides the desert, I had been born there, and possibly raised by a pack of wild camels. We made our way to the Oasis where we met our friend Becca and her sister who had just embarked on their desert journey.

There was clearly a divide when we realized they could still carry on a normal conversation and we were reduced to giggles and mindless jokes. We soon ran off headed for camp. We ran up sand dunes and jumped down the other side. We experienced Berber skiing also known as Mustapha grabbing your legs and pulling you down the side of the sand dune full speed ahead. We made it back to camp and spend the night much like the others except our tiny room was crammed with twice the people. We sang songs, drummed, took pictures, laughed (a lot), ate tagine, and surprise incident, Becca's sister's scarf caught on fire after she said, much to our amusement later, "Man it's hot in here". I'll spare you the details except to tell you that she and her scarf are fine. The night ended with us laying on blankets under the most incredible night sky of my life listening to Mustpha's beautiful desert blues. Perfection.

The next morning was not as perfect. We woke up at 5 am to a cold morning and unhappily (and quite uncomfortably) got on our camels one last time. The ride was a mixture of terrible and wonderful. For one, my butt was extremely sore from 3 days of bumpy camel rides and I had sand in delicate places, but I also got to see the Sahara desert transform from a dark magical starry night to a beautiful morning sunrise. Quite a magical experience.

Back at the hotel we ate breakfast, used a toiled (big deal!), took showers, and headed to our early morning bus. I found that I was sad to leave and say goodbye to our new friends, Mustapha and Ahmid, and to the Sahara desert that had stolen our hearts and possible our sanity (in a good way). But alas we boarded a bus en route to our next destination of Ouarzazate....