After another excellent day yesterday I wake up to the advised by Brownie that she got up for sunrise at 5.45am but in fact all she got to see was the moon setting😂😂 Apparently, I’d advised her last night that the sun would rise at 5.45am when in actual fact it didn’t rise until an hour later – whoops!! Mumbling apologies I slope of for a shower and join the group breakfast. We take one last look at the towering sea of sand and load up our overnight bags into the 4WDs. We leave camp for a 3-4 hour drive across the desert bound for the oasis town of Foum Zguid.
En route, we stop at a Berber nomad tent for a cup of sweet mint tea and a piece delicious Berber pizza cooked over an open fire. Another snapshot of the realities of life in the desert.
We reboard our 4WDs and drive closer to the surrounding hills, there’s still absolutely no sign of any permanent civilisation. One of our group makes reference to the film Ice Cold in Alex – ask your parents if you’re under 50 – and this is exactly how our drive this morning feels. It’s hot and dusty and the landscape goes on forever.
After around 45 minutes the jeeps pull to a halt at the base of a small hill. Omar informs us we going to hunt for fossils. Those of you that have read my previous entry about the fossils we saw outside Erfoud will remember that at one time millions of years ago the Sahara was under water and as a result Morocco is a vast repository of fossils and minerals. We exit the jeeps and begin a walk amongst the rocks and before long we’re discovering fossils in all directions. It’s mad and we gleefully walk amongst the rocks like small children it’s a real delight to see such an enormous abundance of fossilised prehistoric life.
Our final stop before returning to civilisation is a dry lake bed that is absolutely vast. The desert makes you do crazy things! We’ve loved our time here and the drives have really made the experience worthwhile.
Another hour and we finally see civilisation and we exit the jeeps at Foum Zguid, where we sit down for a great alfresco lunch of salad, Berber omelette, chicken skewers and fruit.
Fed and watered we reboard our bus and greet and start our journey to Tata, our destination for this afternoon. En-route we stop at Tissinnt, for a walk along the waterfalls, that are not quite as spectacular as I’d envisaged in my head. It was however a nice opportunity for a walk.
We arrive at our final destination Tata and the sun is boiling overhead. We actually get a chance to spend a couple of hours lounging by the pool something that has only happened once on this trip so far. It’s fab to have some downtime and a cooling swim. We have a lovely alfresco dinner at the hotel and return to our room to repack as guess what we’re on the road again.
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