Morocco Moments #7: Camels, Deserts and Desserts

Subject: #7: Camels, Deserts and Desserts

Date: Monday, 14 July 2025 at 10:17 AM

Hello,

—11am

This might just be my last news letter… because I’ll be en route home Sunday next week. So I want it to be good, but frankly, I don’t feel much like writing right now.

Struggling to write about the events that have happened, I will write about right now. 

I am sitting in a van, 3 hours into the LONG return drive from the Merzuga desert where I spent the past night. I am a bit cramped, trying to write on my laptop and sitting next to Kate, while outside we drive past countless rural towns and cities; the buildings are all orange, the ground is orange, and they are framed by orange rocky mountains. There is also green speckled throughout; bright green in the doors of the buildings, sage green in the olive trees, and the date palms that rise up in groves, out of nowhere… like social housing developments.

— 9:20pm 

And now I’m back :)

Sticking to routine,  you guessed it, I’m on a train! Finally on the last leg of my massive Sunday that began at 5:40am in the Sahara desert and ends hopefully when I arrive back in Rabat around 2am.

Merzuga Desert Trip

I wish I could just share my mind to make you understand my thoughts and experiences from this weekend but I can’t so I’m just going to have to cherry pick the parts to share. 

For starters, this time in Marrakech was actually a lot better and I enjoyed it. People say it is a city you have to see and feel, because its charm lies in its vibe, and once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. I feel this pretty much encapsulates it… Hectic and beautiful, all of Morocco is characterised by a sort of flow and connection between all of the people. A deep found understanding about how to act and move and maybe I feel that because it is so different to home, but it just makes so much sense. There is a distinct energy, and it feels alive. 

The tour this weekend involved over 20 hours of driving across the Atlas Mountains and though the desert. Beginning Friday morning at 7am, the first day involved a tour of Ksar Ait Ben Haddou, a UNESCO castles/town, then we slept in a massive hotel in a city called Tinghir. The next day involved a tour through an oasis garden and a gorge near the city then onward to Merzouga, a town in the Sahara desert. The town is famous for Erg Chebbi, these massive sand dunes that are like perfect 'desert'. 

I saw so many varied landscapes and places that were so scorching hot and arid that I can’t believe that they sustain any life at all, yet there were towns, even cities, scattered throughout and the evidence of centuries of habitation lies in the old mud buildings and castles, speaking to traditions and a way of life that I know so little about that I cannot comprehend it. All of this sustained by oasis, the patches of green in the otherwise orange landscape. JUST WOW. And we’re not even in the desert. 

So we arrived at the desert on Saturday afternoon and lay around until evening to embarked on a camel journey into the dunes for sunset. We slept and ate at a camp on the edge of the desert, then went for another camel ride at dawn before returning to the van and driving all the way back to Marrakech. The whole journey made me think about how I like to travel and experience things, because it was just a tour that follows an established route, with so little variance, probably each day. It was great value for money, but I do have some qualms because it was all just touristy, and yes, I am a tourist, but I have also lived here for 2 months and.. I just don't like being considered a tourist and doing touristy tourist things.  

This was a shared sentiment by Kate, Mitchell and I. We got around the whole, lunches not included but they take you to an expensive establishment with all the other tour groups doing the exact same thing as you, by leaving and finding other random places to eat at instead. Given the stops were often in the middle of a highway it was sometimes difficult, and they felt like naughty little escapades — slipping the watch of our guide and fighting the establishment that I’m sure brought us to those tables. 

This whole experience made me realise that I like my rough way of travel: catching public transport, talking to locals, learning from unfavourable experiences and finding the greatest unexpected things as a result. It is so much harder to do things on your own, but so much more rewarding. On the other hand, this was so efficient and there is no way I could have got to the desert in 3 days if I didn't do this tour.

On the camel rides, I have a couple different thoughts… like beyond wow these animals are amazing (and beautifully ugly) and their shadows look so picturesque reflecting on that sand dune over there, I also thought, this is so silly, all of them walking in a line behind the camel guide, and, are these camels happy? What are they doing with their teeth when they gnash them? Basically what I am trying to say is that it was arguably very cool, aesthetic, and a once in a lifetime experience, and harder to argue but equally impressionable —  it left an unsavoury feeling in my stomach. 

The desert was amazing though! Late last night I walked barefoot through the sand dunes. The moon was shining so full and bright that it blocked out many stars, but it illuminated the dunes beautifully. The shadows and varying levels from the night were revealed in day-light as a never-ending expanse of fine orange sand, rising and falling like mountain ranges into the horizon. It was a real desert, like, exactly how it was meant to look. And alone at night I felt so free and in my feels. I’m sure you can understand. 

For fear of too much desert expansion in this newsletter, lets move onto some other prominent things from the past week.

Camels in Erg Chebbi, the sand dunes by Merzouga.

Sugar cane juice

It’s delicious! Tried it for the first time post hammam when I was all dehydrated and it was a sweet life changing nectar. As good as it is, I don't actually know what it is nor how to describe the flavour. I just know one of you all will mention something about having a sweet tooth. YES, I like sweet things!!!! But I am particular about them. 

Tea by the Lake

Another sweet thing was my tea escapade by the lake. I made Moroccan mint tea over a little fire by a lake North of Rabat. Making it was awesome, tasting it was… fine. Strong. Sweetening it myself made me realise how much sugar my host mum and cafés must put in it -- and it’s necessary. I don't think it is Moroccan tea if it’s not sweet.

Okay, 10:45pm now. Going to go through the photos and you’ll get this all tomorrow. I took a lot of videos so hopefully there’s another video incoming, only have to think of a poem or something to play alongside it.

And with my return to Rabat, my travels are basically over! 

See you soon for real, finally.

Love, 

Em 

Random fact: (I like to think my newsletters are very informative and have lots of random facts, and so decided to search about Camels myself) Camels live for 40-50 years, the single hump type found in North Africa is the Dromedary Camel and the hump stores fatty tissue that can be converted into energy when food is scarce. Also, they chew and gnash their teeth because they are ruminants and are chewing their cud.