desert reflections... and camel qualms.

on our last day in the oasis, we rose before dawn for a 4am trip to merzouga, at the edge of the sahara, along the border with algeria. we traveled off-road to the desert in the cool darkness, fantasizing that we were part of a u.n. special convoy while our driver sped a little crazier and faster than he would ever be allowed to at home. i sat shotgun, arm hanging out the open window, watching brush and rocks go by through a fuzzy haze of pre-dawn sleepiness mixed with childish excitement. the ride was kind of like being inside a video game or, rather, watching your big brother play recklessly for hours and wanting to take over the controller.

the whole adventure was a little self-mocking, overall. first-off, visiting the desert might be the single-handed most touristy activity - every foreigner keeps that orientalist desert fantasy someplace locked inside (some of us deeper than others), and most jump on the opportunity to live it out. secondly, the kind of tourism that the desert brings about is not the nicest - it seems that the drivers and guides we interacted with were used to dealing with all sorts of unpleasant foreigners and, thus, i felt a little less human (and a little more like a soulless source of cash money) in their hands. it was a very different experience from the touring we had done in the tafilalt oasis the day before - visiting a very welcoming sufi lodge, touring a small village madrassa and social center, walking through rural villages of the oasis (where we made lots of young , curious friends!) to explore new and old irrigation technologies, and wandering in ruins (which i'll post about soon!).


the silliest thing about our sunrise desert adventure? camels. it took a lot of thought, inner struggle, and debate to get me on a camel. my reservations were complicated, and my apprehension along the lines of not wanting to perpetuate the damaging orientalist fantasy that all too easily collapses culture in this part of the world. being a naturalist at heart, to me it's one thing to visit the desert in the glorious early morning (i was taken by the startling red-orange color of saharan sand, for example)... and quite another to call on stereotyped notions of what being in the desert means, needlessly employing a camel (well, 13 camels and about 16 guides in our case) for a 1km trek, just to feel like you're lawrence of arabia.
....like i said, complicated.

but, in the end, my friends convinced me to let go a little, realize that this was probably the only time i would ever have the experience, and hop aboard. (to be honest, i think "sunrise over algeria" was the thing that got me -- and was well-worth it.) will i ever ride a camel again? not unless i need to actually cross a desert (it's actually not a totally pleasant experience - camels smell really bad, poop a lot, make scary grunting noises, and really hurt your butt to ride). so check that off my list.