Berbers and the Sahara

It's been awhile and much has happened since my last update. I will try to keep it brief... We spent one week hiking through the Atlas mountains from Berber village to village. It was a wonderful chance to experience the friendliness and hospitality of the Berber people. There was no way of any of them knowing that we were coming (especially with a group of 9 people) yet when we showed up it was only a matter of time before they had supper prepared and before that of course some tea or coffee to sip on. Some people had to recruit extra family help by bringing in their daughters that had moved out of the house when they got married. The food was always spectacular and the bread was fresh every day! Every single place was more than happy to put us up for the night, in fact as we were hiking between villages we passed by one where we didn't know anybody and were planning on going right through but someone on the side of the road stopped us and asked us where we were going and invited us back to his place. One person made us stay at his place a whole extra day because it was misty and cold outside and he didn't want us hiking in that weather. We got very fit through the week as most of the time we were hiking between 1500-2000m elevation. Some very beautiful sights which I will post pictures of later.

After this wonderful trip we arrived back to the hustle and bustle of Marrakech. We met up with a couple of our friends and then headed down to M'Hamid to spend some time in the Sahara desert and see Erg Chigaga, 300m high sand dunes. After a 12hr bus ride (on one of the local "chicken" buses that stops every 5min) we arrived in the dark. We got up early the next morning to watch the sunrise and then had breakfast. After that, camel riding!! Finally, I have waited so long to be able to do this... The saddles aren't quite the same as what we were used to back at home and after a couple of hours we were more than happy to get off. Then lunch and 4x4 ride out to the dunes. Jono finally gets his wish to ride on the top of a vehicle granted and we scoot along for 2hrs, stopping at a true oasis along the way. We get to the dunes just before sunset. Took billions of pictures of the gorgeous colours of the dunes, the sky, the sun, pretty much everything it was all so majestic. We took a run down the huge sand dune and barely managed to avoid faceplanting in the sand. Sat out underneath the stars for awhile (every now and then turning on the headlamp to flick the scarab beetles away, I don't think I am sleeping outside tonight...) and saw some shooting stars. Very cool and then head to the tents. Another 12hr ride the next day gets us back to Casablanca and we are here for one more full day and then we get on the plane for many moons of travel back to NZ. For those of you that have been following our travels so far, thank you, we appreciate it so much! I will be able to write more personal letters from now on hopefully. Look forward to catching up with you all soon!!