Ships of the Desert | Life of Saturdays

CHAPTER 21

There comes a day in every man’s life when he fulfills his dream of riding a camel in the Sahara. And for me, it was this day. We jumped in our trusty Dusty, and hit off south from Rich, bound for the exotic sounding Merzouga, which sits on the very shore of the vast sea of sand that covers most of North Africa.

Being the planner, navigator, and driver, I was able to slyly sneak in a stop for a little hunting in the Rissani fossil fields. The place is utterly barren now, so barren in fact that I subsequently learned it is where Mars rovers are tested, but 400 million years ago in the Devonian, it was a briny tropical sea, lush with all sorts of amazing creatures, the luckiest of which now sit on my shelf, proud as statues.

Continuing on to Merzouga, our dromedary adventure began. It was a little cheesy I have to say, being guided along in a camel train like a some $1 ride at the county fair- but hey, we were in the Sahara after all, and those were real Berbers living in their real tents that we walked by, and I don’t care what you say, I think camels are great wherever you ride them- its like a lazyboy on stilts. Though this little outing didn’t quite satiate my visions of Lawrence of Arabia, I did enjoy it a lot (as evidence by the excessive number of photos I took, sorry), and in my mind it just leaves the door wide open for some bigger, grander, one humped adventure in the future, say Tripoli to Timbuktu?

*Note: Photos with a “JR” suffix are credited to J^2

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