Rissani, Morocco - City to City Tour 048

I wasn't sure what to call this post. Originally I wanted to call it Sahara Desert, Morocco. But I looked it up and the Sahara covers 11 countries! So calling it Sahara wouldn't have been very specific. I'm calling it Rissani because that's the name of the town that we visited before our camel trip into the dunes.

My mom and I had spent the previous day taking a long drive to Hassilabied from Fez. We spent the night in a hotel on the very edge of the desert dunes. In the morning we had breakfast at the hotel, then went out for some sightseeing with our guide.

The first stop was pretty close to hotel. It was an orchard right next to the desert. I don't remember if the water was from a spring or a river. But it was kind of surprising to see an orchard next to the desert.

Next we went to a cultural center of some sort. They put on a little bit of a show and did some dancing. I guess it's cool to remember the old tribal culture, but I'm not really into performances like that. I'd rather watch people doing their business in town than see a staged performance. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it, so it was probably pretty cool.

The road had a camel crossing sign. In Germany they have tank speed limit signs. Here they have camel warnings.

This is our guide. His clothes were dope! I don't know what this type of garment is called, but our guide always had super cool designs on his.

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Next we went to Rissani to check out some markets. This town was probably my favorite part of the day. There was so much that was new and strange to me, I loved it.

This is the parking lot for the market! Everyone brings mules to carry their groceries and other purchases back home.

They also had a parking lot for cars, but I loved that the market had a huge donkey parking lot.

Inside the market, a lot of livestock was being sold. They had sheep, goats, and cows. I don't remember if they also had camels or if you had to go to a camel dealership if you wanted a new one.

Our guide took us to an herb shop that had lots of herbs, spices, and teas.

They sat us down with some other tourists and served us samples of various things.

After the market our guide took us to the house of a relative. It might have been the house he grew up in. I can't remember now. We had some refreshing peppermint tea and a snack.

The snack was this bread, pizza-like thing. I can't for the life of me remember what was in it. It looks like there are vegetables baked into it, but it could have been sweet with fruit baked in. I do remember enjoying it.

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Near the end of the day, it was time to mount up and ride into the desert.

The dunes were fantastic and well worth the price of admission. The camels, not so much. Camels are ill-tempered beasts and I'm pretty sure that none of the locals ride them except as a joke during festivals. Camel riding seems to be something that only tourists do. They are not even remotely comfortable and after 10 minutes I would have preferred to walk.

All of the locals stayed on the ground. They had to guide the camels because camels are next to impossible to guide from their back. They're too stubborn to do anything. The guides have to pull them from the ground to coax them to move along.

The camel behind me kept trying to bite me.

Eventually we made it to the place where we would spend the night. The camel ride through the dunes felt like it took hours. It was nice to park our camels and get back on our own feet again.

We all had dinner together in a big tent. Then there was music and hanging out. My mom and I stayed in this tent. It was remarkably comfortable.

In the morning we met the camp cats and took some photos of the dunes at sunrise.

Some of the people climbed the big dune to get photos of the sunrise, but I was feeling too lazy for it. I took photos of them instead.

The camels stayed where we parked them. Part of me hoped that they would run away during the night. Before too long, we mounted back up and rode the camels back to the hotel.

We returned to the hotel and picked up our bags. Then we rejoined our guide and drove to a new destination.

I like to complain about the camels, but I really enjoyed this adventure. The camels were uncomfortable and rude, but it wasn't unbearable. Spending the night in the desert was incredible. I've never seen so many stars in my entire life. At first I thought the night sky was cloudy, but it was just the clouds of the Milky way. The sky was clear but the billions and billions of stars looked cloudy. I desperately wished I had a better camera. Then again, I'm glad I didn't ruin an expensive camera with sand.

Next up, my mom and I traveled through the Atlas Mountains towards Casablanca. I hope you'll join me tomorrow for the next installment of the City to City Tour!