snapshot of a famous place

SAHARA
1.
Sahara Desert Amazing...Wonderful Memories...
It's a great trip. Sahara Desert one of my dream place to visit. And now my drea
m came true. Excited while turban created by them on our heads.
Fantastic! Camel trekking and experience walking in the dunes which we will neve
r forget. Really was amazing to see beautiful sunset and sunrise. At night watc
hing the stars like diamonds in the sky.
We spent one night at the oasis nomad camps. The atmosphere is very nice, quiet
and harmony. It was clean, comfortable and better than our expectation. That nig
ht we had a lovely dinner (the delicious Berber food and traditional morocco min
t tea). We enjoyed the beautiful traditional Berber music too which the guys ent
ertained us with after dinner. The night in the desert was really enjoyable.
Thank you Hassan, M'barek, Mohamed and Said...all of you were great! We will mis
s all of them very much.
Insha Allah, we'll come again.
2.
The Sahara: Facts, Climate
The Sahara is the world s largest hot desert and one of the harshest environments
on the planet. It is third largest desert overall after Antarctica and the Arcti
c, which are cold deserts.
At 3.6 million square miles (9.4 million square kilometers), the Sahara, which i
s Arabic for "The Great Desert," engulfs most of North Africa. The desert covers
large sections of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger
, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia.
The Sahara is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the western edge, the Atlas Moun
tains and the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Red Sea on the east, and the S
udan and the valley of the Niger River on the south. The Sahara is divided into
western Sahara, the central Hoggar (Ahaggar) Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, t
he Air Mountains, an area of desert mountains and high plateaus, Tnr desert and the
Libyan desert, which is the most arid region.
In the north, the Sahara reaches to the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt and portions
of Libya. In Cyrenaica and the Maghreb, the Sahara experiences a more Mediterran
ean climate with a winter rainy season.
Major cities located in the Sahara include Cairo, Egypt; Tripoli, Libya; Nouakch
ott, the capital of Mauritania; Tamanrasset, Ouargla, Bechar, Hassi Messaoud, Gh
ardaia, and El Oued in Algeria; Timbuktu in Mali; Agadez in Niger; and Faya-Larg
eau in Chad.
Climate and geography of the Sahara
The Sahara s northeasterly winds can reach hurricane level and often give rise to
sand storms and dust devils. Half of the Sahara receives less than an inch of ra
in per year, and the rest receives up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) per year. The

infrequent rain is usually torrential.

The highest peak in the Sahara is the volcano Emi Koussi (11,204 feet or 3,415 m
eters) in the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad. The desert s other mountains and
mountain ranges include the Ar Mountains, Hoggar (Ahaggar) Mountains, Saharan At
las, Tibesti Mountains, Adrar des Iforas and the Red Sea hills.
Many people imagine the Sahara as dotted with sand dunes, and the desert does ha
ve its share of ergs, which are large areas of shifting sand dunes, with some of
some of them reaching 590 feet (180 meters). However, most of the Sahara is cha
racterized as rocky hamada, a type of desert landscape that has very little sand
and is made up of primarily barren, hard, rocky plateaus.
With the exception of the Nile River, the Sahara s rivers and streams are irregula
r or seasonal. The Nile crosses the desert from its origins in central Africa to
empty into the Mediterranean.
The central part of the Sahara has extremely limited vegetation. The northern an
d southern reaches of the desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse
grassland and desert shrub, with trees and taller shrubs.
3.
In case you hadn t guessed by the parade of photos on my Facebook page, I have rec
ently been on another trip to Morocco. This time it was a 5 day adventure travel
ling down the country to the Sahara desert, organised by the Spanish travel comp
any aimed at international students that I went with last time: We Love Spain . It
felt surreal to be travelling by camel to see a beautiful sunset in the Sahara o
ver by the mountains of Algeria on the same evening that my family back home wer
e decorating the Christmas tree. A trip to the desert in December seems a far cr
y away from the cold gloomy weather, log fires and roast dinners that I usually
associate with this time of year. (Now currently writing this blog listening to
Christmas music in an eager attempt to feel Christmassy).
One main thing to note about this trip was the huge amount of travel unavoidable
, as Merzouga, our ultimate destination in the Sahara, is situated directly sout
h of Gibraltar near where we caught our ferry from in Spain. I think we calculat
ed that it was more than 30 hours travel by bus altogether on the trip! It was a
bsolutely worth it though. One great advantage of all the travelling was that we
could stop off and visit the famous city Fes on the second day of the trip, as
well as lots of other interesting places central to Morocco s rich and diverse cul
ture.
Fes was our first notable destination. We were able to spend the best part of a
day in this city before moving on down to Merzouga that night, crossing through
the Atlas Mountains. Our first visit in Fes was to the royal palace, where we st
ood and marvelled in front of the gates, which have only been opened on several
important occasions and are strictly closed to the public.
From there, we were driven up to one of the two fortresses from where we had a b
eautiful panoramic view of the Medina , meaning old city . In Fez s Medina there are ove
r 9000 streets, 80% of which don t have names and 700 are dead ends. This of cours
e, means that it is very easy to get lost, and we probably would have done if we
didn t have a local guide with us. At the fortress we were able to see the other
one just across the city on the other side, and we were told that there is an un
derground passage between the two beneath the Medina which is 500m deep and 3km
long. I thought it would make a great setting for a Dr. Who episode personally!

From there, we then visited a traditional ceramics factory where we discovered t

he art and tradition of Moroccan pottery making. We saw workers sculpting the cl
ay pots, painting intricate designs and shaping tiny painted ceramic pieces into
great mosaic artworks.
Once we were inside the Medina, we had a walking tour, where we could soak up th
e busy market atmosphere.
One of the highlights was the visit to the oldest University in the world (I nev
er knew it was in Fez either!) which was founded in 859 BC, surprisingly enough,
by a woman. It was beautifully decorated in true Arabic style. I could really a
ppreciate the similarities between the architecture here and the Moorish buildin
gs in Andalucia. This university, named Al-Qarawiyyin, initially taught astronom
y and theology and was where numbers originated, which were then translated over
to the Western world in the 12th century.
On our travels to Merzouga that evening, we stopped off in a place called Ifrane
, which is known as the mini Switzerland of Morocco and looked nothing like anywhe
re I had seen before in Africa. It is very westernized and looks a bit like New En
gland, with its big houses with tall sloping roofs. It was here that I saw my ve
ry first stork nesting on top of a chimney! It was also at this stage of the tri
p, when I was buying a postcard that I began to be very confused with what langu
age to speak. Arabic, French, English, Spanish; you couldn t ever get it right! I
ended up speaking Spanglish most of the trip, with a bonjour every so often thrown
in for good measure.
After this hideous 8 hour journey, we eventually arrived in the land of the dese
rt! The next day we visited the small town of Rissani where we had special entra
nce into the mausoleum, beautifully decorated as is the Arabic style, and the lo
cal market where I ended up with an impulse purchase of an oversized woven jacke
t much to my surprise. However, it turned out to be a lifesaver in the cold nigh
t we spent in the desert.
The company had then hired out large 44 jeeps to take us into the desert. Now thi
s was what we d all been waiting for! Feeling like we were part of a car advert, t
he jeeps all lined up to race each-other once we had driven into the open sandy
plains. Our driver was, disappointingly, very sensible and although we nearly go
t lost at one point, he did turn out to save the day by helping out another jeep
that got stuck at the top of a dune. Whilst on our desert safari, we spotted a
few stray camels wandering around, as well as some curious clusters of houses an
d tents belonging to nomads.

Later on that afternoon, the whole group (about 90 of us) mounted camels and we
all rode off to our camp in the middle of the desert somewhere. The journey was
around 1.5 hours and so when I got off, I was definitely hobbling a bit! We arri
ved just in time for the beautiful sunset over the dunes where I got some great
pictures.
The evening in the tents was very very cold, but a fantastic experience. It was
amazing to see the night sky, and with no light pollution, we could even see the
lights of the galaxy. We spent a lot of time that evening just gazing up into t
he sky and talking about aliens and spaceships
we were even lucky enough to see
a shooting star. Our camp had a big bonfire which we sat around, and watched loc
al tribal dances performed for us, before we were served a dinner of Moroccan ta
gine.

After surviving the night, we rose early enough to see the sunrise before gettin
g back on our camels to a hotel for breakfast before setting off for a 2 day jou
rney back to Spain. It was a truly great trip, and one I won t forget in a hurry.
It provided a spectacular end to a busy first semester of travels while I ve been
on my year abroad. I m currently in my last week at Uni now before I go back home
for Christmas not before a cheeky visit to Paris next weekend though!