This Ain't Yo Mama's kind of Vacation!

While in Morocco, a friend of mine came over from Canada. Jeff arrived at the airport with literally 2 weeks of vacation and a list of things he wanted to do and places he wanted to go as long as Noah's packing list!

You name it, he wanted to do it! In the end, we decided to take the 3 Day Sahara Desert Expedition because we could cover more ground in a shorter period of time.

As you probably wouldn't expect, this is REALLY what most of the Sahara Desert looks like: flat, rocky and covered in plastic shopping bags. (There is an indian crying over this somewhere I am sure)


Over 3 days we covered a lot of terrain, packed into a minivan with nine other people. Our driver was a man of few words but we loved him regardless, come to think of it I don't even know if he told us his name, although we never asked so I can't really complain.

Our group included a funky French lady who had her twelve year old daughter in tow: Lydia et Diane

Three Japanese guys, Takeshi, Takanori, and Akihiro (though we think Takanori and Akihiro might have been a couple!)

Here is Takeshi and our accompanied Pole Krzysztof who snored like a camel...(see white t-shirt)

Megan and Delphine were a couple of cool chycks over from London, although Delphine was from France and Megan was from Toronto. No pics of them but that is reasonable considering Delphine wasn't too well the first 2 days of our 3 day journey!


And of course Jeff...



and myself...


In all we had a great time, and saw all manner of landscape in 3 days, albeit from the inside of a bus!


over the mountains...


past old desert fortresses...


through green valleys...


We basically agreed it was the smartest way to travel we could have gone!

All in all, a 5 out of 5!
Except for the Camel snoring Pole!

I'd like to thank the academy...

I had great plans of what I would write for this blog, my fiftieth. Now that I sit in front of my computer, I am at a loss. Should I make this into a great celebration of blogging, write a grandiose speech, or just put lots of pictures?!?!

The easy answer is, 'D - all of the above'!

I would like to thank everyone who reads this; without you I wouldn't be writing it. Blogging has been a great outlet for me and my writing has improved immensely. I had forgotten how much I love it.

Back in Canada, I am currently helping my parents move house but I have tonnes of stories and pictures to share of my travels through Morocco and Europe. And so, to jump start the blog back into life, I'll begin with my favourite pictures from the sand dunes of the Sahara Desert where we spent the night and rode camels near the border to Algeria.

We rode the bus for a couple of days making various stops at various old settlements before we got to the Sahara Desert. I was happy to sit in the back with a small camel woven out of palm leaves I bought from a boy at the side of the road.



My camel was a bit of a bastard but thankfully the only one who suffered was the girl on the camel in front of me who got camel slobber on her shirt.

We climbed the sand dunes which are much bigger than anything you find at the beach. It took nearly half an hour to get to the top. I was the first to make it up.




dusk...

dawn...

MORNING AT CAMP!!!