(It felt good to be out of the rain.)

(Parenthetically, I am typing this entire journal entry for the second time. The first time was at a different internet cafe, a much worse one, where their Windows machines kept crashing, and IE6 kept hanging. It hung after I’d typed this entire tale and pressed send. I hate IE6.)

At the base of the Erg Chebbi dunes we met our camels. The first camel was white and affectionate, the others black and slightly more ill-tempered. They were tied nose-to-tail and laying in the sand in a circle. The sand blew against them in drifts. Occasionally, one would fart.

Each was saddled. The saddle on a camel looks like an upholstered doughnut, draped with blankets. It sits on the hump and basically extends it front and rear. The saddle also has a metal bar that raises from the front of the saddle to a ‘T’. As there are no stirrups, the handlebar is your only way to hold on.

I eyed my camel, and it eyed me. I approached, and found that even with the camel laying on the ground, there was no way I could get my leg over. Remember, no stirrups. A small stepladder would have been appreciated, but that was not forthcoming.

So, a small jump, a very undignified belly roll, and I was sitting astride my beast, which to its credit only grunted slightly in protest. I was told to hold onto the bar, and I did. It was a good thing, because The Arising was about to begin.

A camel is essentially what resulted when an evil sorcerer bred a shag rug with a loading gantry. It’s much more mechanical contraption than animal, but with a bad attitude and some enormous teeth thrown in.

The Arising goes like this… the camel first unfolds one of its rear leg joints. This props up the beasts tail,. but leaves its neck on the ground. You find yourself hanging on tightly, staring straight down at the camel’s head. The camel, encrossed in its Arising, ignores you.

Then, the front legs unfold, putting the neck far above the creature’s tail. You continue to hang on for dear life, but now you are staring straight up at the sky, and gravity is trying to pull you off the back of the camel.

Lastly, the second set of leg joints unfold, and you come to a level position,. roughly eight feet above the ground, riding a hump in the sky. The entire process was like a carnival ride whose goal is to disorient you. The camel swivels it’s snake-like neck enough to see if it managed to dislodge you, and seeing that it has not, it accepts that you’re stuck there, at least for now.

Everyone clinging to their bars, a Amazigh (Berber) tribesman leads the camel train out into the dunes. The sand stretches out as far as you can see, in deep orange drifts hundreds of meters high.

On level ground, the camel takes long strides. While the animal is covering lots of ground this way, you sway every which way from your post at the pinacle of the camel’s hump. Every movement side-to-side, every lurch back and forth is amplified. Dan and Sorin each ask me if I am getting seasick. (I am not.)

When climbing a dune, the camel takes smaller steps, with a pause after each as their hooves catch the sand. You, however, are hanging on desparately trying not to slide off the back of the camel.

Descending a dune is even worse. The camel steps down into the sand, and it’s dinner-plate-sized hoof glissades down into the sand a foot or two before finally catching enough sand. Then the process is repeated with the next foot. Eight feet in the air, you are leaning forward at a 45 degree angle as the camel first free-falls forward, then suddenly stops. Then again, and again, until you reach level sand again. You hold onto the metal bars with every ounce of your strength. Two days later, our wrists and forearms are still hurting.

On level sand, you can shift your weight around, and it’s a good idea. Your butt gets very numb sitting in one position, and your thighs get sore. The Amasigh ride side-sadle, and all of us try it, but we quickly return to a straddle when we see a climb or drop coming.

The sea of sand is stark. There are a few small arid bushes, and there is sand. Unimaginable quantities of sand, extending for miles. The sand is all. It absobs all sound, so as the camels step steadily forward, we hear nothing except for the occasional fart, which is very loud indeed in the quiet of the desert. When we speak with one another, it feels like we are shouting in church, breaking some sort of holy silence. The wild blows. The sand moves slowly. The camels step forward. The sand absorbs sound, and it also seems to absorb time.

Two hours (or two years, or several seconds) later we dropped down into a valley between dunes. There the Amazigh camp waited for us. The camels were led into a circle, and the Descent began.

The Descent is like the Arising, except in reverse. I found myself rocked violently back and forth before finally I was back at ground level. The camel (no name, remember?) looked back at me, it’s large soulful eyes conveying one simple thought… “Get off.”

We were met by an Amazigh boy. He was wearing an elaborate saffron turban and a white flowing robe. He sported buck teeth and french designer eyeglasses. He looked like a particularly fashionable nerd on his way to a college costume party. I was instantly smitten.

He showed us to our tents. There wasn’t much to unpack, as we’d brought only a minimal change of clothing. We gathered in the shade of one of the larger tents, simply watching the sand gently blow over the crest of the dune next to us.

A small group of french tourists arrived, not via camel, but in range rovers. They emerged sweating, and we watched them. Dan and I sat side by side in the shadow of the tent, wearing our shesh’s, judging them. We were the true travelers of the Sahara, not these newcomers conveyed by road with air conditioning.

Sorin and Josh joined us, and we sat some more. Then Sorin noticed, half buried in a drift, a set of skis and some poles. His eyes lit up. He stood. “I will ski!” he declared.

He dug out the skis and the poles, and trudged to the top of the nearest dune. The Amazigh tribesmen followed, as did the newly-arrived and sweaty french. The Amazigh looked amused, and the french looked judgemental. Sorin stood at the top of the dune looking fearless. Dan and I resolved to photograph this momentous event. In the tent, Joshua napped.

One at a time, Sorin clamped the skis to his sneakers. The skis sat on the knife-edge of the dune ridge like a teeter-totter, sticking out into the air front and back. Sorin looked at the horizon. He looked down. (One tribesmen said something in tamazight, and another nodded. Perhaps he said “Fetch the Nedivac.” We will never know.) Sorin looked out at the horizon again, then pushed off.

The skis accelerated down the slope gaining speed. Not too much speed, however, as the slope was only 10 feet long. But there was a proof of concept. It was possible to ski down a dune. Joshua was awakened to witness this miracle. (Rather than appreciate the wonder of the moment, he just seemed a little grumpy.)

The next hour was spent skiing down higher and higher dunes. Sorin did it, and impressed everyone by managing to turn as he descended. (Not the easiest thing to do in sand.) Even the french stopped disapproving for a moment. Dan tried it and made it smoothly to the bottom. I tried it and fell on my face within three feet. Joshua slid smoothly down and made it look easy. An amazigh tribesman tried it, clamping the skis to his bare feet. (A gasp of appreciation from the french. Everyone loves the macho.) And then it was dark, and time for apres-ski.

We ate dinner in the big central tent, a typical maroccan meal except for the nice maroccan rose that we ordered off of the wine list. It went nicely with the tagine, and even Joshua liked it. Also atypical was the rather large scorpion that skittered across the floor mid-dinner, all chiton and poison before disappearing under a corner of the tent.

The next day we returned across the dunes to our car and drove vaguely west along the southern foothills of the High Atlas to the Todra Gorge. I’m there now, on the outskirts of the village of Tingir, typing this into a terminal in an internet cafe. Around me teenagers learn the facts of life from watching Madonna videos on YouTube. Each terminal has a curtain that can be pulled around it for privacy, but I can hear the melody of “Like a Virgin” leaking from the headphones. Teenagers everywhere like their music loud.

Today we climbed into the High Atlas. I’ll write about that next.