Soaking up the sunset

Backblipped 5th March

Had a reasonable sleep (even if a little short!) and had my first "crisis" of the trip! My precious pillow that I'd squished in back home would not squish back in in Ouarzazte!!!!! So much for being pleased with having a small bag with me! Not much use when there's no wiggle room in it, though thankfully Fiona had a bit of space in her bag so I didn't have to leave it behind.

Had a tasty breakfast and then Anna gave us the briefing for the day ahead round the swimming pool in the early morning (and cold) sun.

Into a couple of minibuses and we were off!

Beautiful scenery along the way - including the stunning High Atlas mountains - with a couple of stops - one where we saw a camel drinking water out of coke bottle - most bizarre! - and the other in Zagora to buy a shamia, the local headscarf. Whilst we were shown how to wear this properly it obviously did require a special knack as we had varying degrees of success! The roads were rather interesting too as for long stretches they were only one car wide and it seemed to be a game of chicken with approaching cars and rather large lorries on a several occasions!

Arrived at Oulad Driss - south east of Ouarzazte - and were greeted with the fabulous sight of rush mats, rugs and mattresses laid out under the shade of a tree, the cook tent and cook waiting to give us lunch, a toilet tent and 4 camels with their cameleer, Yusif! Also met Larsen our Moroccan guide - a really lovely guy who was going to be leading us on our trek and some of his team who were going to be looking after the camp.

Was really amazed at how much cooler it felt to what I was expecting - even though it was around 32 I'd had forgotten what a dry heat was like and then the wind was quite a bit stronger than I'd anticipated too.

Delicious lunch of salad, tuna, bread and bananas and then we took our first steps of the trek - Larsen at the front and Yusif and his camels at the rear.

Initially we were on hamada (flat stony desert) but there were a few wee sand dunes were you did what felt like one step forward two steps backwards. Also discovered you instinctively want to run down the other side once you'd got to the top - which was the wrong way to go about it as you're more likely to get a boot full of sand! Slow and steady was the way to go about it!

Also discovered that photographing in the desert is also completely different to at home - there's so much light!!!!!

Was quite funny watching the people who were up front and level with Larsen as every so often they'd obviously become distracted and not realise that he was no longer following the "path" that they were on - he'd shout "guys this way" and they'd have to veer back towards him.

Two hours later we got our first sight our camp at Erg Lihoudi. A tent for the guys, 2 for the girls, a mess tent, 2 toilet tents, a cook tent and also one for the crew - plus the multi coloured truck that transported the lot!

Fortified by tea and biscuits we then tried to get sorted in the tent before the light went. Slightly chaotic with 7 of us - and all of us trying to figure out the best way to get things organised. I'm definitely not a camper and trying to work out what needed to be in what bag and in what plastic bag within that to be as efficient as possible was a bit of headache! After a wet wipe wash (!) decided I'd get into my pj's so I wouldn't get cold changing into them at bedtime - so with purple sandals, pink pj's and a red fleece I was quite a sight as I emerged from our tent!

The camels get hobbled at night so saw them taking tiny steps around - one in particular had a really really short hobble - he was the naughty camel!

Watched the most amazing sunset - gorgeous pinks and reds which were all around us - quite stunning - and then into the mess tent at 7pm for dinner.

All of us fitted in there sitting on the same mats and mattresses from lunchtime and we had quite a feast - soup and bread followed by tagine and tinned pineapple - which made us all even more sleepy and most of us headed off to bed not long after, each of us clutching a mattress to help bolster the mats we'd all brought with us - don't think it was even 9pm!

Team teeth cleaning at the back of the tent was then followed by team snuggling down looking like fat caterpillars with hats on!

Day One Stats:
5 miles/2 hours
Ascent/descent 771/851 feet
Calories not recorded for some reason
Map