Color

For nearly a week we charted the Atlas.
Mid- and then High-, our obnoxious and bold bus swinging wide beside canyon and pass. Horn-honks to warn walkers or those side-saddling mules with bony behinds, our legs stale from neglect.

Ifrane. Azrou. Middelt. Er Rachidia. Erfoud. Rissani. Merzouga. N’Kob. Ouarsazzate. Marrakech. Essaouira. El Jadida.

Home. Rabat.

Gaping breadth of the Draa Valley, scattered with viridian palm groves, bottle-necked or reaching. Drawn out Tizi’s taken at harrowing speed; the pathetic comfort of thin guardrails, often silver and smashed. Fording flooding red-clay rivers; violent eddies tucked beside their catalyzing curbs.

Once we hit the Sahara I was in no mood for company. Summiting clipped peaks, the distance was deceiving. So alone that at wind’s pause, all I heard was shifting sand. I had seen The Dune in the distance, watched it from the SUV window, already claiming it.

My heels digging into her crest.

In reality the endeavor was more trying than anticipated; all the “lesser” mounds at her feet managed to rise and dive with considerable frequency and height. Bare feet leaving crescent-shaped divots, condensing on the upslope and stretching on the lee. The wind we had encountered by-car had yet to abate, intensifying at each apex, my blown body leaning into its exfoliating hiss. I reached her peak in degrees, screaming AL HAMDA ALLAH until the scarf protecting my face flexed concave, white gauze on my tongue stifling and complete. The wind there was ripping. Tearing sand in sharp torrents and lifting in layers. Licking the dune into a sharp overhang.

I had conquered the copper flanks.

Stumbling down sharper sections, I descended her wide splay, passing our group’s male members on their way up. The trip back significantly harder, hiking out of sorrel shadows as dunes are not equilateral triangles as much as they are right.

Before dawn we mounted dozing camels, 45 in all, having slept off last night’s red; the heavy clang of Gnawa castanets barely penetrating walls of desert mud. Their gait was slippery and their padded feet wide like snowshoes for sand. The sun rose ssssslllowly from behind dim and distant dunes, each of us shivering and clutching, cameras armed and aching for that first splash of blinding molten gold.

As had been the practice with our program , each meal was a feast. Appetizer of chopped legumes with carrot, beans in bowls, spiced olives red from harissa and rice in strange shapes. Flatbread without butter, we pinched cumin, soaked sauces. Then we’d have soup. Hot harira ladled swiftly, mashed bean or lentil, spoons tinking white ceramic and hands raised for more. Once we had sardines, bones soft so to swallow, silver skins sticking to our fingers and forks. Fat fish for our entrée, skin taut with wet white meat. Or joint tagines heaped with okra, squashes, soft yellow, orange, green; chunks of goat hugging bone. “Berber pizza” pre-sliced and steaming, almonds and amber meat falling from between the coarse circular loaves cooked long underground. Fruit platters for dessert; whole oranges and apples, bananas all freckled and never overripe. Tea often followed, but was difficult to depend on. Often steeped too long- what table is served last?

In Essaouira the beach pounded and we collected Thuya boxes, tawny bracelets mocking birdseye. Bargaining for striped silk and mapping skinny souks with tired white feet.

We returned in gradation. And unfolding thickly pilled blankets in yellow and navy, I was home.

Trip pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/sarah872014591