Day 10 out in the Sahara

We started our tour by stopping at the Erfoud souk only at Bo’s request. It was one of the better stops, a great lively market with produce as well as crafts. Bo bought a Berber necklace and looked at a bunch of Berber rugs, but there was no time engage in bargaining. Then we went to a fossil factory. There are tons of fossils in this area from 40 million years ago. You can buy everything from rock with fossils including plates sinks, toilets, etc. We resisted the hard sell. Then Rachid took us to a Tuareg compound where we were given a hard sell for rugs. We resisted that too. The said they would serve us Berber pizza which was a local delicacy. It arrived on the back of a bicycle and was not very good. After lunch, we rendezvoused with a 4 wheel drive SUV for the ride to the Sahara. He asked us if we wanted to see a panoramic view of Erfoud and we foolishly said yes. Then he took us up a very steep dirt trail about 1000 ft. After we got our heartbeat down we started the trip to the desert (30 minutes). We drove on dirt without any roads and stopped at a nomad camp to see how they lived. We signed in at the Belle Etoille hotel and drove off into the desert to check into our 4 star tent. It was actually a compound of several tents – two bedrooms, each with a toilet and shower, a dining room and an open space with seating areas and a fire ring. We walked around the dunes and saw caravans of camels coming back from the desert at sunset. We were also supposed to get our camel ride at sunset but they told us that the weather was not very good (it was cloudy and windy) so we should do it in the morning at sunrise instead. Dinner was served in the tent dining area – a tagine of chicken, couscous and vegetables and a tagine of beef with prunes, followed by lots of fruit for desert. We were done by 8:30 and with noting to do, we sat and played word games until bedtime.