Hey Everyone!

We went to the Sahara Desert this weekend! It was amazing and almost indescribable. It was like a scene from a movie the whole weekend (minus the 11-hour drive there and back). We travelled from Rabat all the way down to Merzouga. On Friday night we stayed in Azrou, a mountainous town with beautiful scenery. Friday during the day was intense. We hiked through the Atlas mountains and saw these crazy Moroccan monkeys who were chowing down on peanuts and bread. After that we saw "the tallest tree in Africa" and while taking pictures of that we got to see a group of little boys playing on their donkeys. Our night in Azrou was interesting. It was tough to sleep with a wedding celebration going on until the wee hours of the morning.

On Saturday we continued our trek down to the Sahara, only 25km away from the Algerian border. Along the way we had stopped at some amazing places and got to really experience the differences between each small village, town or city. We saw nomad tents, fields of rosemary and countless valleys. It was incredible to see aqua marine water at the foot of some of these very dry and barren areas. Towards the end of the afternoon we arrived in Merzouga and it was...ummm.......... HOT! Boiling water anyone? No seriously, we had boiling hot mint tea when we arrived. Supposedly, it is supposed to "cool you down". Soon we were all changed, packed up and getting ready to mount our one-hump camels. Our "camel crew" consisted of Merzouga locals who guided us through the sand dunes, our guide Hamza and 9 other CCS volunteers.

After our 1.5-hour ride into the middle of the Sahara desert we arrived at our camp for the night. This oasis was unreal. Interestingly, if you dug 2 meters down anywhere in this area you would find cold water. Amazing! We settled near our tent (we slept under the stars) and had chicken tajine for supper. The Merzouga locals then entertained us with beautiful melodies of Berber music. The instruments included a string guitar and "bongo" drums (derbekee). As we settled onto our carpets the group watched shooting stars and fell sound asleep... with the exception of Katie, who got bit in the ear by God knows what.

We awoke to the camels grunting and to a beautiful sunrise. We saddled up once more and rode back to our van. It was a long trip back to the home-base but it was WELL WORTH IT. Tomorrow we are back to the kids, whom we missed so much!

Stay tuned for more in the coming days... we are trying to upload our videos.

Majeda & Candice (Kelli is sleeping....) lol.