Monkeys & Camels

Loyal Readers,

It has been many years since I last wrote to you, the magnitude of my families sabbaticals has greatly increased and I hope that you can tell my writing skills have as well. I’m picking up this story yesterday morning, where the McLain’s on the Road departed from Feś, Morocco en route to our desert oasis in the Sahara. As I watched the landscapes outside of my sprinter van window shift from the Mid-Atlas Mountains to a backdrop of the Sahara desert during the ten hour jaunt, not much captivated me. However so that may be, there were two key experiences this drive was able to provide to our adventure. Firstly, was our encounter with some of the locals of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, which in this situation happened to be a pack of Apes which descended on our tour in the search of peanuts being hand fed to them. Although the McLain’s decided to take a step back from holding hands with a monkey for the first time, it was still a sight to behold. We can only hope for our travelers sake that the apes were not carrying anything to be passed to them. The second takeaway from the ten hour drive was that nestled away in the Atlas Mountains, any willing alpinist has the opportunity to ski at a resort of one lift and two runs during the snowier months in Morocco. With those moments of the drive behind us, we made it to our destination resort tucked away in the Sahara. After a quick break to lie in bed and watch Netflix, it was a quick walk to the hotel restaurant to tuck into Moroccan salad, Chicken Tagine, and assorted fruit, after that, it was off to bed for the night. The following morning, at least for me, started at about one in the afternoon, after several attempts and successes at staying in bed asleep. Eventually I had to walk myself back to the restaurant for lunch, where I was pleasantly surprised to yet again find a formidable portion of chicken tagine sitting on the table before me. While I’d had no challenge tucking into a 22 oz. Steak back home and walking away with room for more, something about your seventh tagine in seven days can do a number on your appetite. The remainder of the afternoon was once again left unscheduled so the family and I sent off to the pool, which despite the ninety degree dry heat remained terribly frigid, but once I had settled into it, it proved a nice way to relax the afternoon away. So after a couple poolside hours, it was time for the great adventure of our time in the desert; the camel ride at sunset. There are two things to know about our camel ride at sunset; it was one of our first overcast nights in Morocco, and the wind was blowing something awful about five minutes into our ride. We had gotten through the mounting of our steeds easily and begun the ride with a light breeze on our backs, but by about the fifteen minute mark the breeze has morphed into gusts reaching for fifty or sixty miles per hour. I’d had similar experiences with high wind speeds and sand back home at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, it only took me traveling 5,402 miles away to experience it again on the back of a camel. 

Take Care,

Alastair