To the north, Morocco nods its head gently in the swell of the Mediterranean. Descending the elongated northwestern shoulder of Africa, it receives the steady beat of the Pacific. Despite the proximity of cooling waves in such a blisteringly hot country, hoards of delirious travelers, like me, were seeking the blazing inferno of sand and desolation: the Sahara.
The bus rattled on with persistence. Stretching far ahead, the black line of the road parted the gold of the sands neatly to both sides. Approaching the fringe of the expanse of the Sahara I felt increasingly insignificant. Normally, I would not have thrown myself voluntarily into this arid void, but a Canadian that I had met in my hostel had convinced me that it would be quite an experience. In addition, we met a couple of Dutch tourists on the bus who were also eager to ride camels into the desert and sleep under the stars. All of us couldn’t be crazy, I told myself. Meanwhile, the horizon darkened as we went on. We talked amongst ourselves, circulating the rumor that, supposedly, rain had fallen the night before in the desert. I looked out the window. Arcing above the flat sands a rainbow appeared and shone hazily before going out.
The next thing I knew we were arguing outside with a taxi driver, trying to convince him to take us to our hotel on the edge of the desert, despite the late hour. The Dutch tourists were playing dumb to fight down the exorbitant price, while the Canadian guy and I feigned ignorance of the English language and just said “ja” to communicate with our traveling companions. If the driver knew that we were speakers of English and French the price would go up considerably. Our ploy worked, I suppose, and as we hopped into the car lightning traced the sky above.
When the white Toyota Land Cruiser wheeled in front of us out of the darkness, forcing us to pull over, everything began to have the unsettling familiarity of a movie script. The driver approached our taxi and discussed with our driver what would become our transfer, along with our luggage, to the other vehicle. The road ahead was too rough for the taxi, we were told. We dismissed the pretext as ridiculous, but decided to switch to the Land Cruiser anyway.
The hail began to fall, first as little white peas, then as more unsettling acorns, while the so-called “road” grew rougher and rougher. We were quite happy to have opted for the Land Cruiser at this point. Then the rain came down in sheets. We would slow for a few minutes at a time before going on. No more than half an hour later we saw the red points of brake lights up ahead. As we approached, several SUVs, much like our own, and a van loomed out of the darkness. Illuminated by their headlights we could see a brown rushing river as it blotted out the road.
We waited in the car while our driver talked with the owners of the other vehicles near the obstructing river. We saw them point into the darkness off to the side of the road. Peering through the windshield, aided by the irregular illuminations of lightning, we saw the black shape of a car, like an upended beetle in the dark current. We waited. Our driver, growing impatient to reach our destination, decided to attempt a crossing. Despite water up to our wheel wells, the Land Cruiser powered on. We passed the black shape of the car. No one knew what had happened to the people.
Supposedly, our hotel was at the edge of the famous Erg Chebbi dunes, but the darkness and lashing rain suggested that we were a world away. When our driver noticed the distant glow of lights off to our left he shook his head and apologized that he would not be able to take us there. His frequent cell phone calls had informed him that the road to the hotel was lost. Gazing through the darkness and across the churning water, that seemed pretty obvious to me. So, we continued on to Merzouga instead, the town where our driver lived, and he offered to let us stay with him until things cleared up the next day.
Near midnight we arrived in Merzouga. The small town, the gateway to the desert, was cut cleanly in two by the flood waters. People were wandering aimlessly through the muddy streets; children ran up and peered into each arriving vehicle. The residents claimed that they had never seen this much rain in their entire lifetimes. An English fellow that we met on the street casually noted in an offhand manner that the city would have a hell of a mess on its hands in the morning as the temperatures rose. He was referring to all of the toilets whose contents were spilling with the rising water.
Even though another huge brown stretch of water crossed our path, our driver informed us that we would be making another crossing: his home was just on the other side, it turned out. At this point we were exhausted. The absurdity of the situation had set our nerves on edge. I almost expected Moroccan Berbers to pass by on gondolas. We agreed that some sleep was necessary, despite the moisture and the relative discomfort of the Land Cruiser’s interior.
After several hours of shut eye, during which the rain ceased to fall, our driver was ready. In the predawn hours of that morning we plowed through the brown slop to the man’s home. His wife greeted us on the steps and then guided us to the restroom to wash the mud from our legs that resulted from a slippery twenty foot walk from the Land Cruiser to the front door. In a large adjoining room there were rugs and blankets, and we abandoned ourselves to sleep.
We awoke to his wife serving us breakfast: flat bread, cheese, butter and jam, and mint tea. To the connoisseur of hostel breakfasts this would seem like the usual fare, dismally bland. However, to us it was ambrosial.
Looking out the window we were able to get our first glimpse of the surreal lake, nearly encircling Merzouga, that had formed overnight. The signs jutting up here and there advertising guided camel treks into the desert seemed ludicrous when they were half submerged in muddy water. The dunes were so close, almost tangible. Our driver told us that there would be no camel treks for several days at least, and that the army was sending help to the area. It was time for us to get going.
We pulled out of Merzouga that morning with the golden dunes at our backs. I looked at the water stretching behind us and was hit with the sudden irony of our dogged search for sunglasses in the markets of Marrakech only a few days earlier. We had survived the ordeal, but despite our disappointment we continued to imagine the thrill of riding camels across the bright sands, heads wrapped in turbans, as our shadows walked with us towards the horizon.
