An Oasis

One experience does not a trip make; however, a campout in the Sahara desert does a trip make.  After a grueling two hours of camel straddling in my caravan, with my Berber guide who spoke only Arabic and French (my English and Spanish skills definitely failed me) my legs wanted to give out.  But after slipping my shoeless foot in to the sunburnt, soft, silky sand, a surge of energy struck through my body and I was ready for what I felt would be a magical night.  With nothing around me but miles and miles of mountainous sand dunes, I sat in a quaint Berber oasis surrounded by green palms, bright blue tents and magenta Moroccan rugs.  How we arrived at this specific location I will never know (there were no signs telling me “Turn left at the next dune”).   Knowing I could never again find this exact location, and that I could never map it out for others to find gave me a feeling of complete helplessness that was empowering.  

As the sun began to set behind the dunes, and a total darkness was emerging, the bonfire started and the music grew.  A cold air, one I certainly did not expect to find in the middle of the desert, began to settle.  My new Berber friends, dressed in their long blue Gandoras and matching sheshs (Berber style turbans), began to play music that the cool breeze carried in to the night and to the blanket of stars above.  With the fire and the music growing, the dancing began.  With four men playing instruments—the tamtam and the darbukah (two types of drums made of pottery, clay and goatskin), the ghita (a long wooden flute), and the qraqeb (a set of handheld cymbals)—the rest of us danced around the fire.  It was like a dream where everything blurred together: the heat and glare of the growing fire; the energetic music with words I could not understand; the blend of brightly colored gandoras and sheshs, carpets and tents; the chanting and dancing around the fire; and the rhythmic motions of our arms and legs.  It was magical.  

Experiences such as this—camel caravaning, Berber befriending, deliriously dancing, sand dune scaling, and sleeping under the Saharan stars—comes once in a lifetime, especially when you know you could never find this exact oasis in an uncharted desert.  I was told there that I had eyes that shone like the stars of the Sahara.  I was offered hash while sitting with the tribal leader under his sand dune.  If I ever start to forget, I have pictures that don’t do the Sahara justice; but more importantly, even a year later, I still find grains of Saharan sand in the suitcase I brought and in the clothes that I wore.