The Desert (Morocco Post 3 of 5)

Morocco - days 5 through 8 - The next part of the trip saw our group head into the desert after visiting the Imperial Cities in the north. (The complete itinerary for the trip is here if you're interested).

We left Fes and spent the next two days travelling to our Saharan campout. Our travels took us to the northern half of Morocco only, but we still had some serious ground to cover between locations. At the end of the two days, we were greeted with a spectacular Saharan sunset, as well as our travelling companions for the next two days - our camels!

For Christine and Shalini, that is me on the camel! I don't have many pictures of my self, as I don't really like being photographed, but that one came out not too badly. Our camel guides provided the desert headwear from scarves that we had purchased in Fes. To set the record straight - camel riding is not as glamourous as it sounds. Most of us discovered that we're not practiced in camel riding, and came home with a number of new aches and pains. That being said, I'm proud to say that I rode a camel in the Sahara.

After our camel riding adventure, we were off to climb the Todra Gorge. We spent the better part of a day driving to the gorge, and had a whole day to complete the climb. The climb took about 4 1/2 hours, and provided some spectacular scenery. No wonder that the rock climbing scene from Mission Impossible II was filmed here. You can see where it was filmed on the right side of the last photograph. (If you've seen the movie, Tom Cruise opens the movie by rock climbing).