Into the desert

Morocco is a vast and diverse country! We have crossed high (13,000 ft) mountain ranges and travelled along the seacoast. We have been impressed by modern cities with fine architecture and infrastructure – and we have been decidedly unimpressed by towns whose crumbling clay buildings fall asunder when it rains. We began the day in Fez (photo One, elev. 1300 feet), driving through scruffy desert unrelieved by even a palm tree, and then climbed to Ifrane (elev. 5500 feet), a charming Swiss village with chalets and a university and a ski resort nearby. Then across the vast Atlas Mountains on an incredible highway – and down to Erfoud, on the edge of the Sahara desert. (We have been told that this is an unnecessary duplication, since ‘Sahara’ means desert.)

Photo Two is of an 85 mile long oasis filled with date palms, large swaths of which have burned in a forest fire, so they talk of climate change here too.

We have said our prayers and prayed for our Duncaster congregation and Doug Engwall, the officiant there today. We are about to learn about the fossils which fill this desert - because it used to be a vast sea. After getting our heads around that phenomenon, we will leave in a bus to rendezvous with 4 wheel drive vehicles that will take us to our camels that will bear us to our desert encampment. Apparently our tent has hot water (what do you want to bet that the heat is from solar panels??) and a toilet (??) but no electricity. We have charged the phones, but I don't think a blog will be forthcoming until we leave the sand.