Rock the Casbah

When we first arrived in the little town, we couldn’t really see the desert. At least, what we could see didn’t look like a desert. As our little group approached the edge of the desert in off-road Jeeps, our view worsened in a turn of events for which I blame my friend Jess. At approximately 11:45am, Jess turned to me and said, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a sandstorm?” I immediately replied that no, awesome was not the word I would use if we were to get caught in a sandstorm, but it was too late. Fate had heard and found the idea too tempting to pass up.

Half an hour later it was clear that we were in the beginning of an honest-to-God sandstorm. Sand blew along the ground like mist and straight into our shoes. It whipped mercilessly around our heads and through our headscarves. I couldn’t wear contact lenses for a week because of all the sand, even after washing out my eyes and changing the lenses. We went immediately to our hotel and for the next seven hours I sat in the hotel lounge with my friends, watching the sandstorm gradually obscure everything that was more than 50 feet away.

4:00am found our whole group outside clambering awkwardly onto camels. The plan was to ride into the desert far enough that we couldn’t see the little town or hotel behind us and watch the sun come up, since we hadn’t been able to see the sunset the night before. Riding a camel was even more uncomfortable than I thought it would be, and I had bought harem pants specifically to make the camel ride easier. While I kept my complaints to myself, Jess’s camel did not. Never have I heard a more unholy noise than the crowing of Chad, the cranky camel. But we all thought Jess deserved it, because the previous day’s sandstorm was her fault.

After about two hours of Chad’s protests, we stopped at the bottom of an enormous sand dune. Leaving the camels behind, we climbed to the top and sat down in the cool sand. As the sun finally started to rise, I saw the Sahara Desert for the first time.

And frankly, it was indescribable. The best I can do is to say that as immense and endless as you imagine the Sahara to be, it’s bigger. It feels wider than the ocean, and its waves are more dramatic. Every passing minute threw different shadows across the dunes and made the sand change color from blue to beige to its natural dusty brick. And sitting in the gradually warming sand, we all forgave Jess. Because we could not have had a more spectacular first look at the Sahara Desert.