Day 12 - Punctuality is its own punishment. Jay and I were at the Fes rendezvous point promptly at 7:10 AM, only to sit around until 7:40 AM while the rest of our 14-passenger manifest leisurely wrestled with different pick up instructions and concepts of time.
Our southward haul to Merzouga began with some jarring geographical whiplash. Shortly after escaping Fes, we found ourselves driving through Ifrane, a town bizarrely dubbed Morocco's Little Switzerland complete with pristine alpine roofs. (It does receive measurable snow every winter.) This alpine illusion was quickly followed by a jaunt through the cedar forests near Azrou, universally known as the monkey forest, where the local Barbary macaques loiter by the roadside with absolute entitlement.
All of this was merely the prelude to the actual geographic commitment of crossing both the Middle and High Atlas Mountains. Roughly four and a half hours in, our vehicle decided to snap a driveshaft joint. By sheer luck, we were a mere two kilometers from a dusty speck of a town. A local mechanic executed a minor miracle, getting us repaired and rolling in under half an hour. Miraculously, it did not even dent our final arrival time.
We made a few stops, including a late lunch that required digging into our own pockets, as only breakfast and dinner are included in this particular bargain. We finally reached a road pull-off where a fleet of trucks was waiting to disperse the herd to various desert camps. We did mingle with the other twelve passengers, but thankfully, our itineraries immediately fractured from there. Most of them are doomed to backtrack to Fes eventually, while Jay and I are making the superior tactical choice to push westward to Marrakesh on Wednesday.
Today, we travelled 460 km. For tonight, we have an actual hotel room before tomorrow’s inevitable sunset ride on camels and a sand-filled camp experience. We just took a dip in the hotel swimming pool. Splashing around in chlorinated luxury on the very edge of the Sahara feels like a delightful, absurd indulgence. Now, just waiting on the 8:30 dinner.