Blog ‹ Claire Dunnington, Writer

Question:

Is it okay to ride a camel?

I thought about this during our drive to Merzouga, while we rode the camels into the dunes of the Sahara (side note: when examining a map later, I discovered we were in a hilariously small piece of desert…still technically Sahara, though), and afterwards.

It seems like there’s a spectrum: You don’t ride on dolphins. You don’t ride giant tortoises. You possibly shouldn’t ride on elephants (maybe? I think more people would say it’s okay to ride an elephant than a dolphin?). But you definitely can ride horses.

…camels?

When is it okay to ride an animal? And when is it okay to OWN an animal? If it’s domesticated and seems to like it? If it’s small?

I don’t know. From a strength perspective, camels are perfectly capable of carrying a human, although it’s terrifying to watch a camel stand up–like a snorting, grumpy accordion. These camels didn’t have names, which made me vaguely sad.

Pictures and commentary from Day 3 of the desert (click through):

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The hotel room where our desert guide, Abdul, stayed while we stayed out in the camp.

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Grumpy camel #1

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Have attained standing position

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I'm guessing the group name for camels is just a herd...let me Google...aha! Can also be caravan, flock, or train.

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The approach toward the dunes

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Shadow riders

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The desert "camp" which was a pretty substantial structure and had a flush toilet (please don't ask me to explain how).

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We climbed up to the top of the dunes for the sunset.

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Sunset #1

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Tiny figures atop a neighboring dune

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Color palette changing

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Lone wanderer

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This bug joined for dinner.

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Desert fire; it was colder at night, but still warmer than it was in the mountains.

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Drumming around the fire

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Inside of the "tents"

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Sunrise on the way out of the desert

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Hellooooo

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I'm not sure if this picture should be titled "Birth" or "Let me kiss your boo-boo"

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On day 1 of the desert part of our tour, I had finally started to feel–not normal, again, yet, but like I could remember what normal felt like. When we left the mountains I figured I was on the mend, especially as we descended, but the overall nausea and lack of appetite continued as we made our way to Ouarzazate.

And then in the middle of the night that night, I came down with a 24-hour stomach thing. Honestly, I was happy enough to have that instead of the weird malaise I had traded for it. At least I understand what’s going on with stomach trouble.

Click through for pictures/captions:

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Leaving the mountains and driving east

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Not out of the mountains yet. Still raining.

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When driving in the mountains...don't make your face look like this.

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The landscape began to change...

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...as did the vegetation.

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This is the Ksar in Ait Benhaddou, near Ouarzazate.

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The Ksar is from the 1600s.

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It was EXTREMELY WINDY.

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So windy that in trying to get to the top of the Ksar, I was knocked over and then pelted with rocks.

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Our hotel had a pool but...it was too windy to use.

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Driving to the Dades gorge

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hello, mountains

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Dades gorge

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Not that I'm an amazing driver regardless, but I would not want to drive here.

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Oh look! A camper full of Nordic babies, and so helpfully labeled!

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Because my stomach wasn't distressed enough...

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I think breakfast the next day here was the first meal I really ate, but I gave it a good try at dinner.

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Sitting area

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Resident small child, impervious to sleep

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Open-air bathroom

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Little details hiding all around

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I'm the baby paparazzi.

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The next day we drove to Todra gorge.

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Todra gorge creek

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It's predictable to say it's gorge-s so I'll just go with...please feel free to gorge on the following numerous pictures of Todra.

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This kind of looks like the gorge but was actually a restaurant, where we ate before we headed to the Sahara...

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...to be continued.

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Last mountains, I promise. New topographies coming next post.

The final day of hiking was also eight hours, and while eight-hour Day 3 was my favorite, Day 4 almost ended me. I’m not totally sure what happened–I want to say that I had altitude sickness, but we were only ever as high as 2500 meters, which isn’t really enough to do it. I already had a head cold when we got to the mountains, though, and that + the higher altitude + exertion every day did something to me.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a vague, all-over nausea, which got worse when I tried to eat breakfast, and didn’t exactly get better as I hiked up another mountain. So there are fewer pictures (and fewer captions; you can pretty universally apply a Claire thought-bubble of “Please don’t throw up” or “Just take two more steps” to every picture), but click through for the Mountains: conclusion:

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The colors were worth it.

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More trails suitable for sure-footed goats

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I stopped here, put my head on my knees, and had a little nap in the sun.

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The plateau where we ate lunch. I tried to lie down in the shade but the animals were being hilarious and I didn't want to miss the show.

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GOATS

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I don't know what got into Jacqueline that day. She kept trying to run away or kick Mohammed.

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On the way down the mountain, I finally started to feel something approaching normal.

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This village was...not our final destination, but at least we were closer.

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Hanging from all of the scrubby mountain trees were huge pods made of what looked like cotton wool...Ibrahim told me that they were caterpillar nests. Here's one that for some reason (I suspect an angry bird) had fallen from its tree and split open.

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Toubkal is in there somewhere.

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I recognize this creek...

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Back at the other Mohammed's guesthouse in Imlil, where I took a shower for the first time in four days.

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I sat next to a very charming child and her…babysitter? family friend? as they played twenty questions. The best questions were the child’s asides:

“Do you know what stop is ours so that we aren’t on the train for THE REST OF OUR LIVES?”

and

“If you looked in them mirror would you be like, “ahh! I’m a monster!”?”

Older woman, reassuringly, to her older husband, who had just been offered a seat on the train by a young woman: “You’re not elderly.”

Older man: “No, I’m pregnant.”

The experienced half of a busking duo to the less experienced half, who was looking very concerned when they got to the end of the car: “Oh. Are we on the island thing? Oh! Are you feeling nervous about walking between cars?”

Other half: “…YES.”

Woman walking down the street, presumably horrified either at herself or her daughter for holding onto something OLD: “I had that when I was pregnant with her! She’s THIRTY!”

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I’ve been trying to cobble together the route that we took through the mountains based on google maps, pictures, and my iPhone’s “Steps” app, which miraculously tracked how many steps I took even though my phone was on airplane mode, out of range of any wifi, and across an ocean from Sprint. We didn’t follow the planned route (which I have information about/names of towns) due to snow conditions and also lack of poncho conditions, so I’m guessing somewhat.

Also, I mostly remember the two-syllable villages.

I think on the second day our lunch stop may have been at Tizi n’Tamatert (Tizi being the word for “mountain pass”), and after lunch we went through Ikkiss and then down into a valley to spend the night…maybe Tamatert or Ait Souka?

Day three we hiked eight hours: up one mountain, down that mountain and back through Taddert, which is near Imlil (where we spent the night on our first day), then up another mountain, passing through Matate on our way to a magical plateau, which might have been Imi Ourhlad? I’m fairly certain we spent night three in the foothills in the village of Asni. Click through for pictures:

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Mountains in the morning...

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And still in the morning. This would have been early on our walk.

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Top of the first one...how long until lunch? Two hours.

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I thought I recognized the creek; it's the spot where we first met Ibrahim and Mohammed on Day 1.

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Jacqueline waiting above Matate.

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As we got higher we saw more and more juniper bushes.

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Once we neared the plateau it was straight out of Tolkien.

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Some of the juniper trees were hundreds of years old.

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This is a TWO-HOUR-OLD baby goat.

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Final moments at the plateau

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Scrubs

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As we started down the mountain it grew misty...

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...and mistier.

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After the purple rocks of day 2 I was happy for the orange rocks of day 3.

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The village that may or may not be Asni

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A deep-set window to the cold. We watched Rocky II at this gite.

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Nice terrace

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This car was having no end of troubles.

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When we left Essaouira we drove to the Atlas Mountains with our guides Hassan and Jamal, who told us upon meeting, “We’ve been awake for 24 hours!” Hassan began the getting-to-know-you process by asking where we were from, and then saying, “American, American. Yes. Lovely-jubbly.”

Then he got a phone call from his boss and, after hanging up, said, “So, kidding. It turns out I am not your guide, actually,” because his boss had told them to go home and take a nap. So they drove us to the mountains and we met Ibrahim, our mountain guide, and Mohammed, the cook and muleteer (and Jacqueline the mule). Here are pictures from the first two days (click through for more/commentary).

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Because it was pouring, we did only 1.5 hours of walking that day.

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The landscape is mostly terraced groves (cherry, walnut, peach and other trees)

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Same creek as the first picture, from higher up.

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Mount Toubkal is in there somewhere, or behind one of those snowy peaks.

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Typical architecture for the villages in the Atlas.

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Different creek. I rented a poncho that I never used, but also waterproof hiking boots.

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In Imlil, the main town in the Atlas.

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Another view of the terraces.

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Our guesthouse and view. There was a heater and electric kettle in the room, but also slippers and warm djellabas.

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There was no shortage of amazing doors in Morocco.

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Same goes for lamps.

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View from the guesthouse, which was also occupied by a group of Swedish extreme athletes. They were much better prepared with gear than we were, but they were also planning to summit Mount Toubkal.

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Our planned route changed because one of the passes we were supposed to go to had gotten too much snow.

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Mountains, during day 2 - the first real day of hiking.

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In the morning it was about 35 degrees, and got up to maybe 55 during the day...

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...depending on how high up we were and whether we were in the sun or shade.

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Ibrahim, dont scare me.

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A blooming pinecone

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We accidentally stopped for lunch at the same time as a giant group of French teenagers from Dubai.

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When they left there were a couple of broken chairs and absolute silence.

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Clouds rolling in over us.

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I enjoyed the food SO immensely.

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Don't be this car.

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Tiny town and tinier sheep.

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Laundry spread out to dry

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TERRACES.

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In a mountain village

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I spent a lot of time trying and failing to capture where exactly we were walking on our final descent of that day. The trail is about as wide as one and a half of my feet, and what looks like flat ground in this picture was actually about a 70 degree angle down the side of the hill.

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Oh hai guys.

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Above the top of this photo, WAY up there, was where we had lunch. We didn't come down on these trails, but Mohammed and Jacqueline did.

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All the way up there - that little dip in the ridge was where we ate lunch.

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When I wasn't trying to capture the fact that we were walking on loose rocks next to a steep cliff, I was trying to catch how purple the rocks were.

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Down in the valley...but not the valley we started out in that morning.

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Someone important lives here.

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Mountain sunset

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Aramaic?

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Thatched ceiling

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We landed in Marrakech but left immediately for Essaouira, and spent most of the drive taking pictures out of the windows and trying to nail down the pronunciation of Essaouira. It’s hard to avoid metathesis leading to pronouncing it “Ess-OW-ree-uh.” It’s actually Ess-uh-WEER-uh. I narrowly avoided titling this post “It’s-a-where-a?” so that’s about all of the restraint I have to spare today. Pictures: (click through for more/commentary).

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During the three-hour drive from the Marrakech airport to Essaouira, we watched the landscape change.

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These are argan nut trees.

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This is the real-life place where goats climb into trees. A meme come to reality. Unfortunately, we didn't see any goats.

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One cloud just hanging out

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I learned that a Riad is a hotel that's built around a courtyard. Ours was really lovely.

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Looking up

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Essaouira is on the West coast of Morocco.

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This part of the harbor was very fragrant.

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Boats and ramparts

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Why is it that in hot places, dogs and cats are much more docile but seagulls are seriously aggressive?

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Looking into the old medina

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The streets of the medina

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Narrow alleys

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Many, many cats

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My eyes read this as a zebra rather than a horse or a goat (which it seems it might be, given the horns). Negative space between cutleries = stripes!

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Baskets for sale

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Kittens!

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Different view of fortress walls

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Lunch view

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Sunset over Mogador Island

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I…can’t turn my back on a pun.

We spent about 22 hours in Lisbon. Topographically, it’s my favorite kind of city: full of hills and near water. Cobblestones, red-tiled roofs, ancient trees. Here are some pictures (click through for more/commentary).

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These were our greeters at the Lisbon Airport metro station.

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The greatest clotheslines in the world.

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...and the best rooftops.

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Especially at sunset.

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I swore I would not pet any stray animals but when I was in the moment I just couldn't help myself. As with many things, I'm more afraid of rabies in the abstract than when I'm actually holding an animal. I will add that this was the only creature I pet during our trip, though, and I had a feeling this cat was associated with our hotel.

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If she had been a stray, she would have had to climb over the castle wall to get into the upstairs courtyard of the hotel. There are, however, two stray feet in this picture.

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My instinct was correct. When we left early in the morning for the airport, the hotel cat, whose name was Sushi, was having a snooze in the breakfast room.

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That's not to say I wasn't tempted by other elegant furry creatures.

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I think this is about the patron saint of wine. That night, I had "green wine" for the first time.

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Church

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Flower boxes

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Beautiful crumbles

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This courtyard smelled so delicious that I was surprised to discover this box is made of fake flowers.

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St. George's Castle

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The castle grounds felt more like a public park.

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Spying into someone's courtyard

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More of the castle

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The castle's resident peacocks

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I was trying to take a picture of the fountain, and so was Marty...

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...but apparently it was shy and turned itself off. I can't stop laughing at his disappointed posture.

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Lisbon's colors and textures are amazing.

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Saramago!

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All of the alleyways were inviting.

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Door #1

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Door(s) #2

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Door...archway #3

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Curves and lines

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I love it when the trees look like villains for a My Little Pony movie.

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Placid pool

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Night scenes

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Every time it rains I get Garbage’s “I’m Only Happy When it Rains” stuck in my head–not a bad thing–but usually with my friend Mikey-Mike’s (I think it was Mikey-Mike, but if not, it was Lincoln) alternate plumber-jingle lyrics, “We’re only happy when it drains,” to which I add “We’re only happy when you’re constipated” (don’t think about that too long…it doesn’t actually make sense as a business model; it just rhymes with “I’m only happy when it’s complicated”).

It’s usually followed by the zombie version, I’m Only Happy When it’s Brains.

I don’t mind this rain. It’s definitely the least offensive thing about this day, and the least ominous.

I haven’t blogged recently because I was in Morocco for two weeks. Part of my time there was in the Atlas Mountains, hiking and sleeping in gites in the valleys. Two of the four days we went up one mountain, down another, up a different mountain, and down that mountain. On the first day, I had a few different things in my head:

I don’t even want to print this because it’s totally inappropriate and not even something I ever chanted in elementary school…but lo, attempting not to lose my footing on the gravel that covered the goat trails, next to which was a 75 degree cliff with nary a scrub to cling to, it appeared. Suffice to say that it includes the line “I sit on the steeple and pee on the people.”
Amidst the baa-ing of the goats, day two of hiking found the Mario vs. Luigi fight song planted semi-permanently in my brain. You know the one? In Mario 3 for NES, when you’re playing two-player and you hit A at the right time when the other player crosses over you, so that you’re taken to a “battle” during which you try to steal the other plumber’s bonus? See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1z8tZAyJyo
Heart’s “Alone.”

A week later in Chefchaouen, the blue city, I had this part of Enya’s “Book of Days” cycling through. The entire time. Not mad! It was very fitting. https://youtu.be/LiBwr4U59EI?list=RDJl8iYAo90pE&t=17

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Sanitation SVU. That’s the web series I should star in.

At one point last week I had live typhoid vaccine in my fridge and other people’s garbage downstairs inside my door. These are perversely related in the sense that when I touched the anonymous garbage bags (don’t judge; I regret my actions and I undertook them only because I’ve been primed–by trash citations/random assorted trash bags appearing in front of our apartment on days that are decidedly NOT trash day–to panic and lose my sense of reason when I see stranger garbage)…anyway, when I picked up the anonymous garbage bags to take them inside, because I DON’T WANT A TRASH CITATION, some kind of liquid slime got on my hands.

I’m 80% sure it was pee.

So it wasn’t the worst thing in the world that I had just started taking the typhoid pills, even if only for metaphorical comfort.

Actually getting the typhoid vaccine was something of a trial. Even though I had a routine physical only a month ago, the doctor’s office wouldn’t write me a prescription for the typhoid pills without me coming in so they could “make sure I was healthy.” The doctor’s office is down the street. I’m there probably too frequently. So I went and sat in the waiting room for an hour, then had a two-minute appointment in which I wasn’t asked a medical question beyond “What are you here for today?”

Anyway. I understand liability. Fine.

But then I went to pick up the typhoid prescription and discovered that they had called in a typhoid SHOT, which the Duane Reade pharmacy definitely does not dispense, rather than the pills.

Try again. Call the doctor the next day…get the expected “she’ll be back in on Monday and can resend the correct prescription then” but fortunately am talking to an extremely reasonable man who, when I tell him I need to start the series of pills that day in order to finish them in time for travel, has someone else call the correct scrip in.

I go to pick the prescription up, armed with my 42% off coupon that I found on the internet.

Oh, says the (very kind and very competent) pharmacist who I had seen the previous day, it seems your doctor called in the prescription…to the Duane Reade down the street.

Close enough!

The Duane Reade down the street only gave me 20% off but let’s call it a win.

Back to trash:

The store downstairs is very delightful and its owner and I have worked through many small absurdities of renting/apartment living/things breaking together. I know they have security cameras so I ask him for the footage from the night before. I am KEEN to catch the perpetrator of garbage.

He sends me the clips; for some reason, there’s background music to all of them. One definitely shows a woman running up to the (perfectly acceptable) pile of trash in front of the store on the other side–which enjoys commercial trash removal–and depositing her bag there. Later clips, in the middle of the night, show a bag being lifted by the wind and blown down from the store to our curb (this bag was really lightweight…probably because it may have contained ONLY PEE). A third clip shows it blowing around some more until a guy walks by and kicks it squarely onto our sidewalk (fair play to him, as I assume he was just trying to put it in its rightful location).

On Sunday night I went downstairs, 85% vaccinated against typhoid, and kicked the offending bags to the curb, literally. No citation. But now I know that if I ever want to make a short film, all I need to do is go to the front of my apartment and dance for the camera. Someone will add background music later.

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