Short introduction to the desert

Before travelling to Morocco, when thinking about the desert, only one image came to my mind: sand dunes, yellow and orange, a very blue sky and no sign of vegetation. Is it so due to the films? Do the films always show the same aspect of the desert? In any case, during the days I spent in the desert I discovered that there is much more than that. 

My memories of the desert are marked by two aspects: landscapes, and people. This post is only a short introduction to the Sahara, to present the context, landscapes and surprises of the desert. In the second part ‘life in the desert’ I will talk about its people.  

YELLOW DESERT

There is one thing I was not wrong about: in the desert, there are sand dunes. A lot of dunes. Big, impressive, elegant, photogenic.

The sand is really thin, that kind that get really stuck when one goes to the beach, and dunes can be quite high, we saw some that were about 200 meters high. I could not imagine it would be so difficult to climb them! It is similar to walking over virgin snow... in general, the “easiest” way is to walk on the border of the dune.

In Morocco, the dunes desert is called yellow desert. But the yellow desert, the one we always hear talking about, is only a small part of the Moroccan desert.

BLACK DESERT

Most of the Moroccan Sahara is composed of dark stones, and it is called black desert.

The black desert sometimes looks like a sand plane with a thin dark layer, like ashes, covered with black stones. 

And sometimes it looks like a volcanic landscape.

VEGETATION

One of the things I was surprised about were the plants. Ok, there were not a lot and they were not very green, but there was more vegetation than I expected.

WATER

We were told that there is water in the desert, very deep in earth, and it can be reached through wells. In the haimas camp, where we spent one night between the dunes, there was a well which provided fresh water. In some villages people have constructed wells and channeling to bring the water to the village, for drinking and also for agriculture. 

PREHISTORIC ART

Another discovery: in the desert there is prehistoric art. There are prehistoric designs on the stone, in the middle of nowhere, and even with the time, and weather, they are still visible.

CLOUDS

The region we visited is going through a drought period of several years (even for the standards of the region). Sometimes one can see some could in the sky, but it does not rain.

THE NIGHT

I had often heard that one of the best places to see the starts is in the desert, so I was really looking forward to our night between the sand dunes to be able to observe them. If you are planning to spend one or several nights in the desert to look at the starts, pay attention to one small detail: the Moon. In a big city we do not perceive it, but when the moon is on the sky there is a lot of light, and it makes it more difficult to observe the stars.

THE COLORS OF THE DUNES

The dunes have some magic: they change color, from yellow to red going through orange. The best time of the day to see the colors are, of course, sunrise and sunset.