Stars Over The Desert

Looking back, I’m amazed at how last-minute my trip to the Sahara ended up being. At no point during my two-week excursion to Morocco did I plan on camping out in the middle of vast sand dunes in the largest desert on Earth. The trip was, at first, mainly business. As a recently degreed grad student, I had contracts to act as a “consultant” for universities in the Moroccan cities of Marrakesh and Casablanca.

Marrakesh particulary was more than I could have imagined. The city, with its unique combination of ancient charms and modern amenities, was one of the best places I had ever had cause to explore. At its heart was the Jemaa el-Fna square, the city's central Souk, or marketplace: a massive square surrounded by more merchant tents than I could count. But I found the city’s true vibes in the narrow, labyrinthine arteries of the surrounding alleyways so complex and winding that getting lost in them is more or less part of the experience. So many hours of my trip to Marrakesh were spent simply wandering up and down these corridors, vaguely aware of where I was relative to my lodging, listening to the constant call of vendors on all sides enticing me to purchase their wares.

But now, I had three days left in Marrakesh and needed to figure out what to do with them. My reservation at the house I was staying at ended the following day, and I needed to decide whether I should book another three nights, or take a trip somewhere else. That night, lying in bed scrolling through Marrakesh tour packages on Viator, I didn’t expect to come across much that would be workable with my schedule.

But then I saw it. Explore the Moroccan desert. Sleep out overnight in the sand dunes. Camel ride included.

We left early in the morning, so early the sun was barely rising over the mountains to the east and the night stars were still visible in the sky over Marrakesh.

We drove out of Marrakesh and made our way through the narrow, winding roads that climbed and descended the brown expanse of the Atlas Mountains as the Moroccan landscape slowly lumbered towards the vast desert to the east.

We stopped at the centuries-old ksar, or fortified village, of Ait-Benhaddou. We drove through the immense cliffs of Toudras Gorge and wandered through the sudden, lush greenery of its river oasis and the rows of ancient olive gardens planted there. We passed through the scenic village of Kalaat M’Gouna and its iconic rose atmosphere among the sudden barricade of green trees planted in the surrounding brown desert landscape.

After an overnight stay at a wayward hotel, we left early morning the second day and headed out to our main destination.

The afternoon was beginning to sink a pallor of shadow against the otherwise bright desert landscape. I looked out the window and saw, with a sudden, involuntary gasp, how the dry, brown mountains of the Atlas foothills suddenly gave way to a vast, expansive desert plain, as if the Earth around us had suddenly unraveled against an unrelenting horizon and the mountains surrendered to a space where land and sky blended into infinity.

And then, a barricade of yellow hills, rising and swirling along the Sahara, and burning in welcoming flares under the desert sun.

The Erg Chebbi sand dunes.

At our destination, we switched over to our new mode of transportation. Dozens of camels, arranged in long trains, affixed together with ropes, absent-mindedly grunting into the dry air as they regarded us with little interest.

My camel seemed uninterested, though stood up dutifully enough when I managed to get up on it. By that point, the afternoon was already beginning to settle down into evening. The sun burned a low, orange ember across the west, and to the east the clear desert sky softened to an endless blue. Stars yet unseen flickered on, and the moon ascended in an invisible arc in a vast, onyx ocean above us.

Despite it being the middle of June in the Sahara desert, that evening was actually quite cool. The temperatures dropped to a pleasant, mild chill as a gentle desert breeze brushed against my sweaty skin. Our camel trains marched into the expanse of the dunes as the sands of the desert rose on all sides like yellow mountains swirling across the edge of the world. The sky was clear, and the sun setting in the west burned across the landscape and cast our shadows across adjacent dunes in titanic silhouetted figures, like we in our alien desert world had ascended beyond our human limits and became giants of some archaic age remembered only by places untouched by civilization.

Our camel ride to the campsite took about an hour. As we rode through the dunes, other tour groups nearby arched across nearby dunes, and in the vast, open expanse of the desert everyone seemed to grow into mythic proportions beyond our physical limitations. I rode like this for a time, watching the sun set and paint the surrounding dunes deeper and more melodious colors as it did, feeling the cool desert breeze against my skin, settling into the rise and fall of my camel's back as it walked, rough at first and then eventually settling into a slow, steady rhythm.

We arrived at our camp just as the evening was setting in, and the sun had diminished to a tranquil red-orange pastel against the western horizon.

After dinner, we gathered around a campfire as our hosts treated us to traditional Berber music played with drums and melodious voices echoing through the desert. I watched the fire, so transfixed by the flames and the music that I didn't think to look up at the night sky. Only after the festivities ended and we all made our way to our tents for much-needed sleep did I think to check out the night sky out there, so far from civilization and its light pollution.

I slipped out of my tent and wandered passed the low chattering of my compatriots in their respective quarters. I passed the remains of our campfire and the dinner tent where one lone worker was cleaning up. I paid no mind to the bats that encircled my head as they searched out the insects drawn to my body heat. I passed beyond the few electric lights in our campsite and entered the darkness of the desert night just outside our camp.

Before this night, I had never seen truly dark skies before. I had made my way out of civilization into wayward forests far enough from city lights to reveal a few secret stars and the passing of satellites. But out there in the Sahara, with the nearest large city hundreds of kilometers away, I saw a night sky that I had never imaged before. Unspoiled by light pollution, the Magellanic clouds towered across a vast arc of the sky, revealing distances so large that my eyes seemed to carry me out of my physical body and across a continuum of space-time normally forbidden to mere mortals. The stars, no longer distant specks hinting at ancient distances mostly forgotten by humans, were now a celestial tribunal, a pantheon of bright, crystalline lights numbering beyond human comprehension, expanding into an arena stretching into eternity, simultaneous larger than I could conceive and close enough that I felt I could touch them should I reach out. Close enough that I was now back in their purview, standing in front of them to be observed and cataloged and judged by the heavenly legislature that presided in the gargantuan dome above me. And in the few moments I had there, I realized how close these stars must have seemed to those countless humans who lived before the advent of the electric age stole the night sky, how the stars and galaxies and the vastness of the universe were something solid, something tangible, something as real and tactile as the wind and the water flowing down a river.

Something to converse with, and send prayers, knowing they were close enough to hear. Close enough to hear their reply.

We left the next morning just before dawn. The night sky had diminished into a few gem-like stars in a lightening blue. As we rode our camels back to our van and back to civilization, the sun rose in the east and rekindled the sand dunes in their golden bronze light. Our shadows once more ascended across the sands, petroglyphs outside time and space and history. Things primeval and unknowable, presiding only in memories half-dreamt just before sleep.

I wonder, sometimes, if my shadow still waits there, hidden but preserved among the oceans of sand, lost in the desert sunlight, waiting for the return of the stars lost everywhere else on Earth but there.