This Blog entry will be rather difficult to do, without sounding pathetic or idolising. 

Lets start with the easy part: breakfast. you might have noticed by now that we are always pretty stunned by the quality and quantity of what we have been offered. - This morning we had breakfast with Andreas, a guy from Germany who lives in Australia now for a long time. He is traveling alone and was happy to have some company.

This is the breakfast for 3 people. You always get more than you can eat. That is hospitality.

Andreas and Omar in deep conversation.

This is the map of the 2 tours the hotel offers. One is the round trip in the desert in a 4wheel drive car. The other one is the trip you see more in the middle, into the desert, where you stay over night, in a tent

We did the round trip already, and we do the overnight stay in the tent as well, later today until tomorrow. 

Let me first talk about the round trip.

Let me introduce Khalid, our guide, driving the Mitsubishi offroader. By the way, the car you see most here is the Toyota Prado. Very nice car.

First stop was a museum owned by a pretty rich guy from Katar who lives now here at the rim of the desert. He has a collection of offroad vehicles and he grants free access to that collection for everyone.

On our way to that museum we saw the first few offroad vehicles that existed long before there were cars in the world: dromedars. The people here call them simply camels, although camels are the ones with the two bumps on their back.

If you are not interested in cars, just scoll down to the part where the journey really starts.

What a nonsense !

More nonsense ...

Made in China ...

OK, now the real journey starts. Quite easy first, with some posing in front of sand dunes ...

Two friends, that will probably never again do such a trip. This was really unique.

Nothing on our heads against a sunburn - well, Omar has at least some hair ...

I am buying some beuatiful little gifts for my family. I look a bit like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. That happens when I am exhausted and don't focus on my posture anymore. OK, more attention for the rest of the day ...

Khalid drove partly over gravel roads and partly through the desert sand. Sometimes it is more that the sand drives you than the other way around. And the offroad tracks are really bumpy.

More offroad camels ...

Far away I spotted some tents. Yes, these will be our shelter tonight.

This is still ahead of us. I am curious ...

The next stop will be a nomad home, Khalid told us. I am always a bit shy when it comes to "seeing the "indigenous people", but Khalid assured us that these families live, among other things, from the visits of the tourists and freely and very hospitably share their lives and ambience with the visitors. 

And here we go. Before you scan through the following pictures, you may first go through your home, physically or in your mind. How does your living room look like? Your bathroom? In your mind, open the water cranes, and there will be hot and cold water, in your designer kitchen you have a stove, a fridge, a freezer, a microwave, plenty of cutlery, plates, cups ... I think you get the idea.

This is different. I have never seen something like what I have seen here. These people are real nomads. They build their "rooms" at a spot where there is water nearby. When there is no water anymore, they pack their things and move on, 50, 60, 100 kilometers through the desert, to find a place where there is water.

This is the sort of living room / kitchen. I reckon that this tent has the most ritchness in it. THe other rooms are much less full / equipped.

This is the small tent with the oven, and a kettle for hot teawater, and a small fireplace for a pot.

On the left side, you see the charcoal they have right now.

This thing is the stomach of a goat or some other, more furry thing. The nomads put the goat-milk in there and then shake or swing this thing. That is how they make butter. For you, butter is in the supermarket cooled shelf, right?  

This is the bedroom from the outside. 

And this is the bedroom from the inside. The mat behind the middle pole is a bed.

Some cardboard boxes and plastik bags serve as shelfs.

One toy from the glitter world: a unicorn

This dump I guess is dried or preserved as food for the few animals.

Probably their most valuable possession are these animals. They have one hen with a little chick, and then the goats for milk.

This bild does not belong to the nomad family. It was just beautiful.

this box is the loo. Here you go for your private business.

Next to the loo is the tea tent, where we sat.

This is Hussein, the father / husband of the family, a very friendly, open man, He invited us for a tea. We sat around a little plastic table, and Omar started a conversation that I of course didn't understand. 

Part of welcoming the guests is also to offer some food. You see selfmade bread, some small snacks and some very special, very prescious sauce. This little bowl you see here on this picture, with the dark sauce in it, is made of a roughly a whole kilo of dates. They are pressed, cooked, reduced, refined and finished for a rich taste. And that treasure is then shared with guests.  This sauce has an incredible value for this poor family.

Hussein, the nomad, asked Omar, where we come from. I don't think that he had a clue where and what Germany is. He asked Omar, how our nomads live and how they keep their animals.

He was surprised to hear that we don't have nomads. He probably found it strange that we hold our cattle in large stables.

Omar asked Hussein about the medical care for his people. He answered that they are pretty healthy so far and didn't need a doctor until now.

What about child birth? Well, the wife's mother comes along and lives with the family, until the child comes. Everything is handled in the desert, in the tent.

This piece of equipment is probably something very special. It is curved, with two dimples for the wooden sticks, and the whole construction holds the tent up, in the middle.

Omar in deep conversation. What do you live of? 

Of people like you, coming for a visit. There is no other income.

Here you see us sitting in the tea tent. At the end you briefly see the sone. He looked up to his father. One day, in the not so far future, he will also be a nomad, continuing the tradition.

The poverty here is overwhelming, and yet, the people do not complain. It is their life. I thought what would happen if we would take the father with us to Germany, or just to Marrakesh. How would he see our day-to-day world? Would that even be wise to do? Besides, we couldn't bring him to Germany, as the whole family doesn't have any papers. They are unlisted, unregistered desert dwellers.

We moved on. Next stop would be an old mine where the raw material for Cajal (the black stuff women put around their eyes) was mined and grinded to powder. THe mine is not operational anymore. Once, there was a whole village full of life around that mine. Today, the place is deserted, the houses fall apart in the desert's wind and sun.

People are selling souveniers here, some a bit tacky, others very nice fossiles. I bought some things for my family here.

I am buying some little, beautiful fossils for my family at home.

When we left the mine, we passed this field, covered with stones all set uproght in the ground, like black teeth. Khalid told us that this is a graveyard, every stone representing a short life lived. Short, because most of the dead that had been burried here were children that didn't survive the rough life of the miners.

The hill of the dead children. They died for Kajal.

The landscape is mindblowing here. Look at this tree, that we found on our way to the next settlement, where immigrants from far south of Africa now life and had built a settlement.

We were guided into a fairly large room, with seats all around the walls. In the middle of the long side the guys living here, with dark skin and white clothes, sat and made music. Wonderful music, with a base string instrument, drums and some metal somethings the musician holds in has hands.

You see here the band in action! If you play this blog on a computer with some decent speakers, you can catch the impressive volume the drums and the base produce .

Now we are heading "home", back to the place we live at the moment. On the way, Khalid stopped again. He wanted to show us a little stream of clean water, coming from un underground lake. This water is carefully distributed by concrete channels to field in a oasis with a beautiful charme. In the picture and video below you see lots of palm trees, and between the the palm trees we found fields with greenery such as parley and majoran and onions.

This is where Khalid stopped. Behind the wall we found that wonderful garden.

Here you see an opening where you can go down the steps and access the water. In the extension, you can sense the underground canal that was built here.

Khalid ensured us that this water has drinking quality.

At the well, we turned right into the garden. Doesn't the garden look gorgeous? In the middle you see the canal. It has left and right cross channels that are closed and opened by clay lumps.

 

Omar and Khalid, on their way into the garden.

Here you see how the side channels are closed with clay.

The green stuff here between the palm trees are herbs.