Merzouga: Shooting Stars, Fulvous Babblers, Slumbering Sahara

One of the greatest joys of travel is being able to cross paths with a motley cast of characters and being able to form genuinely rich human bonds with kindred spirits. On the bus from Fez to Merzouga I meet a beautiful old man called Steve – a man after my own heart. Steve had biked all over France, was a multiple- marathon runner, doctor turned aid worker (he works for a group called Doctors without Borders) and a famous geologist. Steve becomes my travel companion for the next four days as we make our way through the desert and eventually to Marrakesh.

Merzouga is a little village that serves as a base for travelers venturing into the Algerian Sahara. We arrive at Merzouga in the morning and check into a spartan looking
building made out of dung and dried mud. On gaining critical mass (steve, bill and laura, two flamboyantly gay Frenchmen, one stoic German couple with a 1 year old baby, one loquacious Japanese girl, two loud Danish women and myself) we hire camels and make our way into the desert where we will pitch tents and spend the night.

The desert landscape is hauntingly beautiful. Sand dunes change color – hues of pinks, browns, yellows and purples against a perfectly brilliant blue sky. Steve and I have long conversations about rock formations, tectonic movements of the earth and unstable isotopes.

“ One can learn a lot from the rocks" remarks Steve with a quizzical air about him.

"For instance Zincum is one of my favorite rocks. It resists metamorphic change. Metamorphic activity makes unstable isotopes escape but it resets the clock. What would you like to be Vikram? Would you like to be Zincum, stable and resisting change or would you like to be a rock changing but losing history?”

As he posed such koan-like philosophical conundrums we pass exotic desert birds. I spot a fulvous blabber (I love the name!) and pink flamingoes by a small oasis. We spend many a hot sweaty hour trudging through the desert and as evening approaches we dismount our camels and climb up to the highest dune to watch the sun set over endless expanse of sand.

At night a local berber makes dinner, we eat and tell stories. The air gets chilly and we all decide to sleep in our tents. The Danish girls, Steve and I are more adventurous and sleep on the bare sand outside the tent. I have never felt so alive. My body is shivering but when I open my eyes I see the most ethereal sky above me. I follow the projectile movements of shooting stars. I show one of the Danish girls the big and small dippers while she shows me where Polaris, the north star is. We collectively locate Orion with his big dogs standing next to Eridanus while Steve educates us about Cassiopeia. I want to stare at the night sky forever.

Two of the Danish girls have fallen asleep in symmetrical fetal positions next to me. These loud, assertive women seem so tame and calm in their sleep. Steve’s lips are puckered and he resembles a baby. As I doze off myself I think about how Saint Exupery was marooned in the Sahara desert and my mind conjures up a line from Le Petit Prince:

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

In the quietude of the Sahara night, I suddenly see my fellow travelers and the stars above from the eyes of the heart and everything takes on a magical quality of innocence and purity.