Essaouira

Essaouira is one of the places where it is popular to go on a camel ride. (Ok, in Morocco, they are actually dromedaries and not camels because they have only one hump.) Our camel ride was on the beach. Our guide picked us up and we headed there. Camels were lined up all across the beach, we walked over to four camels sitting tied together. The first camel, our guide’s camel, was named Sultan. Sultan is the name for a king in Morroco. Sultan the camel was large, tannish colored and had very short hair. Next came Timbuktu, my mom’s camel. Timbuktu was light brown, curly and fuzzy. Then, it was my camel, Aladdin. Aladdin was dark brown, small and fluffy. He also had a white patch on his head, with brown freckles. Next was Nelson Mandela, my dad’s camel. He was dark brown on his body, which faded into tan on his legs. His face was grey. We got on our camels, and I was feeling pretty confident until they stood up. They have to stand up in two steps. First, they swing forward so that they are on their knees. Second, they swing back to fully stand up. This is what this looks like on the back of a camel: A sudden jolt and you feel like you are going to fly off the camel and face plant. Then, the camel rocks back and you hold on for dear life.

If you think no other land animal on the planet looks bigger than an elephant, then you are wrong. From high up on the camel it looks like you just climbed the Eiffel Tower. We rode across the beach for awhile and then started inland. Here, the wind was calm and the sand was settled. We stopped for tea in the forest, then we got back on. We came back to the beach as the sun was setting. The sun cast long shadows of camels as we walked on. The camel ride was great!

Along the drive to Essaouria and back, we saw many goats in trees along the road. They awkwardly stood on branches as they munched on the leaves. It was hilarious!

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