Ways of looking at things

There are two ways to tell the story of our weekend trip to the desert (Erg Chebbi sand dunes) near Merzouga with our friends Brian and Sara.


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The first goes something like this:

It was a rough week leading up to the trip, and I wasn't feeling very enthusiastic about much of anything. People told us it was going to be horribly hot in the desert, and I wasn't looking forward to the eight (or more) hours in the black, non-air conditioned interior of Brian and Sara's Dacia. The trip got off to a bad start on Friday when we drove at least 20 kilometers in the wrong direction. When we got to Erfoud, where we had planned to spend our first night before heading for the desert, the hotel we had reserved was unacceptable, and we had to wander around town to find another hotel. After checking in to our new hotel, when we hoped to get showered and freshened up, the power went out.

The next day (Saturday), our guide was over two hours late in coming to get us for lunch, and we then discovered that we had to drive back toward Ifrane several kilometers. After lunch, we headed for the desert, which was hardly visible because of the strong windstorm blowing through the area. We were supposed to go spend Saturday night in the desert, but we cancelled that because of the winds.

Only camels could tolerate being out in that wind!

Instead, we went to the hotel where we had planned to spend Sunday night--Auberge du Sud. We had a delicious dinner there. Unfortunately, though, the next morning, two members of our group had mild food poisoning (either from lunch or dinner on Saturday, we weren't sure). We tried to cancel our trip to the desert, but the hotel manager had already arranged one for us and had no rooms available for that night.




Here's another way to tell the story: