Visiting an ancient Sahara village - Merzouga

The night had been cool - as evidenced by our cold noses when we woke up. The sun was just coming over the dunes and hitting the wall around the roof area where we are huddled under our blankets. Today will be busy – we will be going into the little town of Merzouga, that has survived on the edge of the Sahara forever.

After breakfast we head off in a jeep to the village to carpet shop. The village ladies are known to be wonderful carpet makers and some of the carpets we will look at were actually woven by them. (see the link on carpets from my blog) Our driver today lives in Merzouga and he will be able to answer any questions.

First we have to get to Merzouga. It’s on the very edge of the large Saharan dune... but where is this town? All you can see is sand, gravel and a few low flat buildings. ... the road is invisible

again. When asked about this he points out the large rocks strewn across the ground in a line that are painted white. They mark the edge of the road. Finally we got to a more constructed road and

there were fences one side. Aha! Civilization is here - somewhere. We go through an arch

gateway, covered on one side with blown sand that disguised the structure. But... it welcomed us to the village... and we could see small houses.

Sand lay in a swath half up the walls, making it look derelict and unoccupied. Our guide explained that in the summer sometimes you get sand storms that blows sand in by the truckload! They must dig it out each year - like a snow blizzard, but without the freezing cold :).

We entered a large, cavernous building, piled with Moroccan rugs - obviously this small village had not made ALL of the carpets. This was the depot for carpets in the whole region. Benches ran along the walls, facing of rug piles on the floor. 'Please, sit down,' the owner says as he brings a pot of mint tea with small ornately engraved glasses. He pours the tea from almost two feet to make it frothy. While you sip your tea, he tries to determine what you are looking for - what size carpet, what room is it for, what colours do you like, what designs… He knows his carpets and as we answer, he pulls out carpet after carpet.

In no time, there were a pile of rugs displayed at our feet. There is no rhyme or reason to how they are priced. The size has some influence on it but there are several different styles with differing amounts of work done on them. This can impact the price. Once we found a few that we liked, then we asked the price. He built a pile for each of us – one for me, one for my friend. If I liked a particular red one but wanted a smaller one, the owner dug through a pile and pulled one out. It was astonishing how he knew exactly where every rug was in his shop. We had three hours and with all the choices, colours and sizes we thought we might need longer. How do you decide? They were all so different and so perfect!

Finally, I decided on a hall runner in orange and greens. I paid for it and it will be shipped to my home for a fee. After all the searching and negotiating, we were famished! Our driver invited us to his family's home for lunch - a delicious Moroccan stew. It was wonderful! His family welcomed us and we were treated like queens. It was so nice to meet the people and ask them about living in the desert. If you speak French you can communicate a little but the driver translated for us. We chatted for a while as we enjoyed their hospitality (it was part of the tour but it was so natural). You really don't get a true picture of Moroccan culture and how the people live unless you take the time to sit with the locals and learn from them.

* * Just so you know, you don't have to squash it into your backpack or luggage - every carpet store will be willing to ship it for you and they are experts at packaging and tying them up smaller than you could imagine! It is well worth paying insurance if you are shipping it. Both my friend and I had carpets shipped to different addresses - both disappeared en route. They got to the Post Office in Montreal and then disappeared - poof! We contacted the shop owner and he allowed us to pick another carpet (by sending us loads of pictures of his carpets by internnet) and he shipped them to us. We were very happy we had paid the extra 25$ to insure them