“Heads up”, I yelled as I sprinted across the lip of the towering sand dune that lay in the Sahara desert in Morocco and leaped down its steep backside. Feeling the air stop whistling past my head, my bare feet once again touched the fine powdery sand, caught and threw my face straight down into the sand flipping me over twice. Standing up I could feel sand in every crevasse of my body as if I had just taken a shower. I was in the desert in Africa and I remembered at that instance what it was like to be a seven year old again playing in my old sand box. The only difference was I am now eighteen and this was a very, very big sandbox.

I ran back to the caravan so that I could have friends aid me in brushing all of the sand off my body. When I got to them they all started to laugh as I saw in pictures later I looked like an orange and brown man covered from head to toe in sand except for a set of racoon eyes where my sun glasses had been.  Later I learned that I never really got all of the sand off of me because to this day I am still finding sand in my ears as well as my hair; trust me it does not come off!

After another hour of running up and down dunes we made it to our camp nestled in between three towering dunes. We dismounted the camels and snacked on peanuts and slowly drank down our tea. The sun was minutes away from dipping below the horizon so we began the trek up the largest dune around the camp to watch the sunset over the Sahara. While sitting up on top of that dune it was hard to feel at home because there was no water as far as the eye could see, nor any sound of the hum of the generators or the clinking of harnesses.  As the sun set, we were hit with the cold breath of air that seemed to drive out all of the heat that baked the desert during the day. After watching the gorgeous sunset we headed down the dune, set up sleeping bags on our beds and sat talking – all looking forward to what became a great night that we would never forget.