Nomads

Even Thom had to admit the dunes looked different at sunrise.

Four-by-fours driven by Berbers (ours, 44, spoke four languages) skirted the dunes on our way to visit a nomadic family.

Ominous--I wonder what happened to the other sandal?

A scarab made these delicate tracks.

The nomadic family lived simply, to say the least.  

You can't get sentimental about lambs and goats in the desert.  Look at the drying meat on the right to see why.

Abdul, our guide, genuinely enjoyed introducing us to his native culture but if there was a man of the family, we didn't see him.

I bought a wooden toy from Muna, on the far right.  She's 16.

Thom demonstrated the scare it's going to give Dagny.

Homespun cloth.

After tea, we headed to Khamila, a small village, for a performance by Gnaoua musicians.

Too bad the local art gallery wasn't on our itinerary.  The bicycle is painted "Taureg blue," named for a tribe and appropriated by Volkswagen for an SUV.

We had lunch at a surprisingly good pizzeria (dates topped my delicious "des Dunes" slice) with an illustrated map that made it much easier to track our progress for the remainder of the trip.

 

Neither Thom nor I enjoyed the fossil factory very much.

The cooperative buys its secondhand finishing equipment from Italian marble manufacturers.