Sun salutation in the desert

Jimi is more the dark type. Short, frizzy hair, slightly ironic pull around the mouth. I like him. Although he has grown small, but that's okay, the smaller the camel, the less deeply the fall from the saddle. Even if you fall on sand. You never know. I choose Jimi. Jimi Hendrix. I'm in South Morocco, on the edge of the Sahara, in front of me is a picture book desert: dunes, as if blown into the sand, depending on the light sometimes yellow, sometimes red, sometimes colored red, a huge sand basin, in which there is nothing, what the wind could make you rustle.

Reasonable diet. That's what I wanted. It does not have to do with a whole world, but only with a single element: sand. And with one single task: doing yoga in the morning and in the evening with a lot of time. I think that the place you practice influences the intensity of the practice, and maybe yoga in a special place is also a special kind of yoga. In any case, the feeling will be different than on my Monday 6 pm course, where I usually run after work and need the first ten minutes on the mat to remind me that relaxation is about to begin.

OMM ...

On Jimi's saddle dangles my pink yoga mat, he ignores her brave. He carries with dignity the burdens that are borne to him, even if they are pink. I googled "yoga" and "desert" and found M'barek Oussidi, a German Moroccan from Kiel who is a nurse who loves yoga as often as possible. He organizes yoga trips to his homeland and accompanies them enthusiastically. His travels supply his entire family: Berbers, who settled down 60 years ago and founded the oasis of Merzouga, a green patch with 4000 inhabitants near the border to Algeria. M'barek's brother Hassan has camels, brother Ibrahim has a tour guide license, nephew Mohammed is a good cook and musician, M'barek's mother is a lovely hostess, bringing all the travelers who bring her son to Merzouga in their home with dates and other Treats and M'barek himself a charmer and problem solver, which covers everything you need for a desert tour.

Morocco, far to the south. Just beyond Merzouga begins the desert. Even the sight is spectacular, parked everywhere camper vans, whose drivers spend their holidays, especially from the edge to stare at the sand. But we want to go inside. M'barek has rented a camp for our group, a place in the middle of nowhere with fixed tents from which we make trips every day. Our camels are waiting on the roadside.

In a camp in the middle of nowhere

Warm-up on the edge of the dunes: trainer Inga (front) heats the participants.

Camel Leader Hassan cushions Jimis Hunchback with a soft ring of blankets, lays the saddle over it and grabs my yoga mat and a rug. Then he means to get Jimi up, which unexpectedly does this with his hind legs first, so I almost fly over the saddle handle. What Jimi acknowledges again with a look that only has on it, who can turn his neck 180 degrees backwards. He walks away leisurely, but I still have to do with holding on tight and finding a seat that does not hurt after ten minutes. Jimi slows down every climb, and I realize that walking with his movements is better than staying upright and stiff in the back. Gradually, it is quiet around us, the hooves of the camels sink silently into the sand, I get a vague feeling of breadth and warmth and breakout, even my thoughts are slowly quieter. We are seven women; all have yoga experience, most have been around for several years, all are tangible, and appreciate a decent sunrise meditation on the ridge of a sand dune, as well as a beautiful strenuous yoga and good conversation.

At a leisurely pace from dune to dune.

Everyone wants to experience the desert not only in the mind, but to move their bodies in it. That's why Iyengar yoga is ideal, taught by Inga, the teacher who travels with us: a particularly precise, slow style that explores every position, every muscular tension exactly, and which is about putting each and every one of the joints in the right place to bring the respective exercise optimal position.

Camels are affectionate, Jimi likes to get up close

It has just the right dose of spirituality, requires concentration and works wonders after a camel ride. Which is why stretching exercises are also the first thing we do when we finally reach our camp after a few hours. We lay out the yoga mats, stretch body part for body part and knead each other with our feet through the tired rider back. Then we move into the tents, they are surprisingly luxurious.Solar power drives a light bulb every evening for a few hours, there is even a chemical toilet. M'barek and his crew value ambience, the folding chairs around the table in the courtyard are upholstered in white hats. And good food is important to them. There are couscous and delicious vegetables spiced with cardamom, curry and paprika. We drink mint tea and clink as the sun goes down and temperatures drop slowly from 8:30 to 8 in the middle of 20. The Berbers heat fire with the scrub that grows in the valleys. We pull up our chairs and watch the tea water slowly boil up. There are only the embers and the sky, the stars as bright as in the planetarium, we sit in our down jackets by the fire, with their heads thrown back. Later, Hassan and the others get their drums and flutes. One begins, the others listen, nodding and falling in, sometimes chaotic and loud, sometimes melancholy quiet, never inharmonious and always very related to each other. At some point we dance because the music is beautiful and against the cold. Then it's almost midnight.

At night we dance against the cold

M'Barek with his mother, who welcomes all his guests

The drums lie like a soft carpet over the silence of the earth, they help us to find the camp again, as we walk in the dark with toothbrush and water bottle a few dunes too far. I sleep in everything I wear on my body, three leaden camel-hair blankets, and still wait longingly for the morning, when the sun throws a first warm beam through a hole into the tent from seven o'clock in the morning.

Meditation and conscious breathing are part of yoga.

Then Inga is already on the way, looking for the best place for the day for yoga. We roll out the mats again and change after the stretching exercises that bring the residual cold from the bones, slowly in the stance positions and try not to tip because of the sandy ground from the mat. So from now on all our days are: riding, running in the sand, admiring sunrises and sunsets, eating couscous. Lie under our date palm in the camp and read. To do yoga. Talk. Laugh. Above all, laugh a lot. Sometimes we miss telling how the sun sinks spectacularly. It's the most stimulating, boisterous form of messing I know, without the drowsiness you get on the beach. If we ride out, just to see the next dune, then in the group, just because of the camels. These are consistent herd animals and heartbroken when they are separated. Jimi, when trotting behind his friend ScoobyDoo, likes to touch the muzzle of his belly, and sometimes Scooby-Doo licks Jimi's lips. When I want to go alone with Jimi for half an hour, he bleats so heartbreakingly that his whole body shakes.

View over the desert town Merzouga with its mud buildings

Hassan follows us quickly with Scooby-Doo. Sometimes we climb on the big dune behind the camp, the Berbers have a snowboard to ride down on, but I prefer to sit on the highest point and look around while my feet slowly sink into the sand, flowing down the gutters like clear water. I can see almost to Merzouga, M'barek's concept is desert light, we can ride out in half a day or, if we are hungry, walk for an hour, to the house of a Berber baking bread with vegetables in the coals of his fire which tastes like warm pizza with cinnamon.

Tour guide M'Barek lets the sand splash.

We are just so deep in nowhere that it helps us turn off, but does not throw us off track. So is our yoga: present, not raptured, the eyes always clear. But it goes from day to day deeper. Once Inga says as we lie on the mat and feel the evening warmth below us, "That's you", and those three words that sound so banal are enough to say what we all feel at the moment. Once we ask her to show us the position "The Camel" because we want to know what the yoga translation is for it. We go to our knees, grasp our feet with our hands, lift our pelvis, push our sternum upwards. The exercise stretches the spine and opens the heart. Jimi looks over and is about as impressed with it as the flies on his eyelashes.

Travel Info: Yoga Travel in the Sahara

We booked the trip on "Sahara Yoga". Owner M'barek Oussidi offers 8- to 13-day Morocco trips all year round and combines the desert tour with trips to Marrakech or Essaouira. Travel from 6 persons, costs from 990 Euro per person (Sahara Yoga, Tel. 04 31/310 34 86, www.sahara-yoga.com).

Getting there: By plane to Ouarzazate, z. B. over Munich with Iberia from 493 euros. From Ouarzazate, the Oussidi family organizes transport to Merzouga.

If I had known before, that desert nights are so cold, I would have taken a winter jacket, and not just a - of course easier to stow - summer down.Even if the temperature drops only 10 degrees: it really feels icy.

Recommended reading Lutz Redecker: "Southern Morocco". Much practical knowledge about the region of Marrakech beyond the Atlas Mountains. (263 p., 15.90 euros, Michael Müller Verlag)