Day One
At check-in I met Nap and Kevin. We introduced ourselves, shook hands, a little embarrassed, exchanged stories about our fund-raising ("I really must get round to that!" said Nap) and formed an orderly queue at the desk. After we'd checked in, we hummed and hawed for a minute before deciding to hit the bar - I was going to like these guys. In the bar we were joined by Tony, Andy, John, Louise, Rosemary, Mairead and Therese. We all clicked immediately and were having great craic, finding it funny that having spent the previous day being particularly abstemious in preparation for the long journey ahead, we arrived in Dublin airport and went on the piss.

The flight to Morocco was in three stages - Dublin to Heathrow; Heathrow to Casablanca and Casablanca to Quarzazate. Along the way our group started to expand further and we were joined by Angie, Pam and Joe. Our first night in Quarzazate (the nearest town to our starting point) was spent in the Hotel Belere. We arrived at 11:30pm and as we'd all been up since 6:00 a.m. with an early start the next day - we went the bar. With the additions of Susan and Lorraine our group was now fully formed but we didn't actually know that yet. The resident's bar finally closed at 1:00am but the management kindly told us we could bring our drinks out to the foyer - we promptly ordered another round and did as we were told and continued to do so until 2:30am.

Day Two
We got coaches from the hotel to take us for three hours as far as the roads went. From there we went across the rough ground on "local transport" - two cattle trucks! All eighty of us crammed into the back of those trucks and journeyed for two hours over rough desert with no visible means of support - "For you Tommy, ze war is over!!". The journey was sheer unadulterated hell. We were bashed around from side to side and from each other's side to side - the bruises later that night were hugely impressive and impressively huge. Finally we reached the camp-site where we booked our tents and grabbed our food.

Day Three
This was the day I had been dreading - the first day of actual hiking. I was still terrified I wasn't going to be able to do this. Our team was the last to leave. We were: Andy; Angie; John; Joe; Kevin; Lorraine; Louise; Mairead; Nap; Pam; Rosemary; Susan; Therese; Tony and me. We were joined by local Berber guides, Ibrahim and Hussein, Hugo from "Across the Divide" (the company running the hike) and Clare from Dublin Simon.

We stocked up on water - all of us had half litre platypus bags which went into our rucksacks with a long pipe extending out from which we were supposed to take regular sips. Nap asked me how to get it working, he was having terrible problems getting the stopper off the pipe. I told him what I did was bite it off and throw it away to leave a hole the size of the end of toothpaste tube to suck from - I assumed blowing back into the tube stopped the water flow. I was wrong. It turned out that the "stopper" had a tiny slit which only opened when you sucked on it and closed back when you stop. Nap and I discovered this when Angie asked me, "Where's your suckie thing?!", just in time to prevent Nap from abandoning his at the camp-site, but too late for me and I had terrible problems over the next few days trying to stop my pipe leaking - if you see what I mean.

We stumbled on until lunch, stopping at a lovely spot - with lots of lovely shade - all four groups meeting up together. A couple of people came up to tell me I was very red around the forehead, which of course put the fear of God into me. I was wearing a sun hat and plastered with factor 30 million - but I put some more on anyway. (It was a couple of days before I realised that the very redness of my forehead was caused by the very tightness of my sun-hat!) The second half of the day's hike passed by fairly uneventfully but it was still a great relief when we finally hit camp. We did our warm down exercises. At the end, Pam introduced one of her own. She asked us all to stand around in a circle; turn to our left and then pat the person in front on their backs. Sappy, sentimental and an absolutely perfect way to end the day. Of course, I nearly ruined it by turning to the right and almost boxing John in the face.

Day Four
Our biggest worry during the hike was of course our feet. So far, most were fine but Susan was not so lucky. Her blisters were quite bad and every step increasingly painful. Unfortunately, today there was a plan to make a diversion and take in a small village along the way, adding at least another hour to our hike. Hugo stopped the group and asked who wanted to skip the village and go straight back to camp - only myself and Susan did. Hugo told us to stay where we were - the other group was coming up behind and they are all going back to camp so we could join up with them.

Before the rest of our team set off Susan and I were ordered to secure a tent as soon as we got back. When they'd gone Susan and I sat down and just gazed around at the complete vast emptiness of the desert. It was absolutely incredible and so wonderfully quiet. It was like having the planet to yourself. We were both pretty overwhelmed by it all and for about the eighteenth time this trip it hit me just where we were.

Susan turned to me and said, "You know what I would absolutely love right now?"
"An ice-cream?"
"Actually no. I would just love a packet of Tayto crisps," and then she laughed at the sheer ludicrousness of the idea. I laughed too for a few minutes before I reached into my rucksack and handed her a packet of Tayto crisps. She was stunned - and I was a little shocked myself.

That night after our meal we were all singing around the fire when someone, for no apparent reason, launched into "Brown Girl In The Ring". Immediately everyone else around the fire, for no apparent reason, enthusiastically joined in. Soon the Sahara air was filled with cries of "Tra - La La La La La ". Suddenly we were joined by the Berbers, armed with drums that look like bodhrans, singing their own song. Incredibly, two completely different songs from two completely different cultures from two completely different parts of the world, gelled together in absolutely perfect harmony. It was an incredible experience. Everyone leapt up and joined the Berbers in a dance around the fire and indeed the whole campsite. I was really beginning to enjoy myself, this was a wonderful time.

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