Morocco: Sahara Desert

Note: This is part 2 of a 3 part series on Morocco.

“The Sahara is not visited like a medina: it is lived, not indulged, you have to let yourself be taken by its mystery, its secrets, and imagine the dream behind the sand dunes, which sometimes move and sometimes remain still. The desert is an idea, a way to strip yourself of everything and dare to look yourself in the face; it is a mirror that must be taken seriously. Morocco has a lively, splendid desert, not far from cities or roads.”

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

INTO THE DESERT

On the day after Christmas, I got up before dawn, gathered my belongings, and left my riad. There are no street lights on the narrow side alleys of the Marrakech medina, so it was almost pitch dark at first as I made my way towards the central plaza of Jemma el-Fnaa. I was here to meet up with the tour group that would take me on a 4 day/3 night journey through the Sahara desert and eventually to the city of Fes. Apparently all the different tour operators tell their customers to meet them in front of the Hotel Restaurant Cafe De France and I was not the only one to be confused about which tour vehicle was mine. Eventually my driver and I found each other and I got in the van. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice and comfortable the vehicle was. When I visited Mongolia back in 2018 I went on a tour that promised air conditioned 4 wheel drive jeeps and instead what I got was a beat up first generation Prius that broke down in the middle of the Mongolian steppes. But my ride in Morocco did not disappoint, and I even got a side seat to myself that wasn’t connected to any other seats.

At this point you might be asking yourself, “Wait, isn’t this Lone Wolf Journeys? Isn’t it supposed to be about independent travel?” Well, here’s the deal. I almost always prefer to travel independently when I can, but in Morocco there are only a handful of ways to see the Sahara desert. One is to rent a car. Most cars in Morocco are manual transmission, which I never learned to drive. The small number of automatic transmission vehicles are more expensive and limited in supply. I considered doing this but since I was on my own, it was just too much money and I was also a little intimidated about driving through mountains and deserts on highways with no streetlights. Another option is to hire a private driver or charter a private tour. Of course, this is even more expensive than renting a car. A cheaper option is to take a bus (there is the public bus company CTM and the Supratours bus run by the Moroccan train company ONCF). But these busses take much longer to get to their destinations and they only go to certain cities and towns. I would still need to find local transportation to get to the actual sand dunes. Moreover, when you are traveling without a tour group in the Sahara region of Morocco, I hear that people will constantly trying to sell you tours and accommodations. Housing options may be more limited and more expensive, and you still might need to hire a local guide to visit certain places. The last option is to join a public tour group, and even though that usually wouldn’t be my preference, it made the most sense for me in this particular situation. But as you will see, I still wound up having a pretty unique experience that was different from that of the other people I traveled with. Overall, the tour exceeded my admittedly low expectations, although there was quite a bit of confusion along the way.

Other than a brief stop to get gas and some snacks for the ride, our first real stop was in the Atlas Mountains. This was still a fairly quick stop just to take pictures, but the mountains were beautiful. It was invigorating to breathe the fresh mountain air and watch the sun rise over the peaks. Quite a change of environment from the densely packed streets of Marrakech.

From the mountains we continued south and the landscape gradually changed to more of a desert environment, somewhat reminiscent of Arizona. Around lunchtime, we arrived at the village of Aït Benhaddou in the Ouarzazate province. This historic and picturesque village of traditional earthen buildings has been used in the filming of many Hollywood movies, including Lawrence of Arabia, Time Bandits, The Jewel of the Nile, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Mummy, Gladiator, Alexander, Kingdom of Heaven, and Prince of Persia, as well as television shows such as Game of Thrones. When I was there, they were filming Gladiator 2 at the nearby Atlas Film Studio. It’s no wonder that this village has captured the imaginations of filmmakers; It looks like it was pulled straight out of a movie. The Ksar, a historic walled inner building complex at the heart of the village, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has preserved its traditional architecture, with rammed-earth and adobe buildings, some of which were constructed as far back as the 17th century.

When we arrived at Ait Benhaddou, we first had lunch at a local restaurant. They made sure to include vegetarian options here and at all the other stops on the tour. I had couscous and vegetables with salad and bread. I was a little surprised to find out that there were three other vegetarians besides me in our group of about 15, and we ended up eating together at almost every meal–two video game programmers who were dating (one from England and one from Spain who was moving to England). and a guy from Italy whose occupation I don’t remember. They were all very nice.

After lunch, we got a guided tour of the village from a local Berber guide, complete with a an art demonstration. Once the guide finished telling us about the village, we were given about half an hour to explore on our own, which was just the right amount of time. As special as Ait Benhaddou is, there’s not really a lot to do there, and a half hour is enough time to take in the views.

GORGEOUS GORGES

Next we travelled east for several hours until we arrived at Dades Gorge near the Valley of the Roses where we would spend the night. They put us up in a large modern-style hotel. We had dinner in the hotel (tagine). Around this time I started to realize that I was the only person in my group who was going to Fes. Everyone else was going back to Marrakech in two days. I started to panic a little and when I couldn’t find my driver to talk to, I sent a WhatsApp message to the tour company (WhatsApp tends to be the preferred method of communication in Morocco). I didn’t really expect anyone to get back to me that night but they did, and they told me everything was fine and that I would simply be transferred to a different group when I got to Merzouga in the desert. Maybe I had overreacted, but in my defense, there was virtually no communication about my itinerary throughout the 4 day tour, and every driver, guide, or host I encountered during the tour seemed to have no idea what the plan was after their little part of it was over. It’s not really those individuals’ faults, but the tour company should have done a better job of communicating the plan from the beginning.

The next morning we left the hotel and drove a fairly short distance to Todra Gorge (sometimes called Todgha Gorge). Formed by the Dades River and the Todra River (which is warm to the touch thanks to a pure hot spring that feeds into it and provides clean drinking water to the area), this series of limestone river canyons in the eastern High Atlas Mountains is known for its 1,300 foot tall canyon walls. The canyons are also something of a wind tunnel. Walking through this shaded windy canyon on a late December morning was the first time I was truly cold in Morocco. The gorge is beautiful and imposing. After visiting the Gorge, we went on a tour of a nearby oasis where local residents farm small plots of land using traditional organic methods. Some of the farmers are semi-nomadic, spending the growing season here and the off-season herding goats or sheep in the mountains.

In the adjacent village we got a tour of a small family-owned handmade rug workshop. This tour was clearly designed to get us to spend money but none of us actually purchased a rug (they were rather expensive) and we were not pressured to buy anything like I’ve heard happens on some tours. In fact, this was the only time during the 4 day tour that we were given a sales pitch, and to be honest the demonstration was genuinely interesting and educational. And I got some free mint tea out of it.

For the next few hours we drove nonstop toward our ultimate destination, the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert. It was still unclear to me what my itinerary was, and I was under the impression that I was going to participate in the sunset camel ride to the sand dunes of Erg Chebbi that night with the rest of the group. Unlike me, the rest of the people in the van were headed back to Marrakech the next day, so I figured that the next morning I would be transferred to a different group that was bound for Fes. But that’s not how it went down. As we approached Merzouga and the road devolved into a dusty path in a dry desert expanse, the driver yelled out “Who is going to Fes?”. I responded that it was me (I was the only one) and without preamble, he pulled over to the side of the road and ushered me out of the van. A beat-up old car pulled up to the side and its driver grabbed my bag and deposited it in the trunk. The driver of the van told me to go with that man and with barely enough time to wave goodbye to the folks I had just spent the better part of two days with, they were driving down the road, and I was rumbling over rough desert ground in a car that was most definitely not designed to go off road. It was Mongolia all over again. Fortunately for me, this uncomfortable and bewildering ride only lasted 15-20 minutes as the driver (who spoke almost no English and did not seem to have any information to share with me anyway) dropped me off at the gate of a rustic earthen hotel. A very nice smiling man took my bag (I offered to carry it myself but he insisted) and showed me to my room. He spoke a little more English than the car driver but not that much. Apparently I was sleeping here tonight and I would go on the camel ride the following evening after other activities that he didn’t really know anything about.

I was served dinner in a common area (although I was the only guest in that area at the time). It was an enormous vegetarian meal, way too much food for one person, and although I tried to eat as much as I could so as not to waste any food, I simply couldn’t finish it all. The food was great. The main course was tagine (which I was already getting sick of because I’d been eating it pretty much every day) but my favorite part was the delicious harira soup and fresh bread. That soup and bread was really all that I wanted but of course I ate as much of the tagine as I could too so as not to be rude. (And don’t get me wrong, the tagine was good. I had just had enough of it recently.) There were also small plates of various salads, dips, and toppings. That night I walked out from the hotel toward the sandy dunes. I had already ventured a short distance out there before dinner, watching camel caravans in the distance, and now in the rapidly cooling (but still not cold) evening, I walked slowly for about 45 minutes as I watched the sun go down over the dunes. Even after the sun set, I could still capture a lot of light in my photos if I tilted my phone at a certain angle. I walked back to my hotel as it got dark out but I had a headlamp and the moon also shone pretty brightly, so I was able to see fine.

I was confused about the plan from this point on. Presently, I did not seem to be attached to any group. The group I had come with had presumably finished their camel ride and was staying at a desert camp somewhere else before returning to Marrakech the next morning. Presumably, someone else was going to take me to Fes in a couple days, but no-one at the hotel seemed to have any information about that. I didn’t even know what the plan was for the next day other than a vague list of highlights I had read in the tour description online before booking it months ago. But I resigned myself to take things as they came and just enjoy the experience.

ANAKIN’S WORST NIGHTMARE

The next morning I was treated to another massive meal. Again, I was the only guest. Whoever else was staying in the hotel must have been on a different schedule/itinerary. My breakfast included Moroccan pancakes, rolls, bread, olives, fruit, yogurt, and a bewildering variety of spreads. They offered to make eggs for me, which I politely declined. Instead of asking me to choose between coffee and tea, they served both, in addition to juice. These meals were part of my tour package, so I wasn’t spending any money in the moment on all these enormous feasts. It was pretty chilly when I first got up but by the time I finished breakfast, the desert sun was already warming things up.

The friendly hotel staff member who had checked me in the day before still didn’t have much information to share with me but he did tell me that someone would be coming by to pick me up for my “activities”, whatever that might entail. Sure enough, a driver pulled up to the hotel midway through the morning and took me to Erd Chebbi, the most famous of the sand dunes in the Moroccan portion of the Sahara. We couldn’t get too close to the dunes by car but he took me to a nice vantage point to admire them from a distance. Erg Chebbi is the classic image of a yellow sand dune that a child might draw if you told them to draw a picture of the desert. It gave me flashbacks of World 2 from Super Mario Bros 3, where an angry sun chases you across the desert and swirling sandstorms threaten to whisk you away. This was the Sahara.

After taking in the views, my driver took me to the adjacent village of Rissani where I would begin my quad ride. A quad is a 4 wheel off-road vehicle like an ATV. When I first booked this tour, I knew that a quad ride would be part of the itinerary, but I assumed that I would be part of a group of tourists all riding quads together. But since I was solo for the moment, I got my own private quad lesson. The car driver waited in the parking lot as a quad trainer from the rental place helped me put on a helmet and sun visor. He was very patient as he taught me how to operate the quad. I had never ridden any kind of ATV-type vehicle before, so I was a little slow on the uptake, but it was pretty simple to operate once I got the hang of it. We started out on the flat, almost traffic-free backroads near the rental place and whenever I found myself getting off track, I could simply stop and wait for the trainer to get off his quad and help me. Once I was a little more confident, we continued onto the main road and drove to sand dunes. The trainer showed me how to gradually accelerate up a dune and then slow down as I rolled down the other side. He explained that if I went too slow up a dune, I would roll back down and the quad might flip over. This prospect terrified me but my trainer was there every step of the way to guide me along.

We started with the smallest dunes and then worked our way up to bigger and bigger ones. A couple times I got off-track and the trainer would run beside me as he steered the quad for me. I should mention that he spoke almost no English but he was very good at non-verbal communication. He was constantly looking back at me and exchanging a thumbs up with me to make sure I was doing OK. I’m probably making it sound like I was completely useless here, but after a little trial and error I did get the hang of it and was able to traverse the dunes without much assistance. Finally we reached a high plateau that overlooked the village of Risanni in the distance. Here, with windswept sand dunes as far as the eye could see on three sides and ahead of me the village, glistening in the sun, I felt truly immersed in the desert. I felt privileged to be alone aside from the trainer and to be able to experience a feeling of solitude in this magical place. At the same time, it was approaching noon now and sweat was dripping down my brow as that villainous Nintendo sun beat down on me. The ride back to the rental place was a hot one and I suffocated under the heavy helmet. I was relieved to return to the shade of the car with a breeze blowing through the open windows.

The next activity was a much more passive and relaxing one: listening to traditional Moroccan desert music. My driver and I went into a shaded courtyard where we sat on a cushioned wooden bench and sipped mint tea while watching a group of local musicians sing and play traditional instruments. The music kept on flowing with a steady rhythm. A young boy who was playing the drums swapped out with an older gentleman mid-song and I wouldn’t have even noticed if I hadn’t been looking. We stayed for two 10-minute performances and then my driver asked me if I was ready to leave in a tone that suggested that he was ready to leave but was too polite to say so. I would have liked to stay longer, but I didn’t want to impose on the driver, so we left.

Our next stop was to a cluster of nomadic huts in the desert. While many of the Berber inhabitants of this region live stationary lifestyles in modern houses or apartments, there are still some people living the nomadic lifestyle, and they supplement their meager income with tips from visiting tourists. This visit was a little bit awkward because the residents seemed to already be engaged giving a tour to a different group. Meanwhile, my driver and I sat alone in a tent, snacking on nuts and traditional crackers and sipping yet more mint tea (I wasn’t kidding about the ubiquitous nature of mint tea, guys). The driver explained a little bit about how people live in the nomadic village but it was clear that he was not an expert on this topic (nor did he claim to be). I left a tip under the snack bowl and we departed without ever having met the people who lived there, although I could hear them talking to the other tour group in a nearby tent. While this experience could have gone better, it was still interesting to see the nomadic village up close. It reminded me of the time I spent in Mongolia, staying in a ger (yurt) with a nomadic family. However, that Mongolian family seemed to be more entrenched on the land, with herds of horses and sheep and even a satellite dish to watch TV in their ger. By contrast, this nomadic camp in the desert seemed like it could vanish at any time.

I returned to the hotel for a lunch of more tagine, bread, salad, and fruit (as usual, way more food than I could eat in one sitting). Then I had a few hours of down time to just chill in the hotel. As the sun started to get low in the sky, I inquired about the sunset camel ride I had been anticipating. The staff person I had been talking to told me that my new group would be here soon and we would go on the camel ride together. More hours passed and they hadn’t arrived. The hotel guy talked on the phone to the tour group leader and it seemed that they were delayed. He offered to arrange for me to do a camel ride right away so I didn’t miss the sunset, but I didn’t want to miss my group and I also didn’t want to make people do extra work to give a camel ride to one person. After some time, the group finally arrived. The sun was already going down but still lingered above the horizon for a little longer. My luggage was put in the back of a van and we mounted our camels and set out.

I had only ridden a camel once before, in Mongolia. I was a little nervous back then, but at least I was on mostly flat land at the time. This time we would be riding our camels up and down sand dunes and there weren’t any stirrups to strap me in–just a saddle and a metal bar to hold onto. Because I’m short, my legs didn’t extend very far down the sides of the animal and I squeezed that metal bar for dear life as every time we went over a hill I felt like I was going to fall to my death. Fortunately, that did not happen, and when we stopped in the middle of the dunes to watch the sun finish setting, it was worth the stress and discomfort of the ride. As we got back on the camels to travel to our desert camp for the night, I was surprised to see that we were splitting into two groups going two different directions. It was very dark by the time we arrived at the camp. We were served the obligatory mint tea, but some of the guests were saying that they had paid to stay at the luxury camp, which this was not. I had not paid for any luxury camp, but after some deliberation, they directed all of us to set back out into the night. Most people rode the camels again, but I chose to walk alongside the Moroccans this time. I had had enough camel time for one night. We travelled across the sand to another camp, this one more brightly lit.

A CORRINO LIFESTYLE ON A FREMEN BUDGET

As soon as we entered the camp, it was clear that this was the luxury camp. Where the first camp had just been rows of nondescript white tents around a rectangular common area with a reception desk and some plastic chairs, the luxury camp had tall walls, decorative lamps and torches, and a covered patio with cushioned furniture overlooking a firepit. I was surprised and delighted to see that the nice gentleman from the hotel was there–I guess the camp is owned by the same company as the hotel? We were treated to yet more mint tea, and I was assigned to a tent. Because of the snafu they had made earlier by taking some guests who had paid for the luxury camp to the wrong camp, I was apparently getting a free upgrade. I was concerned about where my luggage was but it was promptly delivered to my tent without incident. When I say “tent”, you may be getting the wrong impression. This was a luxury tent, more akin to something a traveling Sultan might spend the night in than anything you would find at typical campground in the U.S. The walls of the tent were decorated with beautiful patterns, and at the center was a cushy king-size canopy bed. The craziest part is that my tent–in the Sahara desert, surrounded by sand dunes, where I had travelled by camel–had a sink, a flushing toilet, and a regular shower. I don’t know what marvels of engineering were wasted on wealthy international tourists to make this possible, but without asking for it or paying extra for it, this was the luxury experience I received.

We had dinner in a large indoor dining area. There were dozens of people there from multiple different tour groups, and I had no idea which ones I would be riding to Fes with. Everyone I talked to said they were going to Marrakech the next day. They sat all the vegetarians at one table and I got to meet an interesting assortment of people from Hong Kong, Canada, and Russia. We had some very interesting conversations about culture, international politics, travel, etc. Dinner was–take a wild guess–tagine. A giant platter of vegetarian tagine was placed in the middle of the table to be shared by the 5 of us (we each had our own plates). As usual, it was too much food. Aside from the tagine, there was fresh bread, salad, and fruit. The meal was good but I had had just about enough stewed vegetables for one lifetime. My dinner companions expressed the same sentiment. They too had been eating tagine for every meal.

After dinner, we all gathered around the fire. Several locals started a drum circle and began singing. Eventually people (both the Moroccans and many of the international guests) started to dance around the fire. This went on for hours and I left to take a walk. I couldn’t go far, since we were surrounded by sand dunes and it was pitch dark out, but I wanted to see the stars away from the lights of the camp. I had heard that on a clear night in the Sahara desert, the sky was full of stars unlike anything you can see from a city. I thought perhaps I might even be able to see the swirl of the Milky Way. I have to say, I was a little disappointed. While the stars did shine more brightly than in the city, I couldn’t see that many more than usual. I thought maybe it was because I was still too close to the camp lights, but I figured out later on (too late) that it was probably just too early in the night. The moon was shining very brightly and that obscured the stars that I couldn’t see. If I had set my phone alarm to wake me up at 3 AM and I had gone back out there, I probably would have seen a much more impressive sight. Oh well. Maybe next time.

When I arose the next morning, I didn’t want to get out of bed. It was cozy under the covers, but as soon as I took them off it was freezing. All the warmth from the previous day’s sun had evaporated and it finally felt like winter. That feeling was short lived though as dawn approached and the air almost instantly got warmer. I got dressed and followed some of the other guests across the dunes to watch the sun rise. Seeing the sun rise over desert was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. Even the random Moroccan guy walking from dune to dune trying to sell stone camel figurines couldn’t spoil the moment.

After the sunrise walk, I had breakfast in the camp. Blessedly, this breakfast was a buffet, which meant that for once I didn’t have to feel guilty about leaving food on my plate.

FROM THE DESERT TO THE CITY

At this stage, I still didn’t know who I was traveling to Fes with and as time ticked away, I started to worry that there had been another mix-up and that I was stuck here (although it certainly wasn’t the worst place to be stuck). As usual, no-one seemed to know anything. But eventually someone did knock on my door and inform me that my ride was here. I expected a tour van like the one I had come from Marrakesh in, but instead I was greeted by an old white pickup truck turned brown by the sand that covered it. In the bed of the truck were about a dozen tourists hunched together hugging their knees. I thought that was to be my fate as well, but the truck bed was completely full and they instead squeezed me into the back seat of the truck next to everyone’s luggage. Why they didn’t put the luggage in the flatbed and at least some of the guests on the seats instead of the other way around is still beyond me, but I lucked out getting to sit inside. I was hoping very much that we wouldn’t be riding like this all the way to Fes for 9 hours and indeed we would not. The truck ride over the sand only lasted about 10 minutes until we got to the road. I got my luggage and got out of the truck along with the people in the flatbed, and it drove off. There were several different vans and cars parked on each side of the road and I was not the only one to be confused about which one to get in. After some time, I did meet up with the right van and to my relief it was just as nice as the one I had taken from Marrakech.

After stopping at a convenience store/gift shop we drove for hours until lunchtime. We stopped in some random town for lunch. Excited to eat something that wasn’t tagine, I ordered couscous. We were also served complimentary olives, bread, and a delicious spicy dipping sauce that I couldn’t get enough of. They also brought us some small bananas as a desert.

As we continued on, the landscape and climate gradually changed and the sandy desert turned into a rocky environment with more and more greenery and water the farther we went. After several hours, we entered a cedar forest and stopped to see the wild monkeys (macaques I think) that gather here because people feed them. The monkeys will walk right up to you and there are people selling bananas and bags of nuts to feet the monkeys. I didn’t feed any monkeys because I figured this setup probably wasn’t very good for them, but it was interesting to watch them. There were some baby monkeys there and they were adorable.

Near the cedar forest, part of which is a national park, is one of the wealthiest enclaves in Morocco. This is where a lot of rich Moroccans and ex-pats live and even from the street you could notice the difference in the infrastructure. Somewhere here is also a national palace belonging to Morocco’s royal family. There were uniformed armed guards stationed at posts along the sidewalk.

When we were less than an hour out from Fes, we stopped mysteriously at an orchard on the side of the road and I had no idea why until another van pulled up and handed a scarf to a grateful tourist through the window. Apparently she had accidently left it at the restaurant earlier and another tour group that was also headed to Fes rescued it for her.

By now it was evening and the sun was starting to go down. We first entered the suburbs and then the city of Fes itself. Traffic was bumper to bumper and I was impressed at how big of a city Fes actually is. In my mind and it was a quaint medieval town but in fact it is a city of well over a million people with a large technical university and a modern big-city vibe beyond the borders of the historic medina where I would be staying. The van dropped each of us off at our respective hotels and riads or as close as they could. Even though I was staying at a riad in the medina, it was on the outer edge of the medina and could be accessed by car. I got checked in and was impressed to see that this riad was every bit as beautiful as the one in Marrakech.

Overall, my desert tour exceeded my expectations even though there was a great deal of confusion throughout. The vans were very comfortable, the food and accommodations were exceptional (even if they did go a little heavy on the tagine), and my weird state of limbo between tour groups felt like I had my own private tour, which I essentially did. The poor communication was frustrating at times, and there were also problems getting my credit card to approve the purchase of the tour beforehand, but altogether I’m very glad I did it. If you’re travelling with friends or family, I recommend getting a private tour, hiring a driver, or just renting a car. If you’re by yourself but you have lots of time on your hands and you want to save money, the public bus option is definitely a possibility too. But the group tour turned out much better than I feared it would. And experiencing the Sahara is priceless. If you want to go really deep into the Sahara and far from civilization, you would need to go somewhere other than Morocco, like Algeria or Chad. But watching the sun set and and then rise again over the dunes felt as far removed from my day to day life in Baltimore as anything could. I highly recommend it.

In a few days, I will publish the last post on Morocco, which will cover my time in the city of Fes, where I rang in the New Year. Until then, check out the rest of my photos from the Sahara (two albums). Thanks for reading!