Erg Chebbi is a dune field of around 22 Kms from north to south and around 5 Kms from east to west. The highest dune at 884m is in the north. The dunes include a few desert oases and you can without much effort get water just by digging a bit. To get to a desert oasis, you take a long route by road. The geography and the various stops en route make you live a wonderful experience.
We leave Marrakech at 8:00 a.m. We roll over the Tizi n’Tichka section (2260m), getting a charge out of awesome perspectives of the mountains and of the Berber Villages over the way. Subsequent to taking lunch, we visit the World Heritage place of Ait Benhaddou before embarking for Ouarzazate and carrying on for the Valley of Roses and the Dades Valley. We come to see Skoura Oasis with its certified 17 century Kasbah in The Valley of a Thousand Kasbahs. We go spend the night in a hotel in Ourzazatte.
We set off for Skoura where we stop to visit the Amredhyle Kasbah, one of the wonders of the southern “Course of A Thousand Kasbahs”. We proceed with our trip through the Valley of Roses, driving 30 km off road on a Valley direction to visit the wanderers and have tea with them. We touch base at Dades Gorge, where we eat and spend an engaging evening of free rambling and meandering. We feast and go spend the night there.
After breakfast, we set out to the Todra Gorge, a massive fault and a constricted bowl with palmeries and Berber Villages. After lunch in the gorges, we drive to Merzouga and stop side by side the brilliant sand dunes of Erg Chebbi. A while later, we begin 90 minutes camel ride to get to our camp, where we make the most of our evening and spend the night.
We return by camels to the hotel for a shower. We visit the black village’ of Khamlia to listen to the Gnawa artists before taking an ancestral Berber pizza for lunch in the old capital of Rissani. From that point forward, we return to our hotel in Merzouga for the night.
We leave Merzouga after breakfast, embarking for Fez. On the way, we go through Erfoud, Errachidia and Medilt. We eat in Medilt and stop to watch the monkeys on the cedar jungles of Azrou. We arrive at Fez before nightfall.
