Sahara Desert Trekking

Assitance in the airport , transfert to the hotel / Ryad.

After breakfast, transfer to the desert frontier village of M’hamid El Ghezlane, at the end of the tarmac road, on the Draa Valley. Today’s journey is wonderful, we start crossing the Anti-Atlas mountain range before meeting the course of the Draa River valley (the longest river in Morocco and flanked by glorious date palm oases & crumbling kasbahs) and driving via Agdz and Zagora. Overnight just outside M’hamid El Ghezlane in the palm grove of Bounou. Overnight camp will be established, in the seclusion of small sand dunes.

• 250 km.

After breakfast, your vehicle will drive you the short distance to M’hamid from your guest-house. There, meet your desert guides & camel caravan where the camels are loaded with your luggage/equipment. Your guides will also help you to wrap your turban, ideal protection in the desert. The morning’s trek follows the southern banks of the Draa River, through the vast palm groves and original settlement of M’hamid (purported to be approx. 300 yrs old); take time to visit some of the ancient pise-mud buildings, now abandoned, and enjoy the partial shade offered by the trees. Once at the end of the palm grove, take lunch at a point known as Ras Nkhal. Here, the palm trees open out and give way to desert scrub and stone (hamada), earth banks & tamarisk trees for the rest of the day’s trek. After lunch, continue on a south-westerly course for approx. 2.5hrs towards the marabout (the shrine of a holy man) of Sidi Naji, close to where overnight camp will be established, in the seclusion of small dunes.

• Distance 15 km.
• Time 4 hours.

After breakfast, camp is struck, and the day’s goal, the large, remote sand dune region, of Zahar (right), will be reached before lunch. Today’s trekking terrain is largely flat, plateau-like earth (a dried lake) which gradually transforms into rolling sand dunes, with far less vegetation visible today. Camp is established at the foot of the tall dunes, between smaller dunes, and lunch is served. This is a little-visited dune region and your afternoon is given to exploring Zahar, reaching the highest point to enjoy the wide-reaching views across the ‘erg’ (sand sea) and then the sunset. Zahar is also known as the ‘screaming dunes’, for a legend that tells of a village buried beneath the sands there.

• 4 hours of walking.

After breakfast, camp is struck. This morning, for the first time since leaving M’hamid, you will cross the bed of the Draa River, to its northern banks, to start the return trek in the direction of your starting point. The size of the river bed is astonishing, given it now runs dry, but once flowed in abundance through the desert (so much so, that up to 35 families lived on its banks, at the settlement of Erg Smar, further west from your route). Water does still run deep underground here and today’s trek will see more vegetation, some lining the course of former river tributaries. Lunch is taken under the shade of the tamarisk trees. After lunch, trek across flat land which was once fertile (when water was present) and you will come across remnants of agricultural land which is now used as pasture for grazing camels. Overnight camp will be established, in the seclusion of small sand dunes.

• 4h to 4:30 on foot.

With an early breakfast, depart out of the desert to Kasbah Ait Benhaddou. Drive off-road for 3 hours, via a dried river course that leads to the vast salt lake, Iriki, and through some of the finest remote scenery in Morocco. Today’s off-road journey allows you to exit the desert, in the opposite direction to your start point (M’hamid El Ghezlane), to allow you to experience as much of this region of the Moroccan Sahara as possible. Join the tarmac road at Foum Zguid, continue onwards to Taznakht via some dramatic views, and then onwards to reach the main route across the High Atlas mountains.

• Distance   160km, 3:30 hours.

Early morning departure from your hotel, to re-trace  to Ouarzazat. depending on the flight teparture, visite of Kabah de Taourirt, then transfert to the airport.

• Transfer to Ouarzazat 30km, 45 minutes.