Merzouga and the Sahara, Morocco

The Sahara. Probably the part of the trip I’d been most excited about, and it absolutely delivered.

Wednesday 1st October

A long day of driving — 10 hours from Fes to Merzouga, cutting south through the Middle Atlas and into the desert. We made some stops along the way, but the main attraction was getting to Merzouga and taking a sunset camel ride out to our camp in the dunes. There’s something quite surreal about riding a camel into the Sahara as the sun goes down — the sand glowing orange and the shadows stretching long across the dunes. We had kofta and egg for dinner at the camp, and I shared some Mahia (a Moroccan fig brandy) I’d picked up earlier in the day.

Thursday 2nd October

We were up at 5:30am to catch the sunrise, climbing a steep dune in the pre-dawn light. It was worth every step — watching the Sahara slowly light up as the sun crested the horizon was genuinely one of those moments you don’t forget.

After breakfast we piled into a 4x4 and spent the morning tearing across the dunes, stopping for photos, visiting a small village to see how locals get their water, and having tea with a nomad Berber family. There’s an incredible hospitality in Berber culture — we were welcomed into their home without hesitation, and the mint tea was as good as anything I’d had in the cities.

We stopped for live music at our guide Ghislane’s cousin’s place, then headed back to the hotel for a cooking class where we made Berber pizza — a kind of stuffed flatbread cooked in the sand. We had tagine for dinner and I was in bed early, exhausted and happy.