3 Day Tour from Fez to the Merzouga Desert

We start the morning in Erfoud, capital of the fossil trade, where blocks of marble are cut and polished with ammonites four hundred million years old.

Then Rissani, built over the ruins of Sijilmasa, the caravan city the gold routes left from for Timbuktu. Its souk runs on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and is still a market for local people rather than visitors. We eat medfouna, the stuffed flatbread baked under hot sand.

In the afternoon we move towards Merzouga and, depending on the season, out to Dayet Srji, the seasonal lake where flamingos stop in spring, or to Khamlia, where gnawa music is played live.

As the light drops we swap the car for a camel and ride into the dunes of Erg Chebbi, which reach 150 metres. An hour and a half in caravan brings us to camp, with time to climb a dune for sunset. Berber dinner, drums by the fire and a night in a tent under the stars.

We leave the tent before dawn to watch the sun come up over the dunes. In the first light the sand goes from grey to orange in minutes. We ride back to the village and have breakfast at the hotel, where you can shower before the drive.

We start back north along the same Ziz road, which looks different on the return because the light falls the other way. We stop wherever there was no time on the way down.

Back up through Midelt and the Middle Atlas, with a last stop among the cedars at Azrou or in Ifrane depending on how we are for time.

We reach Fez in the late afternoon and drop you at your accommodation or at the airport. Around seven hours of driving spread out, the longest day of the three.