3 Day Tour from Marrakech to Fez via the Desert

In the morning we climb through the Dades canyon, with its zigzag bends and the eroded rock formations known as monkey fingers. Then we head east to Tinghir, a long oasis where the palm grove runs between two mountains.

We enter the Todra gorges, the best known in the south: 300 metres of vertical wall and a gap of barely ten metres where the river runs. We walk along the floor of the defile in the shade, usually with climbers overhead.

The road carries on south-east and the landscape turns to stony desert. We stop at Erfoud, capital of the fossil trade, and at Rissani, the old Sijilmasa from which the caravans left for the south. On market days we walk the souk, one of the most authentic in the country.

We arrive in Merzouga in the afternoon, mount the camels and ride into Erg Chebbi to the camp, with time to climb a dune before sunset. Berber dinner, music around the fire and a night in a tent.

Sunrise over the dunes, the moment almost everyone remembers. We ride back to the village, have breakfast and shower before setting off.

Today we head north on a different road from the one we came in on. We climb the Ziz valley, a corridor of palms tens of kilometres long wedged between rock walls. There is a viewpoint over the Ziz gorges where the whole palm grove opens out below.

We continue through Er Rachidia and Midelt, in the corridor between the High and Middle Atlas, apple country with old mine workings. Then we cross the cedar forest of Azrou, where Barbary macaques are often at the roadside, and pass Ifrane, a town of pitched roofs built by the French that people here call little Switzerland.

We reach Fez in the late afternoon and drop you at your riad in the medina or at the airport. It is a long driving day, around eight hours spread out with stops.