Marrakech to the Sahara Dunes
Most Sahara trips stop at Merzouga because it is where the road ends. Erg Chigaga is four hours further, on piste, and holds the same dunes with none of the quad bikes. That single decision is most of what separates this route from the standard one.
The road there is the other half of the trip. Over the Tizi n’Tichka at 2,260 metres, down through the earthen ksour of the Ounila valley, along the Draa oases where the date palms run for a hundred and fifty kilometres. Nobody should fly this leg.
It adapts easily. A trekking client walks two days of the Jebel Sahro with mules; a honeymoon takes the same route with a spa night in Skoura instead. The bones of the itinerary do not change.
Into a riad in the Kasbah quarter, and an evening on a terrace above the Jemaa el-Fna smoke.
The tanneries at seven, the Saadian tombs before the buses, the Badi palace ruins, and the Majorelle garden at closing hour.
The Tizi n’Tichka pass, then off the main road into the Ounila valley for the earthen villages nobody stops at.
The ksar at first light with a conservator, then east to the palm oasis of Skoura and a kasbah with six rooms.
The valley road south through the date groves to Zagora, then onto the piste as the tarmac gives out.
Four hours of desert track to the great dunes, camels for the last hour, and a camp of ten tents with no generator.
Sunrise on the erg, breakfast in the sand, then the long drive back over the Tizi n’Tichka to Marrakech.
A last hammam and mint tea before the transfer to Menara for the flight home.
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