Hotel Sahara M'Hamid

... on we went on a "little hike". That ended up being a mix of canyoning, spelunking, and bad ass hiking through a canyon. We spent the night in a Berber hotel in a quiet little corner of the country. The next day we went to Todra Gorge, similar to the other but a little bigger. But the highlight, without a doubt, was going to Merzouga. That is where the Sahara begins. We rode camels out for two hours into ...

After a random unexpected stop in Casablanca Lizzie and I arrived in Marrakech at 10:30pm. We were met by our Morrocan guide Marwan who drove us back to the hotel Riad Mogador. At 8am the next morning we set off on what was to be a windy 12 hour drive through the atlas mountains. We stopped along the way for a snowball fight, lunch in a little village, the location where a lot of the film 'Babel' was shot, a place with a view of massive date plantations and a small village made of mud ...

We are up for some more punishment so we had decided we wanted to do a more extreme Sahara Desert experience by roughing it nomad style with a five day camel trek. The Merzouga dunes were great but we wanted some more genuine desert time. We also decided that we would go directly to the source, to the isolated town of M' Hamad in the South near the Algerian border where we had heard we could negotiate a trek with the camel guides who live there. The sand dunes are called ...

... a round of charity applause. The moon rises wiping out the stars again with a blue sky and we sleep. It seems to me the suffering of the days here are rewarded by its nights. After enduring a sun that takes nearly all life from you, a night appears with a breeze that you never take for granted and a sky more moving than any art you find in a European museum. Every day is a constant reminder of suffering and relief.

Within minutes of arriving in Zagora we had already been contacted by a desert trekking business. After a quick settle in to our room we were off to negotiate our camel tour of the Sahara. Abdellah ...

Après cette journée de repos au Camp du Sultan, nous reprenons notre périple en descendant la vallée du Draa, vers le Sahara. Nous traversons Tazzarine, puis regagnons la route en direction de Zagora. La vallée du Draa est tres verte, et la palmeraie de Zagora est considérée comme la plus grande du pays. Après le déjeuner à Zagora, nous nous arrêtons à Tamegroute ("Tamegroute, casse-cro ...

The desert is not a picky eater. She will eat anything, but she eats very slowly. If you take lunch with her, you can take your time peacefully enjoying yourself without concern, but always keep an eye on her as she may get an appetite when you're not looking. The desert doesn't often talk to strangers, but she has great love for her friends and family. If you join her in midday, you may hear her converse with her sister the wind, with whom she shares her temper. Listen as ...

nachdem andreas nach der ersten woche nachgekommen ist und auch ein wenig luft von marrakesch geschnuppert hat, geht es auf wüstentour, hinein in die sandwüste. sechs tage dauert die tour gesamt. am ersten tag fahren wir richtung sueden nach zagora mit dem landrover. ein halt bei den kasbahs ist ein super erlebniss. keine anderen touristen dort und wir können auf ...

... to climb one of the dunes before dinner which proved to be more strenuous than I thought and I was breathing hard after finally reaching the top. The view from there was so amazing though that I decided to go back up again in the morning to watch the sunrise. The next day we road our camels back to Merzouga and I took the minibus to the town of Erfoud where two Korean girls and I had to bargain hard for a taxi to take us to Fez.

... arrival. David made lots of friends by agreeing to give everyone a lift into town (an olfactory experience) and letting Jamal drive the rental car. Mrs Iriqui whipped up a superb chicken tagine for dinner. Tagine is to Morocco what curry is to India - slow cooked in ceramic over a charcoal fire meat and vegetables with subtle spicing and lots of bread to mop up. This one had hints of coriander and ginger zinged up by the juice from the tomatoes (a non-traditional ingredient ...