We drove east from Marrekach and within an hour we were climbing the High Atlas mountains, on a steep, switchback road. What we didn't expect was snow on the roadside as we reached the top of the pass.
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| High Atlas Mountains |
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| Hassan |
After driving back down to the desert we eventually reached Ait Ben Haddou which has a thriving movie industry. Three big studios, sets and even a movie museum. We toured an ancient Berber village (also a UNESCO site) where "Gladiator" was filmed, along with many other big budget desert films including "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Mummy". They were shooting a sequel to"The Mummy" while we were there. We were too white to get on as extra's.
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| Ancient Berber Village |
We left Ait Ben Haddou and at Ouarzazate then started down "The Valley of a 1000 Kasbahs". Kasbahs were the original large fortified houses, now most are surrounded by villages, some are hotels and some are crumbling ruins.
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| Kasbah |
After a good 3 hour drive we arrived at our hotel tucked into a steep gorge. Off early the next morning, walked along Dades Gorge and watched rock climbers almost directly above us.
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| Dades Gorge |
We drove a few more hours through a vast featureless desert and arrived at Merzouga. Our camels (not really camels but because they have only one hump they are dromedaris, camels have two humps and are only found in Asia). They were waiting across the road from the hotel where our driver stayed.
After 5 minutes we were plodding through the dunes, nothing in sight except for sand, this is what we came for. We stopped after an hour, sat on the dunes and watched the dunes glow in the setting sun. After another hour and in the complete darkness we arrived at the Berber encampment. There were about 15 other tourists there who had taken different routes to the camp, we only saw 2 other tourists on camels on the way in. We had supper and sat around a campfire and listened to our Berber guides singing and drumming. After enjoying the night sky we slept in our own Berber tent, and awoke before dawn, got on the camels and rode out into the dunes to witness the rising sun.Another hour on the camels and we were back with our driver.
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| That's us |
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| Roughing it in our Berber tent |
From the start of our trip we insisted that our driver avoid the tourist traps, so we took a back road and travelled mostly through uninhabited desert, stopping to photograph wild camels, fossils and rest like the nomads under the umbrella tree. We arrived back in Marrkech late at night exhausted and sensory overloaded.
