Erg Chebi, Morocco

After a ten hour drive from Fes, we finally arrived in Merzouga where our two camels were awaiting our arrival. The drive was amazing in itself. I expected the Sahara to be all sand dunes. It's not. Most of it actually looks like Arizona. Large dune fields are known as 'ergs'. They are ancient lakes and seas. They suddenly appear in front of you like mountains do.

We left the bulk of our luggage at a Kasbah (hotel) nearby and loaded up the camels. It felt like a beautiful sunny day. Although we were only a few kilometers away from the Algerian border, it's still very much the most northern part of the Sahara.


We left the kasbah around 3:30pm.

Seeing the sunset in against 180 meter dunes was amazing. It was getting cold and dark and we were still riding. I was convinced our guide lost. Three hours later, we finally made it to the camp. A couple of tents made of camel skin with fashionable holes in them.

We had dinner with Ahmad, our guide. Tangine, of course. We fed the cat who had been brought there to chase the desert mice. Poor kitty. Judging by his hunger, my guess is that there aren't many mice there or he is not a very skill hunter. It was very, very cold at night. I am used to cold weather but I don't normally sleep outside when it's 2 degrees! I had a couple of layers on me plus five blankets. It was December 25 and we completely were alone in the Sahara desert.

We woke up early to see the sunrise next morning... a little too early. We were out by 6am. Little did we know the sun doesn't actually rise until 7am! We took our blanket with us and sat at the top of dune until the sunrise came. The sunset was amazing but the sunrise was incredible.


After breakfast, we decided to go hiking the dunes. They are much higher than they look!


After playing in the same, we rode back to the Kasbah before another long drive to Ouarzazate.