Morocco Recap - Part 2

After spending a few amazing days in Marrakech, I was extremely excited to wake up early and hit the road for the most anticipated part of our trip: the Sahara Desert road trip. 

Now, I love me a good road trip, and this one was going to span four days and cover a lot of ground in Morocco. And most importantly, I was going to see the Sahara. The most beautiful orange sand. Camels. And sleeping under the stars in a fancy glamping tent.

This four-day journey would take us from Marrakech through the valleys, stopping in the desert for 2 nights, and then north to Fes, the oldest imperial city in Morocco. 

On Sunday morning, our local guide, Mustafa, picked us up at our riad for our private tour, and we hit the road.

We drove through the Atlas Mountains, a series of mountain ranges in northwestern Africa that run southwest to northeast to form the geologic backbone of the countries of the Maghrib (the western region of the Arab world)—Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.

We made a quick pit stop at a local argan oil shop, owned and operated solely by Moroccan women. They showed us how they make argan oil (it’s a labor of love!), and then we got to try some of the argan oil products that they sell in their shop.

Extracting oil from argan nuts

We hit the road again, en route to Tizi n'Tichka, a mountain pass through the High Atlas mountains that serves as a gateway to the Sahara Desert. The landscapes quickly changed to mountainous, treacherous cliffs around every bend.

Then the rain began.

We stopped at the ancient kasbah of Aït Benhaddou, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, and Mustafa encouraged us to get out and walk through the kasbah. I am normally game for just about anything, but jetlag and several late nights and early mornings had finally caught up to me. I was also unprepared for the rain and hesitant to get soaking wet with no other hiking shoes to change into and a whole day in the car ahead of us. In other words, I just wasn’t feeling it.

But I got out of the car, begrudgingly, and drops of rain slapped me in the face to remind me with every step that I was about to get soaked. 

And soaked we were.

Walking to Aït Benhaddou in the rain

But we also saw the most amazing view when we climbed to the top of Aït Benhaddou and looked down at the city below. It was almost an out of body experience, feeling like I’d taken a time machine back to the ancient years when this city was created to protect its inhabitants. It was incredible.

View from the top of Aït Benhaddou

I got back into the car, wet, cold, and tired, but also excited. I quite honestly didn’t want to get out at this stop, but I did it anyway because I also get major FOMO. And I am so glad I did. 

So many times when I am traveling, I have the opportunity to see or do something super unique, and even though I sometimes feel tired, lazy, or just not in the mood, I push myself to do it anyway.

And you know what? I rarely ever regret it.

It rained almost nonstop as we drove through winding roads on top of cliffs that overlooked the mud huts and valleys down below. The mud huts actually wash away over time from the rain, so their inhabitants need to add to them every year to keep their homes intact.

Mud hut village in Tizi n'Tichka

This whole leg of the trip made me feel like I was on the set of Game of Thrones, and for good reason. Aït Benhaddou has been featured in The Mummy, Alexander, Gladiator, and, most recently, it was the set for the city of Yunkai in Game Of Thrones. It was raining, we were soaking wet, and the mud and dreary weather only added to the feeling of being part of something incredibly authentic.

I couldn’t get over the fact that this was all the same country. Just hours earlier we were in Marrakech, enjoying the souks and the exciting chaos that the city of Marrakech brings, and now we were in the mountains, hiking ancient kasbahs, and feeling like we were on a completely different continent…or in an entirely different period of time.

Aït Benhaddou

The next day, we were having lunch on our way to the Sahara Desert, and our guide got a call telling us that the road we needed to use to get to the Sahara was flooded from all the rain coming down from the Atlas Mountains. We were about two hours away at that point, and it seemed unlikely that a little rain would keep us from passing through.

We were so wrong. When we arrived at the bridge, it was completely flooded up to our shins, enough to cause the local police to keep anyone from passing through. The crowd at the bridge continued to grow as we watched the muddy water flow down from the mountains into the river below. I was incredibly anxious to get to the Sahara. If we didn’t get going soon, we wouldn’t make it before sunset. And sunset in the Sahara is kind of a big deal.

We were so freakin’ close.

Assessing the flooded road while cars wait to pass on the other side.

We decided that once it was safe to go through, we’d be the first car to try it. We had an SUV and a snorkel on our vehicle for this exact reason, and our car was better-equipped to handle the water than most. The police agreed and told us to wait until they gave us the go ahead.

After a couple hours of waiting, we were finally waved through, and we drove through a giant river of water while all of the local men anxiously watched to see if we’d make it across or get washed away into the river. They were all tapping on our windows and yelling things in languages I couldn’t understand, most likely giving us their best advice on how to get across successfully.

Mustafa blazed on full speed ahead as Rachel and I yelled. As we approached the other side, we were cheered by everyone waiting to pass through. It was exhilarating! We all shared this crazy experience together, and now we were all free.

Onward to the Sahara!

As we took a left off the main road towards the desert, I will never forget the excitement I had in the pit of my stomach, anxiously awaiting the infamous sand dunes of the Sahara. I’ve seen deserts before, but they’ve got nothing on this. The bright orange sand contrasted by the bluest skies is one of the coolest things I have ever seen in person.

Sand dunes of the Sahara Desert

When we arrived at our desert camp, Kam Kam Dunes, we were treated like royalty. Because Morocco had just reopened for tourism, we were the only guests in the entire camp. We were given the honeymoon suite (aka a fancy glamping tent with running water, a toilet, shower, electricity, and even heat), and it was fan-freaking-tastic! 

We spent our first evening watching the sun disappear behind the dunes, dining in a tent with cats, playing drums and making friends with the camp staff, and having a dance party with the camel handlers. It was easily one of the best nights of my life.

Rachel and I catching some Sahara wind

I was reminded yet again that this is why I travel. This was why I quit my full-time career to start a travel business—so I could help other people have these magical experiences too.

The next day, we explored the Sahara by car, which means we drove through the sandy “roads” of the dunes. We stopped at a Berber village to experience first-hand how the locals lived in the desert and have tea with them.

It was fascinating to think that people live in tents in the middle of the desert with no running water or electricity. They have so much less than we do, and yet they’re perfectly content. It was humbling, to say the least.

A Berber woman baking bread for her family on an open fire

We spent the afternoon ATVing in the sand dunes, which is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. The dunes are HUGE, and driving through them on an ATV allowed me to explore them in a way that I could never do on foot. I felt like a tiny ant in those giant mountains of orange sand.

We tried (and failed at) sandboarding and returned back to the camp before sunset, just in time for our camel ride.

If you know me well, you know how much I love camels. I have already ridden them twice in Cappadocia, Turkey, but riding them through the Sahara at sunset is something else. We rode them quietly while the two camp dogs followed along, exploring the vegetation. Since they’d just gotten so much rain, we had the opportunity to see rare purple flowers in the desert, which the camels appreciated snacking on. It was incredibly peaceful.

Camel yawns

We spent our last night in the desert with the camp staff (shout out to Mustafa, Aziz, and Moha), who’d become our friends in just one short day. We played more drums, danced to American music they’d never heard before (but loved just the same), and went to bed early-ish, exhausted from the previous night’s festivities and the long day exploring the desert.

The morning we left the Sahara, Rachel and I got up early to see the sunrise, despite how exhausted we were. I was skeptical that it would be worth losing sleep over, but my FOMO once again got me out of bed, hoping I wouldn’t regret losing an extra hour of precious sleep.

Again, pure magic.

It was a perfect way to end the most amazing visit to the desert. We said good morning (and goodbye) to the camels, had a Berber omelet (sooo yummy), and I grabbed a few pieces of fruit for the road, just in case we’d need it… 

Stay tuned for part three, when we finish up our Moroccan journey to the oldest imperial city in Morocco: Fes.