The Atlas Mountains and Sahara Desert

April 15, 2024

Plus a camel ride 🐪😀

The rural hotel provided a great breakfast on a sunny but cool morning. It’s a good thing we’ve had no rain, since the bike truck still has a broken window.

After about a 45 minute drive to start the day, our downhill ride started at 9 am. We had our first view of High Atlas. We could see one peak with a bit of snow on it at about 3700 m. Hicham said it would normally be snowier.

This must be a popular driving route because we passed numerous fancy gas stations with car washes, cafes and convenience stores. We also saw a few interesting transportation scenarios today, including a van with live sheep standing in the roof rack. And another one with sheep strapped down on their side on the roof rack. Heading to market, I suppose.

Our ride was over 60 km again today, but it was much easier than yesterday since it was mostly downhill.

Pheena is suffering from the virus now, so sat in the van for the last bit of our ride. But Robyn and Leslie were back on their bikes today.

Learning for the day - Morocco has high speed TGV trains, built by the French and operated since 2017 or so. Half of the project was paid for by Qatari royals in exchange for hunting lands in Morocco. No TGV for us - our train to Tangier had been the old fashioned kind.

Finally, we are in an area that looks like the Morocco I was expecting. It was dry dry dry.

We are in a rural area now, with some very simple houses.

There were some bold color choices seen too.

How much hay can you put on a truck? Lots!

From time to time, I’m sure this river rages. Not today.

Stork nests are huge. This one looks a bit precarious to me, but I guess they know what they’re doing.

Downhill with not much traffic is a lot of fun.

We had a picnic lunch of bread, veggies, not very good cheese, and oranges. We stopped short of the official Intrepid picnic spot because there was a better site at a restaurant with outside tables that were shaded, and five star toilets. It would’ve been too hot sitting in the sun.

We had a long van ride after lunch. It was over three hours to get to our desert camp in the Sahara, only 40 km from Algerian border. In places, we saw sand fencing along highway to control drifting.

Further along, we stopped in a town for people to use an ATM. At 28 C it seemed hot to us, but not to the locals. We saw people wearing leather jackets and puffy coats.

We arrived in at our camp near Merzouga just after 4:30 pm. Once again, we were welcomed with mint tea. There are over a hundred tent camps here, spread out so we can’t see each other. Camels and tourism are a big deal.

We split our one remaining beer between six people, getting a sip each. Then it was soon time for our camel ride. Best that we had only had a sip of beer, because we needed to concentrate. They told us that technically, we should have called them dromedaries because they had only one hump. But I’ll stick with camel. It was a bit scary when they stood up and lay back down again, but they were well-behaved and nobody fell off.

It was a nice temp as it cooled down. Our camel driver said they go twice a day this time of year, morning and sunset. He said the evening ride was tough during Ramadan, and he finds it hard to smile - but he was cheery today. We bought some interesting fossil trinkets from our camel drivers. Mine is a polished bit of stone containing a couple of ammonites.

Our tents were very hot when we arrived, but cooled down nicely as the sun set.

Despite the tents, it wasn’t too rustic. We had electricity, lights, and Wi-Fi.

Wendy and Betty wearing their new scarves for the camel ride. There was no wind for our ride, which is a good thing. The last couple of days were reportedly very windy. That’d be certainly be unpleasant, and a scarf over your face would be mandatory.

And we’re off. The camel drivers were on foot. We’re heading for the high point.

It was a really nice time of day to be out there.

The camels had no trouble navigating the soft sand, of course.

I was happy to see the driver give my camel a quick kiss on the forehead - it seemed like the animals were well-treated.

The camels waited patiently as we watched the sun set.

It was a late dinner since we returned after dark. We enjoyed barley soup, veggie tagine, and chicken skewers. Then the staff played a bit of music outside next to a campfire.

We spread out our showers since there was a single bathhouse with only a couple of showers. There was still plenty of hot water after dinner.

We had comfy cot beds in our MASH-like tents. The drum music at other camps went on longer than at ours, and we could hear dune-buggy vehicles driving through the desert too. My bed had just one sheet, so I used it like a zipper less sleeping bag, and draped it over the pillow too. Despite the noise and my one sheet, I had no trouble falling asleep after a great day.

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 255 km (158 miles)

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Rachael AndersonWhat an amazing experience!
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6 months ago

Suzanne GibsonGreat desert photos!
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6 months ago

Betsy EvansTo Rachael AndersonIt was a really great day!
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6 months ago

Betsy EvansTo Suzanne GibsonThanks! We really lucked out with the weather and timing. It was hard to choose which photos to post.
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6 months ago