Day 23: Merzouga

Longest day on the road of the trip today, 11 hours. We headed south from Fés, traversing the Middle Atlas, Atlas and came within sight of the Anti Atlas Mountains on our way to the Sahara at the town of Merzouga.

We had a stop to see the “wild” macac monkeys, the same kind as in Gibraltar. We left the green pine and cypress forests of the north for the lunar landscape of nomadic and semi-nomadic sheep farmers. 2 weeks ago this area was covered in snow; now gone but starting to green up instead.

Stopped at a semi-nomadic family’s site. Not scheduled but Saaid has stopped before and they’re usually willing to have tourists have a look, hear about their lives (obviously Saaid translated) and they offered mint tea. It’s school break right now so their young girls were there, otherwise they live in the villagewith grandma 20k away.

The landscape was constantly changing so Saaid had lots to tell us: one area is famous with meteorite hunters, another had good sand for bricks, others for growing fruit, etc.

At 1:30pm we stopped at a modern supermarket to pick up picnic supplies (and snacks which we fell upon like vultures, our 6:30a breakfast was a long time ago) and continued on another 30m for our lunch in the High Atlas.

Heading south we entered the sun-Saharan landscape. The land is drier and flatter, more orange and reds and greens from the different minerals. More and more homes built in the traditional adobe style: wood, mud, straw. Both old and new.

I missed some beautiful gorge pictures as again I was sitting on the wrong side of the bus, but on the other side we descended into a flat, lunar landscape.

*Edit: photos from Celia of gorge I missed….*

A quick rest stop for the driver as required = a pick-me-up ice cream & toilets gor the rest of us. Another quick photo op stop of a river valley:

Merzouga: finally got to our hotel on the edge of the Saharan sand dunes at 7p. We dropped our bags and headed straight out to catch the sunset on the dunes which was amazing.