Day 1: Fes – Ifrane – Cedar Forest- Midelt – Ziz Valley – Merzouga Sahara

We depart from Fes at 8 o’clock and pass through Ifrane, where the houses have sloping roofs to cope with the yearly snowfall, which is remarkable and unusual in Morocco. Near Azrou, at 1250 meters, you can see Barbary apes in the oak and cedar forests of the Middle Atlas, where “Azrou” means “stone” or “rock” in the Berber language. We then drive along the N13 south over the Middle Atlas, passing through Timahdite, which is another Berber name and signifies its feminine gender since the word begins and ends with the letter “t”. We arrive at Midelt, which is called “the apple capital” of Morocco and lies at the foot of the Ayachi Mountain. The town serves as the commercial agricultural center for the surrounding area and is also one of Morocco’s principal cities for mining several minerals, such as fluorite, vanadinite, quartz, and cerussite. We will stop here for lunch.

We continue south and travel over the Tizi-n-Talghemt pass, known as the “she-camel” pass. We descend through the Ziz Valley, which is particularly well-known for its palm trees and the length of the oasis. Along the road, there are innumerable “ksars,” small villages of individual houses. We reach the mining town of Er Rachidia, which mines copper and malachite, and then Erfoud, famous for its date festival and fossils. It is fascinating to see how these millions of fossils have been worked into artifacts, and the shops are worth a visit. There is no obligation to buy anything! We continue to Rissani and finally the famous red Erg Chebbi dunes in Merzouga. You can take a camel ride of an hour to an hour and a half either setting out from the camp or to it. There is also the possibility to take the 4×4 to the camp.

Day 2: Merzouga – Erfoud – Tinghir – Todra Gorges – Dades Valley – Dades Gorges

If you wake up early enough, you can watch the spectacle of the sunrise, when the color of the dunes and the play of shadows are an awesome sight. After breakfast at the camp, we leave for Tinghir and the Toudgha gorges. On the way, you pass the water channels, “khettarat,” which you can descend into to appreciate the architecture and genius behind this form of irrigation that prevents evaporation in the summer heat. The channels start at a higher gradient at one end until they finally emerge at the surface of the soil where they are fed into the fields. In the gorge and the valley, there are opportunities to walk beyond the gorge itself or by the village gardens and fields before you reach it. Later the itinerary continues to the Dades Valley. The area, which now forms the Dades Gorges, lay at the bottom of the sea millions of years ago. Great quantities of sediment were deposited around giant coral reefs, and over time, this material became compacted into a variety of sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and limestone. Eventually, the movement of the earth’s crust caused the region to rise above the sea, forming the Atlas Mountains and surrounding landscape. The night is spent in a hotel or kasbah.

Day 3:  Dades Gorges – Roses valley – Skoura – Ouarzarate – Ait Ben Haddou – Telouet – Hight Atlas – Marrakech

On Day 3, the journey will take you from Dades Gorges to Roses Valley, Skoura, Ouarzazate, Ait Ben Haddou, Telouet, and finally to High Atlas and Marrakech. After breakfast, you will travel through the famous Valley of the Roses, known for its Rose Festival in May, and past the kasbahs of Skoura. Here, you can visit the small but interesting and well-preserved Kasbah Amredhil, which used to be featured on the 50 dirham banknote. Continuing on from Skoura, you will pass through Ouarzazate and then head to the most famous Kasbah in Morocco, Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou, a World Heritage site and a backdrop for many Hollywood blockbusters. The journey will then take you to Telouet, a town situated amidst the mountains and once the seat of the last Pasha of Marrakech, El Glaoui, from where the highest pass in Africa, Tizi-n-Tichka, was controlled. Finally, at the end of the afternoon, you will arrive in Marrakech, where your Morocco desert tour from Fes to Marrakech concludes as your driver escorts you to your Riad.