5 days from Ouarzazate to Sahara south desert tours

Day 1: Ouarzazate – Skoura – Rose valley – Dades Valley – Todra Gorges

We set off from Ouarzazate after breakfast, heading east along what the maps call the road of a thousand kasbahs. First stop is the Skoura oasis, where Kasbah Amridil stands among the palms — the building from the old fifty-dirham note, and one of the few you can walk right through. The road climbs to Kela’a M’gouna in the valley of the roses, where we stop for tea and, if you like, rose oil from one of the cooperatives. We leave the tarmac for a stretch before reaching the Dades gorges for lunch. The afternoon allows a walk along the Boumalne Dades river beneath the red cliffs before we carry on to the Todra gorges, where the first night is spent in a hotel.

Day 2: Todra gorges – Ziz valley – Tafilalet – Erfoud – Erg Chebbi dunes

The morning is free enough to walk into the Todra gorges where the walls close to a few metres, and through the Tinghir palm grove. Then south through the Ziz valley and the Tafilalet, with lunch at Erfoud on the desert’s edge. We reach Merzouga in the afternoon in time for an hour’s camel trek up Erg Chebbi and the sunset from the crest (250m). Dinner and the night at the desert camp below — the first of your two nights in the dunes.

Day 3: Merzouga – Rissani – Alnif – Tazzarine – N’Qob – Draa Valley – Zagora

The sunrise is worth waking for; the colours shift by the minute. Breakfast, then back to the car by camel and west across the pre-Sahara towards Zagora, through Rissani, Alnif and Tazzarine (where parts of ‘Babel’ were filmed), stopping at N’Qob for lunch. The afternoon runs down the Draa valley and its chain of kasbahs, with the odd stretch off-road for a closer look at the villages. The night is in a riad in Zagora.

Day 4: Zagora – Tamegroute – Draa River – Anti Atlas – M’Hamid – Erg Chegaga Dunes

South out of Zagora with a stop at Tamegroute — the Qoranic library, the underground kasbah and the kilns that have produced its green-glazed pottery for centuries. Lunch at M’hamid, where the paved road ends. From there it is 65km off-road to the dunes of Chegaga, the highest in Morocco at around 300m, crossing erg, reg, hammada and oasis on the way. Sunset from the top, then dinner and the night in a nomad tent at the foot of the dunes. Two ergs in one trip is the point of this tour — most southern itineraries visit only one.

Day 5: Erg Chegaga – Iriqui lake – fossils – Foum Zguid – Taznakht – Agadir

Sunrise over Chegaga if you are up in time, then breakfast and a final 100km off-road west across stony reg and hammada and over the dry bed of Lake Iriqui, where you will almost certainly see a mirage out in the middle. (Only after rare heavy rain does the bed turn to mud, and then we take the road round.) There is time to hunt for fossils — some loose on the surface, most still set in the rock.

We rejoin tarmac at Foum Zguid and turn north to Taznakht, known for its Berber kilims, for lunch. Over the Tizi-n-Ikhsane and Tizi-n-Tighatine passes to Taliouine, the centre of Moroccan saffron growing, and then down the Souss valley to the coast. This tour ends at Agadir — useful if you are flying out of Agadir’s airport or continuing to the beach resorts.

If you would rather finish further up the coast at Essaouira, our 6-day Ouarzazate to Essaouira tour follows this same desert route and continues north through Taroudant; the 7-day version adds a guided day in Essaouira and a transfer to Marrakech.