DESERT TRIP FOR 3 DAYS/2 NIGHTS
STARTING AND ENDING IN MARRAKECH
DAY 1:
I will pick you up and we will depart Marrakech and travel over the Tizi n’ Tichka Pass. You will enjoy superb scenery while we pass through the High Atlas Mountains. The many Berber villages are so unique. Around midday, we will make a stop for lunch and tour the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Aït Benhaddou, that is situated on a hillside along the Ouarzazate River. This beautiful example of southern Moroccan architecture has been used as a backdrop for over 20 films including Lawrence of Arabia, Jewel of the Nile, The Mummy, and Gladiator.
After lunch we will continue towards the El Kelaa M’gouna (Valley of the Roses), the Dadès Valley (Valley of One Thousand Kasbahs) and stay overnight in a hotel near the Dadès Gorges. You will experience the evening with an authentic Moroccan dinner in your choice of Xaluca Dades Kasbah or Kasbah Itran.
DAY 2:
After breakfast we will depart the city for Todra Gorges. Its 20 m/66 ft wide entrance, bubbling clear stream and its 304 m/1000 ft high rock walls stretch 99 m/325 ft back on either side and is the most stunning part of the canyon. Todra Gorge is a great place to go for a hike. The mouth of the gorge lies just 15 minutes by foot from the village, so walking up to and through the gorge is an easy and spectacular option. The Todra Gorges are a series of limestone river canyons, or wadi, in the eastern part of the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco, near the town of Tinerhir. Both the Todgha and neighboring Dades Rivers are responsible for carving out these deep cliff-sided canyons, on their final 40 kilometers through the mountains. The narrow valley is lined with palmery and up on the rocks you may see the Nomad families tending sheep and goats. Perhaps, you will spot the eagles that nest in the Todra and other amazing birds.
We will have lunch in the Gorge, travel further into the desert to the village of Merzouga, where you will camel trek into the beautiful Erg Chebbi Dunes. You will spend the evening in a bivouac (camp), enjoy an authentically prepared Moroccan dinner, and have your choice to sleep in a traditional Nomad camel hair tent at Kasbah Mohayut Bivouac or Auberge L’oasis.
DAY 3:
Wake-up to a spectacular sunrise in the desert and enjoy breakfast. Bivouac trekkers will return by camel and continue to Ouarzazate and back over the high Atlas Mountains. We will return back Marrakech in the evening.
