Getting to Merzouga
Just before we were about to leave our hotel, our young host told us that one of our back tires looked like it had an air leak. With his help we were able to change the “leaking” tire with the spare tire in our trunk. It was all done in less than 15 minutes and we were off to our next destination, Merzouga.
From “Maison otel Sahara”, our stay, it was a 1.5 hour drive to Merzouga. Our next stay was in a desert camp near Merzouga and check-in would not be ready till near sunset time. We did not check out of “Maison otel Sahara” till noon and still we had plentiful of time to get to Merzouga.
Route to MerzougaWe took a “slow-slow” drive to Merzouga, the road was good all the way to Merzouga. We did encountered some slight problems. Near Merzouga a small section of the road was covered with desert sand. It was just a thin layer of sand on the road so we did not think much of it. We slowed our car to cross the thin layer of sand but to our surprise the tires skidded and our car veered to the side of the road. Our car tires got trapped in the “slippery” sand!
Lucky for us, a group of miltary men came by in their truck and helped to push our car back on to the road again. Wew!! Thank goodness. Soon we reached our meeting place in Merzouga. We had booked two nights stay in a “desert camp”. We were told to meet at Raid Manouche for our host.
We were early for our 5pm checkin so we waited for about two hours at the pool side of Raid Mamouche. Raid Mamouche was designated as our rest and meeting point by our camp host. We had nothing to do but relax and surf the web. We ordered a pot of tea and some nuts (20MAD) to “kill” our time.
A Desert Ride to the Sahara Happy Camp
At near to 5pm, Omar our camp host arrived in a large pickup/truck. We transfered two bags containing “two days worth of clothes” into his truck. Omar told us we could safely leave our car in the carpark lot of Raid Mamouche and he would take us to his camp.
Omar was very chatty, full of life and very entertaining. He was bringing us to our “camel ride”. As we drove along we spotted several camel caravans, some long some short. Soon we reached a spot where we saw three camels waiting with Omar’s brother.
The camel ride to the camp was part of the “staying at the camp” package. Besides us there was one more guest. Abdul (Omar’s brother) went through a ritual of “wrapping” our heads with long scraves. The scarves went a few rounds over our head then around our cheeks leaving us a narrow opening around our eyes. Then he gave us some instructions on mounting our camels.
Wow! going up a camel was abit of a “roller coaster”. There was a dip followed by a quick rise and we were five to six feet above the ground. These camels also called dromedary camels were Arabian camels and had only one-humped. Our camels were tied one behind the other and Abdul our guide walked in front, he held a rope tied to the first camel. Off we went into the dunes to see the sunset!
We had never imagined that camel riding into the dune at sunset was such a wonderful and awesome experience. The wavy dunes were stunning, so golden, so tranquil, so mesmerising, so unbelievable beautiful.
Merzouga was a town at the fringe on the Sahara Desert, so technically we were camel riding in the Sahara Desert. The Sahara Desert was so huge, so imense and even at the very edge of the desert we felt so overwhelm at its vastness, at its endless borders into the beyond.
Once the sun set, Abdul guided our camel caravan to our desert camp. It was a 20 minutes “camel ride” and we were so amazed with Abdul’s ability to navigate us in such a dark, “roadless and directionless” landscape. Near the camp we dismounted and walked onto a “red carpeted” sand trail into our camp, Sahara Happy Camp.
First evening at the desert camp
A central path lead into the camp directly to the dining “tent” which housed an indoor and outdoor dining areas and a kitchen. On both sides of the central path were “luxurious rooms with ensuite toilet”.
We went to our “luxurious tent” for a quick wash-up and assembled at the dining “outdoor” area for our dinner. There we met the third staff of the camp who prepared food and served us dinner. Dinner was great, we had soup, the main course consisted of chicken tagine and a cheesy eggplant dish, rounding off with a yummy desert.
When it was time for coffee, we suggested to the staff that we would like to have them by the camp fire. As we were drinking our coffee we heard drum beating coming from afar. Omar told us it was Berber druming coming from a nearby camp. Omar and his staff bought out several drums and a string instrument and soon we too were learning to “hand tap” the drums “Berber style”.
After an hour, the camp fire session ended. We were a bit disappointed, it was too early to retire to bed! But we understood that our host and his staff had a long day and needed to rest.Since we had two nights at the camp, we thought we would have another fun campfire session the next evening. Little did we knew that this was our only campfire session as a “sand storm” stirred up the next evening and the campfire session was cancelled.
Desert Exploration on day 2
The next morning we were served a lovely breakfast at the dining tent. At 9am in the morning the sun was already strong and high in the sky. We finished our breakfast quickly and was ready for our desert exploration.
We had come from so far away to the desert and to just stay one night a the desert camp would be too insufficient. Unlike other guests that came for just a day/night we opted for a two nights stay. This gave us a full day on the next day to explore the desert.
The cost of the guided tour was Eur200 for two of us. The truck could easily take four tourists, unfortunately there were no other guests at the camp so we could not invite them along and split the cost.
At about 10am our desert exploration guide arrived to pick us up at Happy Sahara Camp. Our guide drove us to visit a couple of “highest dunes” and Erg Chebbi was one of them. He stopped his truck and encouraged us to scale to the top of the dune. It was definitely not easy to go up as every two steps forward was a step sliding back!
The beauty of the dune in the day was not as lovely as that in the evening when there were more shades of “gold” and long shadows which brought up the shape of the dunes prominently. Next our guide brought us to a well with WATER!! About 10 feet at the bottom of a mud well there was plenty of water. According to our guide there were many of such wells in the desert. These wells allowed natives to have access to the underground water in the desert.
Merzouga had an annual average rainfall of 63mm and occasionally there were exceptionally huge rainfall. After such rainfall, the water in the well could rise up to just 3 feet below the sand!
After the “well” our guide drove us to a “normad” home. The home was an assembly of a couple of low black tents. Our host, a normad woman was sitting in one the tents and after our guide communicated with her we were led to another low tent with a darkish interior. Upon entering the interiror we were surprice to see a round coffee table and some fabric mat material on the ground. We were there to have TEA!!
The Berber people used the Berber Tent for centuries to adapt to their nomadic lifestyle. These tents were made from natural materials such as goat hair, wool, and camel hair. They were designed to be portable, lightweight, and easy to set up and take down. Goat hair expanded when it got wet which made the tent tight and waterproof. Camel hair had insulating properties and was a natural barier to wind and sand. Wool could be woven into the fabric to enhance its insulating properties and to provide a comforting temperature in the tent. Interestingly they were no other family members in the Berber home.. We were told that the “man of the house” were out “shepherd” this goats to some where far.
After our tea we gave a small token of 10MAD to our host, before we left and off we go to another attraction. This time a “blacken” sites full of ruins.
This ruins was an abandoned mines of M’fis. In its heyday it was about lead and zinc extraction, The mining operations were from 1940s to 1970s, there left behind an intricate network of tunnels and were not accessible to visitors due to safety reason. All we saw was its surface structures many of which were totally worn down. Apparently these mines were once owned by the French who left with their machineries after Morroco achieved its independent. This ruins looked just like a ghost town in the middle of the desert.Not too far from the ruins was a village, Khamlia village, our next attraction.
This village was also called Khamlia Gnawa. The inhabitants there were direct descendants of slaves that were black Africans from the Gnawa tribe. The tribe orginated from Sub-Saharan countries such as Sudan, Mali and Niger. Shackled in chains these slaves crossed the desert singing in rhythmic chanting to soothe their minds against a backdrop of the clanking chains.
There were several rooms in the village set up for visitors. Some displaying the daily tools/appliance of the residents. The last room was the most interesting. We were invited to tea with a live “band”. Yat Thong was invited to join the musicians and he took on the drum!
Finally, our guide brought us to the last attraction of our desert exploration. It was a garden/plantation, “Hassilabied Garden”. This was a community garden for farming. Every family was designated a plot of land in the garden which the family would grow plants/trees of their wish and nuture them to fruitation/maturity.
Amazing In the middle of the desert land we saw lush vegetation. A channel/drain connected to a well ran though the middle of the garden. Divertion/run off from the channel went to water the plots. There was no shortage of water.
Our desert exploration came to an end at about 2.30pm. Though it was only 4 hours, we were already tired and looked forward to going back to our camp for a rest. Unfortunately instead of returning to our camp we were sent back to Raid Manouche the same place we waited for Omar the day before.
There we met two new guests of the camp and waited till 4.30pm before Omar came to pick us. The two new guests went for their camel ride as for us we went back to the camp in Omar’s truck. Along the way we got down for another beautiful sunset view of the desert/dune before reaching our camp.
Our stay in the Desert Camp
We booked “Sahara Happy Camp” on booking.com for Eur 170 for two nights. Our stay came with breakfast and dinner, a camel ride to the camp and a exhilarating sand bashing ride returning to town Merzouga.
In the town of Merzouga there were many riads but we preferred to stay in a camp that was sited into the desert. In the past these camps were sited further into the desert, but due to environmental challenges (related to tourism and waste management) caused by the increase of visitors, the authorities had taken measure to regulate tourism activities incuding restricting camps to the fringe of the Sahara deserts.
At the Sahara Happy Camp there were about ten luxurious tents and each tent was huge. The interior of our tent was truly luxurious. The floor was carpeted and we had a proper king size bed and a single bed.
On the left side of our tent was the toilet. It consisted of a sitting down water closet, a washing basin with marble vanity top and a shower room.
Other Accommodation in Merzouga
It was a bit confusing deciding which camp to pick to stay in Merzouga. In Merzouga there were riads and camps. The riads were hotels in the town as for the camps they were more inland into the Sahara deserts. Unfortunately on the map the camps looked like they were also sited in town.
We could book directly from the website of the camps but we chose to booked it from booking.com or agoda.com or other legitimate sites as we did not have to pay upfront. The only shortfall was that the listing in the booking.com was not described in details. So we were not sure if camel ride and sand bashing activities were included in the booking of our tent at the camp or we had to sign up for them separately with another provider.