Monday 31 March 2008

Morocco trip, Dec 2007 - Zagora

After Marrakesh, we joined a local tour group to visit the Sahara desert and surrounding areas.

Zagora is our first stop. It is a town in the valley of the Draa River in Souss-Massa-Draâ, southeastern Morocco. This is pretty much where the road ends and where the desert starts.

It is not far from this town that the famous sign " Timbouctou: 52 days" can be found. If the border were open, and you traveled by camel, this may be true as it was a caravan route in the past.

To be honest, the size of the sand dunes was pretty disappointing. However, many of the Berber people (indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley) lives in this type of landscape, so it's worth seeing.

Just a note, make sure you have very warm clothes when you camp out in the desert. It was freezing cold in the tent despite me having put on my warmest clothes, two pairs of socks and a blanket over my sleeping bag!

Baby sand dunes

Moon rise! The sky was so clear and the stars were so bright before the moon rise!

The moon is very bright in the desert.

An artistic shot. The moon was originally off-centre, but as you can see, that has been rectified! :-P

A Berber person wandering in the desert

Photo with our host and the Berber tent.

4 comments:

reenie said...

Who's your new bf in the last picture? ;) Hehehe...

JK said...

LOL. The desert is so romantic. I couldn't resist!

Anonymous said...

hi, my friends and i are heading to morocco in june and we are interested to do e sand dunes camel trek tour as well, was wondering if u could recommend e name of the tour company that you engaged? thanks a lot!

JK said...

hello fish,

The company is called Sahara Expedition. Their website is http://www.saharaexpe.ma/. Make sure you use the contact information on the website. There are a few companies that use the same name!

The tour is a bit disorganised at times but overall, it is still acceptable for backpackers.

Anyway, it is going to be very hot in June. You have to be careful when you head out to the desert.