The magic 4×4 carpet: Marrakech to Merzouga

Day four of our road trip from Marrakech to Fez found us in the tiny desert outpost of Merzouga, having just missed the sacrifice of a sheep by the groom who’s wedding celebrations we were about to attend.

We’d originally intended to cover these tracks ourselves but with our options being a budget breaking 4×4 hire car (the only way to see some of the stunning gorges and valleys in this part of the world) or leap-frogging our way from town to town crammed into an ancient, banged-up Mercedes taxi, we decided to turn a blind eye to the budget for a few days and let someone else take care of us.

Cue an amazing journey through the Moroccan ‘outback’ with our guide, driver and friend Nour, of Around Morocco Travels.

It’s a decision that enriched our experience of Morocco no end. From mint tea with views near the pass of Tizi n’Tichka in the High Atlas mountains to silly shots in the desolate black desert near Merzouga, Nour took us on an adventure through jaw-dropping gorges and lush, impossible oases; past ancient Kasbah ruins, dramatic mountain ranges, and vast, bleak tracts of parched stone desert, all the while sharing with us the history, traditions and customs of his beloved country.

He also introduced us to the curious realm of Berber medicine, mixing John a special ‘cure’ of Coke and condensed milk after a dubious salad took him out on day three. John said the jury was still out on whether it worked but once he’d brought most of the concoction back up he felt much better, thank you.

Despite spending long hours in the car (not for everyone but something we quite enjoy, being able to see so much of the landscape), we packed in plenty, visiting dagger artisans, ceramic and argan oil cooperatives, the town of El Kelaâ M’Gouna, famous for roses (and rosewater, rose soap, edible roses, rose cream, everything and anything you can make with roses), and the town of Erfoud, famous for fossils (fossil plates, fossil tables, fossil sinks, fossil candle-holders, everything and anything you can make with fossils).

We meandered through the fantasy-like mud-brick passageways of evocative Aït Ben Haddou, a thousand-year old Kasbah-cum-romantic-desert-movie-backdrop.

We climbed through the crumbling Kasbah of Telouet with a guide who spoke only French (nodding sagely while fumbling through on my dismal high school French). We toured the Rissani village souq and its donkey parking out the back.

We also wandered huge, deserted movie sets from Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Alexander and Kundun at the vast Atlas Studios in the middle of nowhere (otherwise known as Ouarzazate).

And we had the unique opportunity to attend a Moroccan wedding…which brings me back to day four of our trip and the dusty desert village of Merzouga.

Surrounded on one side by a sun-blackened stone desert, and on the other by the striking burnt gold sand dunes of the Sahara, Merzouga is a key staging-point for camel rides and bivouacs. With sweltering days and hot, sand-laden winds in summer, it’s not the kind of place a thermophobe like me would choose to holiday, although Moroccans apparently flock here at this time of year to enjoy scorching therapeutic sand baths at high noon.

We had two reasons for our visit to this far corner of Morocco near the border with Algeria: to ride a camel into the Sahara at sunset, and to attend said wedding as guests of Nour’s cousin.

Despite missing the sheep’s sacrifice by mere minutes, we enjoyed several hours with the family of the bride and groom (and most of the village) at a wedding lunch, a feast of shared Moroccan dishes, including the national delicacy Smen, a fermented butter that smells like death. I’d like to say it tastes better but I don’t know, I wasn’t brave enough to try it.

It was a brief but special insight into a Moroccan-Berber tradition, although ironically, we didn’t actually get to meet the bride or groom, who are traditionally kept apart and away from the celebrations until the final day.

With lunch over and the sun beginning to dip towards the horizon, it was time for our dromedary debut. But that’s another story.

Check out our other posts on Morocco, including our gallery from this awesome country.