Camels & Camps:
Marrakech to Fez
Day 1 Includes
- Pick-up at your accommodations in Marrakech
- Lunch in Ouarzazate
- Transfer to Tinehir
- Night at Hotel Saghro
"Surpassed our expectations"
"Although we have physically returned home, our hearts and minds are still in the the Sahara. Our trip with SaharaTrek surpassed our expectations. It felt surreal, but it was our reality, and we loved every minute of it. We left the desert, and immediately decided to return next year (if not sooner!), but this time for longer...We would wholeheartedly recommend this trip, our guides. Thank you again!"
-Megan R
Day 1: High Atlas, Ait Benhaddou, Todra Gorge
You'll be picked-up
at your accommodations and start south on an 4 - 5 hour drive to
Ouarzazate. Length of the drive depends on the weather, road conditions, and your requested number of stops along the way. The oak forests and walnut groves of the Marrakech plains give way to rocky cliffs and steep drops as the road climbs into the mountains and you enter into the dramatic Tizi-n-Tichka Pass (2,260 meters high). Sharp drops, hair pin turns, mud slides, rock slides, snow, ice, and road side vendors that rush into the road to sell geodes make this an exciting ride with breathtaking scenery. All these provide little challenge to the drivers, local seasoned professionals with many years driving experience.
After descending the High Atlas, you'll take a quick detour to the Kasbah of Ait-Benhaddou. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the ksar is a group of earthen houses crowded together within high defensive walls reinforced by corner towers. Ait-Benhaddou, in Ouarzazate province, is the most striking and best preserved example of the architecture of southern Morocco.
From
Ait-Benhaddou it's a short hop to Ouarzazate for lunch.
If the region looks familiar, it's because it has been the backdrop for
films such as Lawrence of Arabia, The Sheltering Sky, and more recently
The Mummy, and Gladiator. After lunch you embark east down the
Valley of 1000 Kasbahs (the Dades Valley) to the village of Tinehir and the
Hotel Saghro, at the mouth
of the Todra Gorge.