The journey across the desert is a wonderful experience and will allow you to appreciate, arguably, some of the finest remote scenery in Morocco. Erg Chebby Great Dunes are the highest in Morocco reaching 300ft in height and spanning approx. 40km.
Visiting this region of the Sahara, you will complete a circuit across the desert, through the national park, as you will leave Erg Chabbi in the opposite direction.
Highlights of the Desert
The terrain of the Sahara is shaped by wind, sometimes rain, and includes not only sand dunes, but also hamada, dry valleys & lakes, and salt flats. You may also be surprised at seeing so much vegetation in the desert, including Tamarisk and Acacia trees and palms – April and October are green times of year here.
That’s not to say that we can expect to meet a lot of traffic in the desert! This is still a wild territory and the driving thrilling – after all the former Paris-Dakar route passed close by.
We will likely stop to meet nomadic families that still live in the region and come across other evidence of human existence here; including the abandoned settlement and agricultural land of Erg Smar close to the Draa River bed (where once approx. 35 families lived), a nomads’ cemetery, nomads’ former souk, a marabout (shrine of a holy man), deep wells, and grazing land for animals still used today.