4 days Chegaga desert tour, Dades Valley, Aït ben Haddou

You travel from Ouarzazate to Agdez, the beginning of the Dra’a Valley, leaving your hotel at 8.30 by 4×4. En route, you stop for tea or coffee. Our path follows the old caravan route across the Dra’a River, Kasbah Tamnougalte, and rejoins the main road just before Zagora. The road travels through the Dra’a Valley, passing through tiny towns, oases, kasbahs, palm trees, and donkeys along the way. The schedule continues to M’hamid, the point where the road terminates and the desert starts, after lunch.

After dinner, you spend the night in an opulent camp with king-sized beds, a private toilet, and easy access to the nearby dunes for a quick stroll.

You can take another stroll in these dunes after breakfast, and then take a 4×4 to the nearby Erg Cheggaga dunes, which are 300 meters high and 60 kilometers away. The journey is leisurely, passing through the various desert features such as oasis, “hammada” (stony desert), and “erg” (dunes). Out in the middle of the Sahara, distant from any village, these dunes are a place of astounding solitude and vast immensity.

Dinner and the evening will once more take place in an opulent camp, complete with all the comforts of Mhamid’s first desert night.

Following breakfast, another ninety kilometers of desert must be traversed, this time in the opposite direction and with a variety of landscapes, including Lake Iriqui, mountains, and fossils. The first settlement you come to after the entire desert is Foum Zguid, where you will have lunch.

Returning from Ouarzazate takes you first north and then east on paved roads, passing through the village of Taznakht, which is well-known for its Berber rugs and carpets. You arrive to Ait Ben Haddou, the most renowned and ancient Kasbah in Morocco, during the afternoon. This Kasbah was recognized as one of Morocco’s nine UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1987.

The journey begins early in the morning and takes travelers off-road via the Dades Gorges and Skoura Oasis to witness all the Kasbahs, which are picturesquely nestled among palm trees but are frequently simply shadows of their former selves.

Later, the main route goes past the Valley of Roses, where visitors can pause to view the cosmetics created there, which are a byproduct of the valley’s profusion of roses. They are highly prized and adored throughout the nation, and only this place can offer the greatest quality. We proceed to eat in the Dades Valley.

You can stroll around the gorges after lunch, and you’ll be back in Ouarzazate in the afternoon.