Day 38 - Mergouza to Quarzazate

Another wonderful day.
Started with a shock for me - I slept in and had to be woken up by a fellow member of our group.
Missed the 4:30am breakfast but made it in time to mount my camel for our return ride back to Mergouza. Enjoyed a beautiful sunrise in the desert.
We said our farewells to the camels and loaded ourselves into the van / bus (our group is 15 people) and set off for our next highlight.
Today is a road trip day stopping off at various places on our journey to Marrakech.
Stops included going into an historical underground tunnel system built to access irrigation water. More recently the tunnels were used as settings in the filming of the movie Dune.
Then a river emerging from the ground at a massive vertical faced rift. Creating a source of water sustaining the farmland alongside the river.
Date palms, fruit and vegetables grown.
We had lunch in the local casbah restaurant and then a tour of the actual farm plots of the village. We walked around their alleyways and paths connecting the houses to their plots.
Next we were subjected to entrapment to the local carpet salesmen pushing his friendly sales pitch with free tea and a brief history lesson. No one purchased anything.
Our next stop was our stay overnight location just outside Quarzazate. It’s an old resort style place - very big - even has a pool that a couple of us swam in. It would have been quite grand when built - but is a little run down. Pleasant enough compared to last night’s stuffy insect crawling tents in the desert!! Haha. Included buffet style food was nothing special - but after another long day we were keen to tuck into before an early night. We’ve got a 7am breakfast and departure for Marrakech. Atlas Mountains will be a highlight.Read more