Fossils, Date Farm and Desert Camp

We’re on our way to the Sahara! But first we have a stop in Erfoud, where the economy is primarily based on date farming (in the Ziz valley) and fossil extraction and processing into works of art. This area is rich in fossils from the time when this area was a vast ocean. We saw fossils ranging from 480 to 520 million years old, and learned about the process of turning them from hunks of rock into beautiful art pieces.

Changing from bus to Land Rovers, we stopped at an oasis and date farm. The community owns individual plots of date palms in the farm, and also plants subsistence crops for personal use—wheat, barley, cilantro, cabbage, carrots, and the like. The dates and other crops are watered through a series of canals, and the community members take turns channelling the water through their plot.

Soon we turned off the road and traveled across the sand to our desert camp for two nights. We never get tired of seeing the different formations made by sand dunes and scouting out animal tracks.Read more