Western Sahara Travel Blog | Two nights in the Sahara Desert of Morocco

Sand as far as you can see, complete silence everywhere and only camels to keep you company

We stayed two nights in desert in Morocco with my boyfriend at the beginning of November.

Here's my experience in Moroccan Sahara Desert + some great tips to enjoy it the most.

Unlike most of the people, we didn’t book any organized tours where other people decide your schedule and where to go and what to do, but we went all by ourselves.

We heard from other people on the road how they had to wake up at five to start a bus ride towards the desert.

However, they stopped in every touristy place (hoping to have tourists buying stuff) and didn’t get to desert in one day. They had to sleep in the bus and they arrived to desert when sun was already setting and again next morning their package tour would continue early in the morning.

So, don’t go all touristy and get frustrated, but read my advice and make the holiday look like you and actually enjoy your time in the desert.

As we realized beforehand, Sahara Desert is very far from Casablanca, Marrakesh and Fes, so basically from all locations you can fly to.

Far here means that it would have taken at least 9 hours by car.

Therefore we decided to fly internally from Casablanca to Errachidia by Royal Air Morocco.

Flight went alright and we stayed a night in cute Auberge Tinit hotel.

We travelled from there by shared taxi to village called Merzouga, from where desert starts.

We had booked a place called Merzouga Nomad Camp via Airbnb.

We arrived in Merzouga and continued our way with camels to the camp. I fell in love with our camels Jimmy and Bobby.

Jimmy was ten years old and Bobby four. We had our guide Mohamed leading us to the camp through the dunes.

I liked the intimacy when it was just 5 of us (counting obviously the camels here as well to the number) instead of a big group.

Jimmy and Bobby were very well taken care of and I could see how Mohammed loved them as well.

We arrived at the camp and it was very cute.

There were all together just four tents and one bigger for dining.

At first night we stayed at the camp with another Spanish couple.

We were served awesome Berber food for dinner and breakfast, included in the price. We had tahini, Berber omelette, Moroccan tea, Berber pizza and pomegranates among other great stuff.

In the evening after sharing tasty dinner, we went up the nearest dune to see the sky full of stars.

Temperature had dropped very low immediately when sun set, but we didn’t mind. Since there’s absolutely no light pollution, you could see more stars than usual in towns, and also Milky way was clearly visible.

I have wanted to learn constellations so many times, but I’m still stuck in the basic ones like Small bear, Orion and Six sisters. Oh well, maybe one day.

In the darkness and silence and starry sky our hosts lit the fireplace and we gathered around it to play drums and to sing and play other Moroccan rhythm instruments (I have no idea of their names).

Moreover, shisha has never tasted better than in that moment. All in all the night was magical and afterwards we got into our tent.

I gotta tell you the sleeping wasn’t the comfiest.

For some reason I’m always cold when sleeping in a tent and I guess my spoiled back is used to different mattress.

Anyhow there was a proper mattress and tent was definitely big enough, so I don’t have anything to complain about it.

Much better compared to 2 centimeters thick mattress in rainy forest in Finland at the end of October, I can tell you 😀

In the morning the other couple staying at camp left already early away from desert.

Luckily we had full day ahead to stay in the middle of nowhere. We climbed up some dunes and took pictures.

We sat there doing nothing and rolled down in the end. I did some yoga during the day, but otherwise we didn’t actually do much.

Desert was silent and we couldn’t see anybody anywhere.

Just a couple of crossbikers enjoying the dunes.

It would have been possible to rent quad bikes or go back to village for a lunch but we just wanted to enjoy the minimal desert in itself without anything extra.

Only thing we were a bit unhappy with was that we couldn’t do sand surfing/skiing because the camp didn’t have the equipment.

It was needed experience to feel even a little bit bored when you simply don’t have any distractions and stimulus around you, just silence and tiny wind catching the sand.

In this kind of environment it’s also easy to empty your own head and tone down the thoughts.

In the evening groups of camels started to arrive in different camps around the desert. We climbed up a dune to watch camel arrivals and I took pictures of these chillest animals in the world.

There was actually one bigger group heading to camp when suddenly one camel stopped and lied down. The camel didn’t want to continue at all and was just making grumpy camel noises as a protest (you can imagine the sound yourself). It was hilarious to follow.

Talking about funny camel stories, also at the night of our arrival was one to remember.

Owners ”park” their camels by tying one of their knees so that they can’t move so easily.

Camels mainly don’t care about it and just lie down and start eating or just staring towards nothing (or I don’t know how deeply they’re contemplating).

But there was one who didn’t have the chill. The camel started walking away from the camp with leg tied, looking like it was straight from a cartoon.

The owner noticed when the camel was already 500 metres away and started running to catch this limping camel. I know it’s hard to explain but I’m not going to forget that view in a while.

At the end of our trip we asked if we could still go meet Bobby and Jimmy. We saw quite some camels, including 1-year-old baby camels. So curious and calm souls.

It’s actually quite a workout walking up big dunes because the sand really catches you.

Because it was quite new element for me, I mainly compared it to snow. Some kinds of snow shoes would have actually worked well there.

Second morning we actually decided to walk all the way back to Merzouga because we knew we had to sit the rest of the day in the car anyway so was good to get some movement.