Morocco 2023: Ait Sedrate Jbel El Oulia

Posted on by Ian C.

To give the group a rest between two very long driving days, we spent two nights and all of today in this hardly-a-town of Ait Sedrate Jbel El Oulia; a walk through the town was offered, but it wasn’t made clear that this walk would be two long hours of climbing and balancing on narrow and rocky paths, turn-arounds due to unsafe river crossings, and not much of the rest we were supposed to be doing!

There were some interesting views, and a nice lunch in someone’s own home; happily the tour organizers noted the tiredness of some and arranged transport back to the hotel after lunch …

Morocco 2023: Long Drive #2

Posted on by Ian C.

Because the Erg Chebbi dunes are so far from Marrakesh (our final destination), the drive got split into two halves with a two night stay in a poor choice hotel (in Ait Sedrate Jbel El Oulia and the short Wikipedia page tells you a lot about the poor choice!) that added nearly an hour each way of twisty travel to already long days! This I think was the one poorly designed part of the Photofly Morocco package.

We drove some five hours today with a few stops for scenery, etc … here are photos:

Morocco 2023: Erg Chebbi

Posted on by Ian C.

After the fossils, we switched to off-road vehicles for the drive to SPECTACULAR sand dunes at Erg Chebbi, repeatedly referred to as the Sahara by our tour group, but in fact not. However who cares, this was surely the most beautiful night of our trip and I rather wish we’d had more time there (though I suppose after a while it’s all just sand).

Here’s a collection of photos of the drive to our overnight camp:

Once we got to the camp (which offered tent accommodation, with shower and bathroom facilities but no heat – and it got cool overnight!), the sand dune beauty was just a few feet away and we quickly took photos and explored the dunes:

In the evening, we rode camels out on to the sand dunes, and watched the sun set …