Of all the gin joints in all the world, thirsty in Morocco 2/5/25

 The Portuguese girls of the Ourika valley trip mentioned to us that the previous day they had gone on a trip to the desert, when they had ridden camels, gone driving on quad bikes, enjoyed a sunset dinner with entertainment. They had booked it through Booking.com. and we thought it sounded like a plan. 

On our return I duly arranged the trip for the next day. The area where this all takes place is the Agafay desert which is about 30 kms south of Marrakesk. 

The picture below shows the famous Cafe de France in the Djemaa El Fna Square where we decided to have dinner on the night prior to our desert adventure. It is also the usual departure point for excursions for people like us living in the old town. As our departure was in the afternoon, the Square was closed to vehicles and we had a longer walk to meet our minibus. 

Our group all gathered in the minibus and, as usual it was cosmopolitan and multilingual. Our first chance to get to know each other was this stop for a snack and another chance to see the workings of the argan oil trade. 

Here you can see a portion of the Agafay desert that has been reserved for these tourist activities. There is an inevitable cost to this special and isolated environment to allow dune buggy racing, camel trekking and overnight camping to take place. Better for all, I suppose to confine it to a relatively small area and leave the vast majority to nature and the indigenous population. 

The surface is not soft sand like the Sahara, but more pebbly, dusty grit, as you can see in the foreground of this picture, above. 

Below, we have finally mounted our camels and the sun is dropping in the skyline. In the immediate foreground is my camel's snout. The had a twenty minutes wander along a well worn trail. 

You can see why it is called a camel train. Like horses, I've always been more comfortable on a static beast. 

This, however is a different proposition, I trust machines more because they more or less do as they are told. Bold of Helen to trust me after "never again" in Thailand. The buggies were really exciting and I would do this again anytime. The terrain was very rugged and driving was made more difficult by the "pea souper" dust being created by all around. 

The sun set and the temperature plunged. We were served an evening meal at a table which we shared with a mother and daughter from Aachen in Germany. There was supposed to be be some entertainments, the viewing of which was precluded by a combination of the temperature and their indifferent nature. The minibus got us back to Marrakesk by 10,30. All in all excellent value for €20 a head.