After an enjoyable drive through the Ziz Valley southward our next destination was Erfoud, which is located in a well-known area of Morocco that is home to many fossils. We found a wonderful lunch spot in the small town of Erfoud thanks to the Lonely Planet guide. What was curious to me was that the restaurant had calzones on the menu as well as pizza. It also had a wood-fired oven and a lovely garden to sit in. In the end we both decided on pizza which was a treat.
When we had entered the restaurant, we had seen a very large slab of rock filled with fossilized “sea lilies.” I had never seen anything like this! It was truly amazing and a wonderful inspiration to go to the nearby Tahiri Museum of Fossils.
Sea Lilies!
After our pizza, we stopped for a few minutes to see them making the calzones, and clearly this is a long tradition in this restaurant carried down through the generations.
We eagerly headed off to this museum, which is well established and internationally recognized for its collection which belongs to Dr Tahiri who even has a fossil named after him! It was a relatively small place with a shop attached but was nevertheless fascinating! Luckily, we were guided by a young man who had been working at the museum for more than 10 years and who had studied paleontology. I think he was inspired by the fact that Chris was a geologist and so gave us an extra special tour. It was remarkable to see the fossils they had and how well preserved they were. It was hard to imagine how, in some of the specimens there, so many fossils could be preserved in the same piece of rock.
A morass of sea lilies know as Crinoids.
An amazing specimen of Othoceros.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time in our schedule, otherwise we would have gone to an area where the fossils are still in the ground and are being carefully removed. We would also have seen how the fossils are removed and — especially the trilobites — are being expertly curated to show their fine details in two or even three dimensions. It would have been wonderful to stay and see all that, but now we have all the more reason to go back!! We spent quite a while in the store and Chris finally settled on purchasing two amazing fossils — a trilobite and a sea lily (crinoid). Despite the headache of carrying around heavy and/or delicate fossils and getting them on the airplane back to Canada, they are perfect mementoes of our time in southeastern Morocco.
Along the way to Merzouga, we noticed a town that was in a deep valley and was a stunningly beautiful sight. We found a stop where we were able to walk along the edge of the valley and see the town more clearly. Sights like this are so incredible! Morocco is filled with dramatic scenery like this!
Town surrounded by palm trees.
The next thing we saw was a very old mosque made of mud not far from the road we were travelling on. It really stood out. There was a large grave yard not so far away.
The mud Mosque.
A very local scene.
As we travelled further south, we started to see dunes! They were small but the desert was starting….
We arrived in Merzouga, which is relatively close to the well-known area of dunes named Erg Chebbi, which the majority of tourists in Morocco visit to get an experience of being in the Sahara Desert as it is easily accessible from Merzouga. The many camps set up at Erg Chebbi are about a 90-minute walk/camel ride into the desert. Generally, people go there in the late afternoon to ride camels, enjoy the dunes, watch the sunset, have supper, listen to Berber musicians and sleep in a tent. They then head back the next morning.
Merzouga itself is a sprawling place, not because it is big but because it is spread out in a largely random way.
We arrived in the late afternoon just when the light was getting beautiful so we decided to go to the dune that was closest to the town and to postpone checking in to our accommodation until later. The dune was quite high and people were already beginning to head toward it for the evening. We had fun walking in the sand, but were reminded that our upcoming trek in the desert was going to be work! There is a lot of practical know-how in being able to navigate dunes. I was struck by a Moroccan family sitting atop a dune enjoying just being there. I am always happy to see local people delighting in their own land!
We really had to keep our wits around us when we were there because Jeeps, ATVs and motorbikes were racing fast up and down the dune's ridges. There were quite a few times when they came too close for my liking!
This was the largest dune on the edge of Merzouga. If.you look closely you will see the people are climbing the ridge perhaps to watch sunset from. The rest of this photo shows how all the motorized vehicles take away the pristine beauty of the desert. Luckily the wind will erase it all when it blows.
Being out there gave us an opportunity to watch much else of what was going on. There was, for example, a quite large group of tourists who were all on camels that were led by camel drivers — they walked ten minutes into the desert then dismounted close to where we were.
Endless photos were taken by the tourists of it all before they climbed on foot to a relatively high ridge near us. They then sat down there for the next hour or so as the sun set, devoting the whole time to taking selfies, making phone calls and chattering to each other. It reminded me once again how it is a whole new world in how people appreciate where they are. For me, it was great because I was able to photograph the camels as they were resting on the sand. Camels are such regal animals! Other than on a trek in Rajasthan when I was in my thirties and a daylong walk in northern Kenya in 2012, this was my first opportunity to spend time with camels.
The camels and camel herders resting while the group sat atop the dune.
Camel close-up
The beauty of the desert at sunset.
Sunset on the desert that evening.
We next headed off to find our accommodation the Kasbah Du Berger. By this time night was falling so it was getting dark! With google maps and a measure of good luck, we found our hotel which had promised to be gorgeous from the photos of it that we had seen when we had made our online booking. We discovered that it was not in town but located on the edge of the desert with no clear route to get there. Luckily we saw a small wooden sign with the hotel's name — it pointed off the highway but there seemed to be no actual road to follow. There were several sets of lights in different directions, but it wasn’t obvious to us which way we should go. We ended up driving overland trying to avoid the largest bumps, and eventually — more by luck than judgement — arrived at our home for the night. We were greeted by our host who showed us to our room. It was lovely! The bathroom was the size of a small bedroom and the shower worked beautifully. These are things that we had really come to appreciate and not take for granted!
Our lovely room.
We were treated to a welcome cup of tea, dates and olives. How lovely. The next welcome surprise we had was the aubergine (eggplant) tagine on the menu! Since our arrival in Morocco, our meals had generally consisted of carrots, zucchini, onions and potatoes. This dish was so so so yummy! We then enjoyed the most comfortable sleep we had had in days!
In the morning I couldn’t help but get up before sunrise and head off to the dunes which were just a 10-minute walk behind the hotel. It was pure delight to watch the dunes light up and the shadows form with the rising sun. I was a little challenged as there was a couple from our hotel who had a sandboard so I had to work at getting photos without them in it! Such is the challenge of photography!
At sunrise!
Invigorated, I headed back and we had a lovely breakfast before leaving.We wished we could have had another night there to experience the hotel's restful comfort for a bit longer. There was a beautiful swimming pool out back, but given it was February it was still too cool to swim.
The pool was so inviting and yet really cold!
Our first stop after Merzouga was a nearby lake called Dayet Srij or sometimes Merzouga lake ..... when we were first planning our trip to Morocco, I had discovered that flamingoes had been seen on the lake and the photos of them with sand dunes in the background were absolutely amazing. However, we were told that the Sahara in this region has not had any rain for at least 6 or 7 years and is now in drought, As a result the lake has totally dried up. Though we already knew this, we wanted to see where the lake would have been, and though there were no flamingoes there, it was still wonderful to imagine them being there in the past in the middle of the desert!
It is hard to believe that flamingoes were here in the past!
Our journey continues towards Todgha Gorge. We will continue that part of our trip in our next blog. Thanks for reading about our journey! Love, Dana and Chris