Our Experience

Part one, our experience:

Nomads all over the world are are disappearing fast due to modernisation, climate change and marginalisation and with them goes their legends and survival methods as most nomads do not have written language to record their ways. There are still some nomadic communities in the world but not in places where it is safe or accessible for tourists and that is what makes this part of Morocco so unique.

We started our trek in a village called Mhamid to reach our first camping location nearby after a three hour hike. This is were we set our camp for the first time, played music, had dinner and enjoyed the evening by the campfire, under the stars.

The next morning we had to wake up early to make sure we would get on time to our next location, a seven hour walk away from our original camping spot. This location was called the desert of the screaming sands. A big desert stretch with one of the biggest dunes of Morocco. We broke down our tents, packed everything up, had breakfast, aswell as our camels and we moved into the long try desert to start our hike. Luckily this day we had a small breeze and some clouds covering the sun which made the hike easier. We passed some old nomadic ruines and had some talks about the different animal trails we encountered on our way. A little later after lunch we were able to see the big dunes in the distance, how ever the distance in the desert is very hard to guess. This we found out later aswell.

Arriving at the second location of this trek was an unreal experience, from the dry and long stretch making our way into the big dunes where no foot trecks or tourists could be found. The sunset in the desert was so special, casting long shadows over the dunes, camels and tents.

The screaming sands

The next day we enjoyed our sunrise in at the screaming sands and moved onto our new trek that was going to take eight hours. During this trek we visited old hunting area's of the nomads and a small group of old nomads living in a small oasis in the middle of the desert. This is were we had our lunch and where we got invited to take some dilicious fruit of the tree garden they had here. The second part of our hike started right after exiting the oasis where small dunes of white sands slowly mixed into big dunes of red sand. All that was left after this smaller desert was a 3 hours walk through the longs streched dry lands.

Walking the camels

When arriving, again we set up our camp. This time we made music and dances with our nomad guides which after made "sandbread" for us. Sandbread got it's name from the unique way of baking the bread. The do is thrown under the hot sand mixed with koles and baked. After removing everything from the bread there is no sand left and the taste is dilicious. In my opinion it was the best bread I have ever tasted. This night was a really awesome one as we shared stories by the fire and really got to know each other.

Can you spot our camp?