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Trek under the sheltering sky

An illustrated itinerary of one of our many gay travel adventures. This information supplements our
shorter Overview of Magic & Mystery: Nights in Morocco.

Morocco days and nights are sure to delight the senses as we travel from Marrakech to Zagora and beyond to the edge of the great Sahara Desert. Like Lawrence of Arabia, we'll head out to the romantic and picturesque dunes and oases and even sleep in a Bedouin tent underneath a canopy of stars. There will also be plenty of time to enjoy the exotic flavors, the native music and the colorful bazaars of Marrakech.

1: Arrival in Marrakech

The tour officially starts in Marrakech on Day One. North American travelers will have left home the day before, with many flying on an overnight Royal Air Maroc flight from New York to Casablanca, with a short connecting flight to Marrakech on the morning of Day One. Each day there are also a few direct flights to Marrakech from various European cities.

Upon arrival in Marrakech, we transfer to our unique boutique lodging, the Riad Baraka (or similar), our home for the first two nights. Nearby are many fine restaurants and cafés, as well as the main market selling fruit, vegetables and local handicrafts. The afternoon is free to rest or get a taste of Marrakech. Tonight, we have our welcome dinner together, and perhaps savor typical Moroccan cuisine such as cous-cous, harira, tagine and b’stilla.

To give the most authentic (but very comfortable) introduction to Morocco, our Marrakech lodging will be in a tiny riad, which is a private home in the ancient medina built around an inner courtyard. These were once the homes of the most successful traders in the bustling market, but a handful are now available for visitors to enjoy. While a riad lacks room service and certain other big-hotel amenities, we will be surrounded by Berber rugs and cushions, and relax in our own private courtyard. By the time you go to sleep, you will know you have arrived in Morocco!

2: Imperial Glories of Marrekech

Marrakech is known as The Pearl of the South, and it is a truly magical place, magnificently situated in an oasis, with the High Atlas Mountains as a backdrop.

During our tour of Marrakech, we’ll inspect the most beautiful of the city’s gates, the ancient Bab Aguenau; the fabulous 19th Century Bahia Palace, with its Moorish gardens and Andalucian decorations; and the picturesque Koutoubia mosque.

If we have time, we’ll drive to the delightful Majorelle Garden with its luxuriant subtropical vegetation and Museum of Islamic Art, created in the 1920s, but recently restored by Yves Saint-Laurent.

One of the greatest delights of being in Marrakech is to stroll through its souks. There we can see leather workers, shoemakers, dyers, brass-smiths, spice merchants and antique dealers in their working quarters and shops. We’ll wander around the legendary Djemaa al F’na Square which is always filled with entertainers, medicine-men, musicians, dancers, acrobats, jugglers, storytellers, soothsayers and snake charmers.

We will take our meals at a variety of restaurants, ranging from sidewalk cafés ideal for people-watching, to the excellent restaurant Yacout, housed in a traditional-style Marrakech mansion, where we will enjoy our tour’s farewell dinner, after we return to Marrakech from the desert.

3-4: High Atlas Mountains and Ouirgane

We leave Marrakech in the morning and drive up a winding mountain road toward the famous Tiz-n-Test Pass. Before reaching the summit, we turn off at the village of Ouirgane, to check in at our unique mountain lodge, the Roseraie Inn.

On the following day, weather permitting, our guide will lead a hike through the valley in which our hotel is situated, to give us a better sense of how our casbah-like hotel fits into this spectacular landscape. We may also take an excursion to the nearby Berber village of Imlil, 5000 feet above sea level. We approach the village along a rushing stream of water pouring from the snow-covered peaks higher up the valley.

5: Zagora

In the morning we drive over the Tiz-n-Test Pass to start our longest driving day. We travel via Taliouine and Ouarzazate, and across several mountain passes to arrive in Zagora in the late afternoon. The latter part of our journey follows the Dra’a Valley, a long oasis consisting of a shallow river lined by date palms. At intervals along the route are ancient casbahs, massive adobe structures divided into rooms, which serve as the homes for the families of the casbah village. If it can be arranged, we will go inside a casbah to see how life continues unchanged over the centuries.

Late afternoon, we will arrive in Zagora, our home base for the next three nights. The city is known as the “Gate of the Desert,” because it is the last town of any size before the Dra’a River, the palm oasis, and the road all dissolve into nothing but sand, a hundred miles before reaching the ocean. In ancient times, caravans laden with gold set out from here across the desert, and a sign at the end of the main street reads “TIMBUKTU – 52 DAYS” – by camel, of course!

The town’s souk is extremely colorful. On market day, there are people in traditional garb from the far South, including Moroccan Jews whose women wear vermilion robes and horned head-dresses, and blue-robed Berber nomads who come to this end-of-the-road market town to trade their produce, goats, sheep and cows for clothes, flour, vegetable oil, grain - and the latest electronic devices.

6-7: Overnight in the Sahara

A highlight of this trip is sure to be our excursion off the main roads and into the desert, and our night spent in a tent camp under the stars.

After a morning free to relax and explore Zagora, we depart after lunch to drive amongst the sand dunes for about 50 miles to the small village of M’hamid, where the road ends. Since we will also travel off-road to get a more intimate view of some dunes, we ride in rugged Land Rovers, the only vehicles that can safely traverse the sand drifts and pebbles of the desert. Some of these dunes rise to heights of over 100 feet, and we may have a chance to climb to the top of one!

Local conditions permitting, we will continue driving past M’hamid on desert tracks to the magnificent Dunes of Chegaga, where we will enjoy an overnight bivouac in the desert in a permanent Bedouin encampment of perhaps 10 tents, including a restaurant tent. Desert views of sunset and sunrise offer an ever-changing panorama of color and are enormously photogenic. With clouds and moisture in the air so rare, and with some distance from the ambient light of Zagora, the desert sky presents an amazing night show of the moon and more stars than most of us will have ever seen.

On our return trip to Zagora, we will visit Tamegroute, one of the oldest centers of Islamic learning in Morocco, and also a pottery center.

8-9: Ouarzazate

In the morning we drive from Zagora and the Dra'a Valley to Ouarzazate, another fortified town, this one created by the French in 1928 as a military outpost, with curious lofty adobe dwellings. Our lodging is in the Hotel Berbere Palace.

During our sight-seeing tours, we will explore this fascinating town and its surroundings. Ouarzazate stands in the middle of an arid plateau that contrasts sharply with the rich vegetation of the nearby slopes of the High Atlas Mountains. The market is renowned for its fine pottery and magnificent carpets woven by local tribes, so this will be a good opportunity to make purchases of typically Moroccan products for anyone looking for souvenirs of this trip.

Our sightseeing will include the outdoor movie studio where movies such as Cleopatra were filmed, and one of Morocco’s most famous casbahs, the Ait Ben Hadou, where we will have lunch in a restaurant overlooking the casbah.

One year, several members of our group enjoyed visiting a neighborhood hammam, or Moroccan bathhouse, where we were scrubbed down by a young attendant. Next to us were the men of three generations of a Moroccan family washing each other in the local tradition: a 70 year-old grandfather, his 40 year-old son and 12 year-old grandson. It was quite an invigorating experience!

10: Return to Marrakech

In the morning, we head north from Ouarzazate across the Tiz-n-Tichka Pass for one last mountain drive before we head down the north slope and back to Marrakech. Our Farewell Dinner will be at one of the most famous restaurants in Morocco, the Yacout, housed in an elegantly restored Moorish mansion. A Fodors.com reader describes the experience as:

"The aim is to provide a sort of 1001 Nights experience. The diner is met by a cloaked and turbaned figure carrying a lantern and led through a maze of dark alleyways to a massive brass bound portal in a blank wall. One is admitted to a series of courtyards and vaulted rooms decorated in the most opulent style. Floors are marble mosaics, with fountains and potted palm trees. Berber rugs and brocade cushions are scattered everywhere. Costumed musicians playing quietly set the scene, and all is lit by chandeliers and gleaming brass candle lamps. There is a fixed menu of several courses, served as a sumptuous Moroccan feast, which is an opportunity to taste a variety of Moroccan dishes. All alcoholic drinks are included in the price."

Another good review of the many kinds of food served in Morocco is at: http://www.sallys-place.com/food/single-articles/savoring_morocco.htm

11: Departure Day

Those of us returning to New York today will take a morning 45-minute flight from Marrakech to Casablanca, where we connect to the Royal Air Maroc non-stop flight that arrives in New York in the afternoon local time, enabling same-day connections to most US and Canadian cities. (Exact flight times will be confirmed closer to departure.)

And as we fly home, we will be already thinking back on the magic and mystery of our nights in Morocco!

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