Nick Yates on Travel

One of the most memorable Nick Yates travel adventures was to the Saharan sand dunes which extend into eastern Morocco.  One has to put effort into finding the desert as Hollywood actively portrays it, and this corner of Morocco obliges the traveler with dunes up to a hundred feet in height, teamed with hundreds of others extending to the horizon and unimaginably beyond.

A day’s drive in a rented car had brought me from Casablanca to Erfoud, the last eastern desert town of consequence before the start of the sand desert.  Arriving in a sandstorm, I was glad to come across a roadside market selling Bedouin head gear to block out the stinging sand that came in quantities with each gust, and threatened to confine me to my hotel for the remainder of the day.  Luckily, the wind abated with the settling sun, and I was able to arrange a guide for the dawn drive the next day to the start of the dune field — or erg — about ten kilometers out from the town.

As we wound our way along the unmarked trail the next morning the remnants of the previous day’s sand storm were at every bend in the road.  An hour’s effort finally deposited us at the end of the trail, opposite vast sandy peaks which announced the beginnings of the erg field.  It was obvious that all further progress was to be only by camel or on foot.  We chose the latter option.  And two hours of fabulous trekking over golden sands, in the absolute silence of the Sahara Desert, was our reward.

A Nicholas Yates desert travel tip?  Be sure and arrive at dawn, for the sands are at their loveliest then and the heat and glare which can make the desert impossible are still hours away.