25/05/2026
We hit the road early, the sky slowly lightening with the grey of pre-dawn. The group yawned and rubbed sleepy eyes as the minibus slipped through Fez’s still quiet streets and out into the countryside, heading south.
Some dozed as we cruised through a fertile landscape, flushed green from the winter rains and then began to wind ever upwards, snaking up into the mountains of the Middle Atlas and their forest-clad slopes. The coffee stop a couple of hours in was as surreal as it was welcome. Where two hours before, we’d woken up in the dusty chaos of Fez, here we were sipping strong coffee in the overly-manicured streets of Ifrane, a Swiss-style alpine resort, chill mountain air nipping at our fingers and ears. The contrast was striking, the clean, crisp air refreshing.
The road continued through the mountains, past a family of layby-dwelling macaques and through a landscape that turned from thick forest, to green, scrubby steppe to ever increasing dryness and desolation as we ate up the miles. Lunch was in a service station cafe surrounded by dust and the slopes of dry mountains.
Still onwards we hauled, past a huge reservoir, lit muddy aquamarine under a hazy sky and down to a sudden, palm-filled river oasis, date palms crowding impossibly together, hiding verdant agriculture supporting the small villages that surrounded it. All around, the landscape was a Mars-scape of orange rocks, of dust, punctuated by desperate, clinging scrub and whirling dust-devils, spinning brown under a darkening sky.
Eventually, after the sleepy town of Merzouga, we turned off the sand-blown road and down a bone-shaking rocky track to our accommodation for the night, the Auberge des Dunes d’Or. The sun was being blocked by a gloomy, misty sky full of swirling sand and a gusty, angry wind scoured the flat, yellow landscape sandblasting our faces as we entered into the courtyard of this casbah-style hotel.
Our guide tried valiantly to keep our attention as he gave us our orientation, but most were struggling against the effects of the early start, the road weariness and the sense of yet more culture-shock at the desolate, alien landscape we found ourselves in. Then, as he pulled open the heavy wooden doors in the rear wall of the compound, stating blandly “and this is where we will meet for the camel ride later”, he lost us completely. Gasps, uncontrolled “wows” and more than a few swear words filled the air as recognition of what lay before us dawned: a sea of towering, windswept, orange dunes disappeared into the distance, like something from a fairy tale of Scherezade, or at least one of the more visually stunning sequences from Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. Mohammed had opened the portal to a different world, a parallel universe filled with sand, stark flowing shapes, of emptiness and whistling wind. Somehow arrangements for dinner and the next day were no longer important.
The tired, jaded group of weary travellers had, for a moment, gone. In their place, a jabbering group of over-excited 5 year olds, staring open-mouthed at the stuff of dreams…
——————————————————————————————————————-
All images and words (c) 2026 Tony Bridge. Shot on Canon EOS R7 and iPhone 14 Pro.
May 2026
G Adventures
