Merzouga

At Merzouga, the Sahara begins at the door. This small village in southeastern Morocco sits where the rocky Hamada du Guir plateau gives way to the vast orange dunes of Erg Chebbi. The highest crests reach around 150 metres. You feel the shift before you see it — a softening of the ground, a graininess underfoot, then the dunes themselves appear on the horizon, their ridgelines sharp against a sky that seems too wide for anything else.

The dunes

Erga Chebbi is not a place of stillness. The wind moves sand from one ridge to the next, slowly reshaping the landscape in ways visible over months and years. In the early morning, before the heat settles, the dunes hold the coolness of the night. Walking up a crest is effortful — the sand shifts under each step — but from the top, the view stretches south toward the Sahara proper, empty and immense. At midday the light flattens and the sand bleaches pale. By late afternoon it deepens again to copper and rust, and by the time the sun drops behind the western ridge, the dunes glow.

Life at the edge

Merzouga has a modest centre, a line of palms marking the oasis that has sustained settlement here for generations. Date palms dominate, their fruit harvested in autumn. The local people are primarily Berber, with their own dialect, music and traditions of hospitality. In the surrounding villages, you may hear Gnawa music drifting from a family gathering, or pass men in djellaba travelling by mule along unpaved tracks.

Into the desert

Most visitors enter the dunes by camel at sunrise or sunset, the slow rocking gait of the dromedary carrying you into waves of sand. Your guide knows the terrain and the culture. Once you stop and sit among the dunes, the silence becomes distinct — not quite absolute, but close. The nights are different again. With little light pollution for many kilometres, the Milky Way is unmistakable, a thick band of light across the sky. On clear nights, particularly in the months around summer, the stars can feel like a physical presence.