[THE SAHARA, MOROCCO] — I was sitting there polishing off my second Negroni — a Negroni in the frickin’ Sahara Desert — watching the blazing sun rapidly sink over the darkening horizon when here comes Ahmed, barreling over the lip of the nearest dune, in bare feet (!).

Huffing, he says “Monsieur Dan, we have one more surprise for you tonight. Please come. Oh… and bring your camera.”

As if I needed more surprises that day… we start charging off through the sand towards the quickly setting sun.

There, lining the huge bowl below us was a constellation of dozens… and I mean dozens… of flickering lanterns, all patterned out equally like someone with OCD would want. It looked like a concert at Red Rocks in the 70s, lighters in the air… but with bigger flames and sand.

Down in the center of the bowl, a roaring fire, torching the sand for many yards. Standing silently, two more of Ahmed’s friendly team stood at attention, grinning ear to ear. And there it was, my Table for One.

__________________________________

Dar Ahlam’s Private Dune Camp in the Sahara

There are dozens of other tent camps out there, some like mini tent villages, some even more elaborate than this, but Dar Ahlam’s philosophy is that the desert experience should just be for one group — whether a family, a couple of couples or even a Party of One like me. The desert is so amazingly quiet, you don’t want some obnoxious group you don’t know bum your mellow.

One group at a time. One night at a time. You’re in. You smile. You’re back out to finish off two more nights at Dar Ahlam’s luxurious Kasbah in the desert oasis of Skoura. The perfect amount of time.  They call it The Dune’s Camp. Let me show you what this experience is like…

____________________________________

Driving to the Sahara

Getting to The Dune’s Camp in the Sahara is half the fun

Getting to the tent camp in the desert is half the fun, crawling out of Ouarzazate your brain freezes a little bit. There, in the middle of dusty Morocco is a decrepit old diner, Jetson’s-style, with crooked old Venetian blinds in the windows.  Old Buicks and Oldsmobiles sit in the parking lot, their tires flattened with age.  A rusty sign reads GAS HAVEN, LAST STOP 200 MILES.  What?

Ouarzazate is the center of Morocco’s famous film industry. They’ve been making movies here since Cleopatra (the movie), filming such famous movies as Gladiator, Babel, James Bond’s Spectre, Bourne Ultimatum and a surprising amount of Nicolas Cage movies.  Also, a bunch of B movies, like this abandoned set for The Hills Have Eyes.  Man, all the guides I met breathlessly mention that movie alongside the Oscar winners.  I do not believe I’ve seen it, but now I’ve seen its famous set.

Soon the road starts to flatten out and a vast golden plain opens wide, stratified mountain ridges frame the horizon.

Soon, you’re driving through rugged canyons, with crazy geology that looks like the earth is still forming, glowing with a golden hue of dirt and stone thats makes you wipe your eyes.

Lunch Break in a Moroccan Palm Grove

Every now and then, not frequently, you swing around a corner and small monochromatic mud brick towns line the canyons,  straddling some rich deep green oasis studded with palm trees. One rammed-earth structure after the other, all a coppery brown — a building model that has worked for centuries. “New buildings, concrete. Need air con.”  Mohamed says in his helpful pigeon English. “These? Non. Cool in summer. Warm, winter. Better than new.” He nods with confidence.  We drive on.

Finally, you pass the last town and a triumphant gate at the end of the road, the other side of which the road disappears into a rough track — almost like it celebrates “This is where the desert starts.”

And from there, it is sixty kilometers of bronc-riding fun, no dunes in sight until the end. Passing by dozens of nomad camps, their tents and camels. There are no signs. No directions. Just constantly forking roads splitting off in all directions, Mohamed taking each fork like he just drove through here an hour ago.

“How do you know which fork to take?” “No need for GPS, I have Tête GPS” he said, pointing to his head. Mohamed has raced the Paris to Dakar Road Rally many times and he grew up here. So he knows these roads like the back of his hand.

 Arriving at Dar Ahlam’s “The Dune’s Camp”

And then you spot the dunes in the distance. The Sahara. The wind is blowing, but it is completely silent, like in a recording studio.

A smiling porter named Ahmed shows up out of the middle of nowhere, smiling ear to ear. “Bonjour Monsieur Dan. Please follow me.”  Straight up a huge sand dune he goes, I follow…

We popped over the tall ridge and, again, all I could see was a vast horizon of rolling copper sand dunes, as far as the eye could see. I spin around and it’s sand 360 degrees and nothing else. Wow, I’m really here. The Sahara.

The silence was deafening. Like wearing noise-cancelling headphones in an anechoic chamber. It’s The Sound of Nothing.

It’s totally disorienting, just hearing your breath and the blood racing through those little veins on the sides of your forehead. That’s when I noticed the sun. Hot. Beating down on me, my clothes sticking to me like flypaper.  I scramble up and down the dunes, firing off hundreds of photos, every next angle better than the last.

I spun around to drink it all in. And that’s when it dawned on me, there’s someone else here. BAAAAMMMMM!

_________________________________________________

Stagecraft. The brilliant people at Dar Ahlam are masters at it. It’s all about The Setup. Then… The Surprise.

Climbing over a dune or turning a corner and BAM. Whether in their hotel or in their desert camp, it’s all about The Surprise. And the amazing team they’ve hired are having as much fun doing it as you are experiencing it. The founder of Dar Ahlam, Thierry Teyssier is a former theatre producer and so the whole experience is like being in your own play.

So here I was, just me, a driver, a chef and three other helpers just grinning at the sun and taking it all in. (And they certainly must have lost money on only me, but they still stuck with their philosophy).

___________________________________________

Upon arriving, you climb over a dune and this cool table is waiting for you, a Berber welcome with some mint tea.

I sit down, cross my legs on the beautiful Berber rug, the silence snuffing out my panting breath.  I look out across the dunes and see a smiling gentleman pop up and across the dunes… with a tea tray. The ground undulating, but the tray not.  Is this really happening?

“Checking In” to Dar Ahlam’s “The Dune’s Camp”

This is no Reception in the desert.  You’re already there.

The tent setup at Dar Ahlam is perfect, early Out of Africa. With large Belgian tents, campaign chairs and a giant king bed. Each tent has its own bathroom, complete with flushing camp toilet and a shower, the tank warmed by the sun.

Sunset Cocktails in the Sahara

After opening up my bags in my spacious tent, washing my face and laying down on the comfy king size bed I was just about to nod off in the silence when I heard the shuffling sound of bare feet in sand. From outside the tent, I heard a polite soft voice call out:

“Ermmmm, pardon. Monsieur Dan, are you ready for your Negroni now?  The sun is falling.”

“Yes I am!” I replied as I bolted up from my stupor. We strode back up and over a tall dune. The sun was indeed falling. Fast. And low and behold, this is what was waiting for me; Ahmed stood there with a grin:

After snapping another hundred photos, I sat down with great anticipation. Across a line of shadowed distant dunes, a man’s head bopped in and out of sight… doing and end-around so as not to create unnecessary footprints that would disturb the sunset view. As he approached in the stony silence, I could hear him huffing and puffing, his pants legs breaking the silence as he drew near.

“Monsieur Dan, would you like another Negroni?”  “Yes, yes I would..”

Rigged for “Night Running”

After the sips went down and the sun slipped over the horizon, the light got spooky wild. All soft and orange. No shadows anymore. Monochromatic. Like trying to spot elk in the mountains in the flat light after sunset.

And then things started to get busy… while I just watched..

And then, like in all of Morocco, the night changes EVERYTHING. The candles come out. The air is cool. The silence, deafening. And slowly the magic dials up..

And Yet Another Surprise… Dinner.

After several hours under the stars, I stumbled back to my tent under flashlight, stuffed to the gills, and plumped onto the top of my covers and fell fast asleep.

It was a good day.

Breakfast in the Sahara

You wake up early in the morning, before sunrise, in the same flat light of dusk. Sleepy eyed, you wash the sand out of your eyes (literally!) and scramble up to a draped table on a new dune, waiting for the sun. Soon, the flat pink blush light turns yellowy, then a golden orange.  Good morning.

And Like That, This Magical Night in the Sahara Was Over

And like that, it was all over. The boys grabbed by suitcase and huffed it over the dunes, I followed behind. Mohamed was waiting on a far dune dune, posed like a car commercial. Then pulled up to load me up and off we went.

After a while of driving in featureless desert, suddenly big towers appeared on the horizon, getting bigger as we got close. We passed a 1500 year old fort, out in the middle of nowhere. You’ve seen it in Lawrence of Arabia and other famous movies. Now it’s a hostel.

We drove a half hour further and another shape appeared. Mohamed pulled over, the tires skidding on the clay earth. It was a water well. He picked up a rubber tire bucket and tossed it down the deep well, a long way before the splash. Cranks it back up and shows how nomads would pour it into a trough for the camels to drink. Then Mohamed turns around, takes some water and splashes it on the ground. Right there, in this spot, fossils all around us.

Did I mention that Mohamed was a top driver in the Paris>Dakar Rally?  As we pulled out of the dunes and onto the hard flat desert soil, we had liftoff….

And with that, off we were back to the Dar Ahlam kasbah in Skoura for another several days of relaxing by the pool, eating great food and exploring the vast lands of Morocco.

— Last Visited May 2015; Post Update October 2024 — 

 

Additional Information About Dar Ahlam’s The Dune’s Camp

Here is a link to Dar Ahlam’s beautiful website, outlining this and many other extraordinary experiences.  And the listing from Scott Dunn Travel, one operator I’d highly recommend for door-to-door arrangements. And a great article in The Financial Times. And a review of Dar Ahlam in Condé Nast Traveller. Here is a link to the 700000 Hours travel website — the travel concept company that runs Dar Ahlam and other new amazing adventures around the world.

Here’s what Conde Nast Traveler had to say about a similar trip, staying at Dr Ahlam. And another article in Forbes.

Here’s a fantastic article on the Moroccan desert and mountains experiences from the UK’s excellent Conde Nast Traveller.  And another Moroccan article in CNTraveller.

And another Moroccan camping overview from The Culture Trip.  And several other tent camps from The Independent.