Merzouga

Red dunes run 22 kilometres from north to south. The crest lines reshape within months as the wind shifts.

Camels roped nose to tail carry riders ninety minutes to a camp inside the dunes. The pace is slow and the sway needs a while to get used to.

Tents go up on flat ground between the dunes for a night's stay. A fire is lit after dark and drumming and singing follow.

Twenty minutes up from the camp to the crest gives the sunrise. Sand collapses underfoot, which slows the walk and shortens the breath.

Rain leaves water standing at the desert edge and a temporary lake forms. Flamingos arrive then and stay a few days.

People who came from south of the Sahara founded this village and they drum and sing. Listeners sit in the yard and tea is shared.

The desert was once seabed, so trilobite fossils turn up in the rock. Workshops cut and polish slabs of it for sale.

Families still living in tents receive visitors and pour tea. Each season moves them, and the same spot stands empty next time.

Channels dug beneath the desert once carried water to the oases. Shaft openings still run in a line across the surface at fixed intervals.

A hired board takes a rider down the steep side of a dune. Soft sand keeps the speed under what snow gives, and a fall hurts nobody.

The big market of Rissani, the main town of the Tafilalt oasis north of Merzouga, with dates, spices and livestock sold in walled sections. There is even a separate donkey park where buyers tie up their animals. Ask your lodging which days it runs.

The tomb of Moulay Ali Cherif, ancestor of the Alaouites who still rule Morocco, just outside Rissani. Its green tile roofs and white walls stand out among the earth-coloured villages. The tomb chamber is open to Muslims only.

An oasis town along the Merzouga road, full of workshops that saw and polish black fossil limestone. Dates grow all around, and the town throws a date festival each autumn. It is the last sizeable town for cash and supplies before the desert.

A small village pressed against the north-west edge of the Erg Chebbi dunes, its guesthouses lined up where the sand begins. Out of the courtyard, your shoes fill with sand at once. Nearer the dunes than Merzouga, it is where many camel trains set off.

A gorge near Tinghir, three or four hours west of Merzouga by car, where at its narrowest the red cliffs close to a few paces apart. A shallow stream runs along the floor. Travellers between the desert and Ouarzazate break the drive here.

Water welling up beneath palms in the Ziz valley south of Errachidia, caught in a pool that is clear to the bottom when full. A ruined earth village sits opposite. In drought years the flow can drop sharply, so ask before stopping.

Where the Ziz river cuts through the mountains north of Errachidia, a green ribbon of palms following the water below the road. Pull-offs on the bends above let you stop. You pass it coming down to the desert from the north.