Lords of the High Atlas, How to Ride a Camel and a Saharan Night Under the Stars

Morocco is alternately overwhelming, delicious, friendly and vicious. It offers a constant assault on the senses, enhanced by true tales of its barely believable past.

And everywhere, there are children. Boys mostly but occasionally a young girl with her mother close by, begging. I asked permission to take her picture and bought trinkets from these women alongside the road where we stopped to take a “panoramic picture.”

First, the ride to camp. A four-wheeling race between our drivers delighting in an up and over the dunes trip that left me squealing like a kid.

Then a story our guide shared as we made ready for a night in our Bivouac: La Belle Etoile near Merzouga in the Saharan Desert with an overnight Berber-style stay in heavy, blanketed tents. Berber with the exception of a comfortable bed, flush toilet, hand sprayer shower and electricity.

So, Berber-light.

And a sunset camel ride. And a predawn dune trek to watch the sunrise over the Sarahan horizon before we made our way to the medieval city of Marrakech.

We had journeyed through the majestic kasbahs of the High Atlas mountains on a white knuckled bus ride and welcomed our guide’s distraction with stories of the Madani and T’hami el Glaoui, traitors to the Moroccan King and warlord brothers who carved out a feudal fiefdom in southern Morocco in the early twentieth century.

They combined the aggression of gangland mobsters with the opulence of hereditary Indian princes, and ruled with a mixture of flamboyance and terror.

Lords of the Atlas: the rise and fall of the house of Glaoui

On returning from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, T’hami ordered the severed heads of his enemies to be mounted on his gates. Quite a pair, these two. Their ghosts and the stories of fantastic camel caravans laden with spices, silks, knotted carpets in brilliant colors and the Lords of the Atlas joined me silently on my time in the desert camp.

Sidenote, barefoot is the best option for riding camels, walking, climbing the dunes as the sand is cool and super soft. Never attempt to mount a camel without assistance. It’s a pretty big jolt to your back and neck as the lovely beast unfolds himself and stands. If you EVER have the opportunity to visit Morocco, visit one of these desert camps and stay up late. Star-gazing is impossible to describe, as is the silence.

Auberge La Belle Etoile

Address: 3XXQ+M88 Erg Chebbi, Merzouga 52200, Morocco

Phone: +212 5355-78450