Orange sand dunes, berber in beautiful blue tuniques, caravans of camels… we are now entering the colorful Sahara desert. Discover my experience riding a camel and spending the night surrounded by mesmerizing sand dunes.

Sunset Sahara Camel ride - Things to do Morocco

INFO & PLANNING TIPS - Night in the Sahara

TIPS FOR TRAVEL PLANNING ADDICTS - Night in Erg Chebbi

Getting to Erg Chebbi

From Marrakech, many companies offer overnight tours or multi day tours including a Sahara camel ride to a camp in the desert's and dunes - find out more on my article including the best Marrakech Desert tours.

Personally it was part of my 8 day tour with Nomadic tours and we were using l'Auberge La Caravane.

Preparing for the camel ride

Take something (scarves are best) to cover your face and protect you from the sand
They do not stop during the hour ride
If you want to take photos you have to use a small camera. It would be too much rick to keep an expensive one around the neck. The ride is definitively not smooth
The camp does not have running water but this one had toilets
Nights can get cold but they have many blankets

Camel ride into the Sahara desert sand dunes

Arriving at Erg Chabbi

First I was really amazed at our arrival to the dunes. I have been to other sand dunes desert and this was the first time I saw such a flat area and the dunes raising far away. A very intense time during which I kept watching the dunes approaching. I really could not believe my eyes that such an abrupt transition exists.

We stopped at Auberge La Caravane, which would be our host at their camp in the desert. And I opened the doors to the Sahara:

Riding a camel

And our dromedaries (that I will call camels in the rest of my posts as they all do) were waiting for us:

Holding on very firmly for the camel to get on his feet I realized that it ended up much higher than expected. And a scene from Se- in the City 2 came to mind where Charlotte fell from the camel… this is high, I really do not want to fall… I am not trying to get a signal but I really want to take pictures! How do I hold on tight and take photos? But after relaxing and getting the hang of it, I freed one of my hands to get you those shots:

This was later afternoon and the sun was going down, giving us some great shadows allowing me to take a "selfie"

Our Berber guides and their blue tuniques

I loved the blue colors of the Berbers’ clothing. This is so striking in the dunes!

Berber leading caravan in Sahara sand dunes

Camel caravans Peak hour

This was a little bit peak-hour and all the Auberges were leading guests to their camp.

Arriving at the camp and sandboarding

And we finally arrived and we took a moment to realize where we were (and recover from a one hour ride on the back of a camel lol)

We then went sand-boarding... for which some were better than others! I personally stayed a bit further away to take good shots of people on the group (no, i was not avoiding trying... I actually already did that in Australia)