If your holiday with Desert Majesty involves trips out to the vast expanse of the Sahara Desert, where you may be staying for several days, up to a week, or longer, you will need to be prepared. Here are some useful items that we recommend you pack before you leave on your trip of a lifetime to Morocco.
A sleeping bag: While we provide plenty of blankets and sheets for your tented desert accommodation, it does get very cold in the Sahara on a winter’s night. Bring along your own sleeping bag, so that you’ll be snug as a bug under the spectacular, if chilly, Moroccan night skies, studded with a galaxy of shimmering stars. This is only really required on trekking over several nights or on the Sufi Retreat.
A turban or scarf: This is an essential item when heading out on Morocco desert tours, as the simple garment will protect your face and hair from the harsh sun, as well as any sand that gets whipped up by the wind. If you’ve arrived for your holiday in Morocco and find you don’t have a turban — known locally as a “shesh” — or scarf, don’t worry. You can easily buy a “shesh” at a local shop or bazaar.
Warm clothing: You’ll need to bring some warm clothes when you embark on a Morocco desert tour. Although temperatures are high in the Sahara during the day, they plummet at night, due to a lack of cloud to keep the heat in. While you might think you don’t need to pack heavy clothing for a trip to hot Morocco, you will need it when you’re out in the desert in the evenings in early spring, late autumn, and the winter.
Being well-prepared for your Morocco desert tour will ensure that you have the time of your life on your Desert Majesty tour.
In Morocco, as travellers, we are paying guests, exploring and learning about age-old traditions and fascinated by a world so different from our own. Customs and traditions based either on religion or habits passed down from generation to generation can seem strange, unusual, odd. Listening, learning and observing, without necessarily understanding and without passing judgment, can enhance our pleasure of participating in this other existence.
As we move round and through this environment, we leave behind impressions of ourselves and our own world – we are the most important ambassadors. Let us ensure that these memories we leave are ones of warmth, generosity, openness, curiosity, modesty and respect for this different society and for the environment which others experience on a daily basis. Moroccans are very welcoming and hospitable people and it behoves us to keep faith with this.
The desert is very much alive – witness the myriads of animal tracks on your morning climb to watch the sunrise. It is also other people’s living space. With this in mind and considering also that the dryness of the desert means that even a paper tissue rots only exceedingly slowly, please be careful to remove ALL litter.
Throughout Morocco it is important that we are conscious and careful of our water consumption. This is a country under constant threat of drought. We are all individually responsible for maintaining a sustainable environment wherever we are.
Of course, there are scorpions and snakes in the desert but these rarely pose a danger and they avoid the proximity of humans. Only in summer is it advisable to keep an eye out. The reason for the guide along with you is for your own safety. Please do not venture beyond sight of the camp alone, as it is easy to lose a sense of orientation in the dunes.