Erg Chigaga: 3 days in Morocco's deep south

We leave Agadir early, coffee in hand, just enough time to watch the city wake up in the rear-view mirror. The road heads east through the Souss Valley and its argan groves. First stop in Taroudant, at a cooperative run by women who crack the nuts by hand, the way their grandmothers did. You sit with them, taste the fresh oil on warm bread, learn the gestures. Short, but real.

The afternoon belongs to the mountains. The Tichka pass climbs over 2,000 meters before dropping down to Ait Ben Haddou, the rammed-earth ksar you've seen in so many films. We walk it slowly, at your pace. Evening in Ouarzazate, dinner in a family-run riad.

Day two is the long descent toward the Sahara. The Draa Valley unrolls its palm groves for kilometers, punctuated by mud-brick kasbahs. Lunch in Zagora, then we turn off toward M'hamid: the last oasis before the dunes. The 4x4 takes over. Erg Chigaga appears in the late afternoon, immense, almost unreal. You leave the vehicle, climb onto a camel for the final hour, and reach the camp just before sunset. That evening, tagine cooked over an open fire, Berber music around mint tea, and a sky unlike anything you've probably seen.

On the third morning, we get up before dawn to climb the highest dune. The silence of the desert as it wakes is one of the most persistent memories you'll bring back from Morocco. Breakfast at camp, then back to Agadir along a different route: Foum Zguid, Taznakht and its geometric carpets woven by Ait Ouaouzguite women, Taliouine and its saffron fields. At every stop, you're welcomed by the producers themselves. No middlemen.

Six travellers maximum. No coach, no line of tourists trailing behind a flag. Just one trip, one driver-guide who knows every face along the road, and the time to actually see what you're passing through.