The rip off in Merzouga Part 2 of 3 - In the Erg Chebbi desert

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I woke up around 8am and took a shower. Had mint tea and had a chat with the owners son. I said what I can afford is Dhm550. He said the lowest is 650 and then after bargaining it became 600 and then I said come on I am a student from Sri Lanka I don’t have much money and that he wouldn’t have to spend much money on food because I'm vegetarian and lets do this for 550. He said let me go and check and came back after 2 mins and said ok 550 and deal. Afterwards I met Daniel from Sweden who had already spent 2 nights in the desert and asked him how his experience was and he said it was soo good he can’t explain it in words. I wanted to ask him on the prices but couldn’t as the bosses son was there nearby. I said bye to Daniel and I went to the village to get breakfast and rent a bicycle as I wanted to explore further south before going on the camel trek.

Hassan and his friend went with me to the village and Hassan wanted Dhm200 to buy provisions for the desert trip as they had to buy stuff for dinner, breakfast, and lunch. After I had given the 200 I was left with only Dhm20 until I went back to Rissani as there was no place in Merzouga to change money or an ATM. It’s a pretty underdeveloped place. I rented a bike for Dhm30 a day. I had breakfast for which Hassan paid because my money was with him and I had only Dhm20 with me, which I would pay for the bike on my return and Hassan would pay Dhm10.

After having breakfast Hassan showed me an account of my expenses which included the room charge, internet, last nights dinner etc. I was like yeah that’s fine whatever the balance I will give you when we get to Rissani on my way back.

I left Hassan there and cycled to a “Gnawa” village called Khamlia about 10 kms south of Merzouga. Essentially the Gnawa people are black people who were brought in as slaves from the Sahara and have settled in Morocco. It took about 50mins to cycle to Khamlia as I was stopping frequently to take in the beautiful vistas of the dunes. In Khamlia I heard some music from a distant house. When I went to check it out, I saw a Gnawa band performing. At that place everyone from the hotel I was staying was also there along with the two couples. I bought a Gnawa music CD for which I got the hotel people to pay since I didn’t have any money with me. I said I will give the money to them when I get to Rissani with the rest of the money for the camel trek. They had come in a jeep so they put my bicycle on the roof of the jeep and gave me a ride back to the hotel. I returned the bike, checked email and came back to the hotel around 3pm to start the camel trip at 330pm.


The camel trip to the Erg Chebbi desert finally started at 4pm. I went on the camel for 15mins and then got down because my bum hurt soo much as well as it wasn’t easy taking photographs while holding on to the camel. The sunset was not soo stunning have seen better and I was in general not in the happiest mood. I was not in the most talkative mood. To add to that the camel man spoke very little English and we were communicating with hand signals, broken English, a mixture of French and Spanish….I found myself occasionally speaking to him in Sinhala and Hindi as well.

We got to a little valley where there were 4 tents errected, one for the kitchen and the other 3 for people to sleep. I was relaxing lying on a mat and looking up at the evening sky. There is a strange feeling you get when you see how the night sky envelopes the last remaining light, the first star and slowly start seeing other stars. Since you are sorrounded by dunes you can see as if your entire forward vision is a circular line.


I was expecting complete darkness the kind of darkness you get in the “Udawalawe” jungle in Sri Lanka where you can’t even see your own hand. It gets soo dark in the jungle that you get this suffocating feeling. The light from the stars was too much.

I had an omlette for dinner and there was a local nomad who came by and joined us. I went out of the kitchen to gaze at the stars and take photographs. I am kicking myself for not having invested in a remote control for the camera so that I can take shots with more than 30 second exposures. I managed to take a few in the bulb mode but I had to keep the camera on the mat and press the shutter button and wait. I did take a few with 100 second exposures but camera shake was becoming a problem.

I heard a few voices nearby, to see they were from other travellers who were passing by. I went to sleep afterwards.

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