Buggy Raid: Ouarzazate to Erg Chegaga

The whole descent, in a buggy

From Ouarzazate the land drops away southwards and does not stop until it becomes the Sahara. Most travellers cross that in a day, asleep in the back of a car, and arrive without any sense of having gone anywhere.

This is the version where you ride every kilometre of it, and the geography arrives one stage at a time.

Day one, Ouarzazate to Zagora. Seventy-five kilometres to Agdz over the Tizi n’Tinififft, where the road tips over the pass and the Drâa opens below you in one movement. Then ninety kilometres down the valley to Zagora, running the pistes beside the palm grove rather than the tarmac, past ksour of packed earth still lived in. A night in a kasbah in the valley.

Day two, Zagora to the erg. Ninety-eight kilometres to M’Hamid through Tamegroute and Tagounite, where the palm grove finally gives out. Then the last sixty kilometres, where the tarmac ends for good: hamada, the Lehoudi dunes, and Erg Chegaga.

You reach the camp in the late afternoon of the second day, having watched a river valley turn into a desert at riding speed.

How it is run

Two-seat side-by-side buggies with roll cages and harnesses. Not quads. No previous experience is needed, only a driving licence, but this is the most demanding of our three raids and it rewards riders who want two full days in the seat.

A guide leads and a mechanic closes, both from the valley. A 4x4 runs the entire route carrying water, spares, tools and a medical kit, and it carries your luggage, which reaches each night’s room before you do.

Six buggies is the maximum. Past that the group strings out and the riders at the back spend two days in dust.

Both lunches are laid out on rugs, in shade, with cold water and proper plates. On a two-day raid the stops matter as much as the riding.

Three nights, and the camp is yours

For the three nights after you arrive, the camp belongs to your group. Eight tents, each with its own bathroom, no other party turning up mid-dinner.

After dark. A telescope and an astronomer, following your curiosity rather than a script, under a Bortle Class 1 sky, the darkest classification there is. Then a fire, and usually Berber musicians around it.

In daylight. Bread baked in the sand, sandboarding on the steep faces, a walk with nomad guides who navigate by dune shape and wind, and a camel ride timed to put you on a crest as the sun goes.

After two days of riding, most groups take the first full day at the camp very slowly. That is what it is there for.

Why it is quoted rather than priced

Buggy numbers, riders per machine, the season, the kasbah chosen for the valley night, and whether you ride the return all move the figure. We put the whole thing in writing, in one document, before anything is paid.

Tell us your dates and how many of you there are.