“Conquer the highest sand dunes of Morocco”
8 Day Desert Quest | Guided Off-road Motorcycle Tour in Morocco
Ouarzazate, Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco
Challenging Motorcycle Tour Morocco
About 90% off-road this Desert Quest is aimed at off-road bikers wanting extra time in the sand. Some experience in dunes and sand is preferable for you to get the most from your ride, but not imperative. You will ride through the 3 Ergs (sand / dune areas) – Chegaga, Ouzina, and Chebbi, where you will attempt the ascent of the highest dunes in Morocco at 205 meters. You will also cross the spectacular Jebel Saghro mountain range with winding trails and some major drop-offs into the valleys below. Pass through the “Monument Valley” of this very austere and lunar-like terrain. A fully equipped support truck follows not far behind bringing Hussein, the mechanic, to sort out any punctures or make a quick checkover after an off.
Key information
- Terrain: sand dunes, off-road, and mountain trails
- Bike: rental bike (KTM 450)
- Mileage: 1144 kilometers / 711 miles
- Daily rides: 97 - 261 kilometers / 60 - 162 miles
- Riding gear: not included, please bring your own riding gear
- Meals: Half-board meals
Meet the instructors
John & Martine
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Highlights
- Tour starts and ends in Ouarzazate
- Mountain and desert adventure
- Conquer the Erg Chigaga and Chebbi dunes
- Follow the High Atlas Mountains and Jbel Sahro tracks
- Daily delicious breakfast, lunch, and dinner
- KTM 450 EXC motorbikes included
- 7 nights accommodation
- Pick-up and drop-off at Ouarzazate airport
Skill level
- Advanced
6 days with instruction in English
The organizer also speaks: Catalan, French, Spanish
Group size: Maximum of 10 participants
Airport transfer included:
Ouarzazate Airport
Accommodation
You will stay at small hotels, riads, and auberges wherever you stop. The tour uses a selection of accommodations, always the nicest available in the area you are stopping, such as three-star local auberges and inns, and four-star hotels built in the old kasbah (castles) style.
Most of the hotels have swimming pools, but they’re normally cold!
The night in the desert bivouac is always a highlight. After a good meal, you lie around the campfire, listening to some local musicians and gazing up at the stars.
Program
Day 1: Arrival day
You will arrive at Ouarzazate airport and a short transfer to your 4-star riad-style hotel, or by minibus road transfer organized from Marrakech. Your bike awaits your arrival. Freshen up, do the bike paperwork, then free to laze by the pool or wander into town. Dinner is a buffet in the hotel.
Day 2: Ouarzazate to Fuim Zguid (approx. 203 kilometers / 126 miles)
Have breakfast at 08.00, then leave at 09.00. Enjoy 17 km on the asphalt before turning onto our first track of the day, it will be 80 km before you see the asphalt again so plenty of time to get used to your bike and the terrain. The track is twisting and undulating with a few loose rocky sections. A refreshment stop at the tarmac, then you are off again along a 50 km fast but twisting section of hard-packed sand…watch out for the surprises.
Picnic lunch under an acacia tree near the gold mine at Bou Azzer. After lunch, some nice desert riding through some low hills before hitting the plateau leading towards Foum Zguid and your hotel for the evening. The hotel has a great pool and beer waiting for you.
Day 3: Fuim Zguid to Oualid Driss (approx. 170 kilometers / 106 miles)
Upon leaving the hotel, it’s 5 km on the road to the town of Foum Zguid where you refuel before heading out into the desert. Rocky at first, you soon arrive at the dry (hopefully) lake bed of Lac Iriki. 40 km of fast riding across the lake brings you to the western side of the Chegaga Dunes. For those up for it, there are also around 40 km of medium-sized dunes to be crossed before you arrive at the bivouac in the dunes, where you stop for lunch.
Those not wanting to commit to the dunes at this early stage of the tour (there are plenty more opportunities to dune ride later on) can take a 60 km diversion around the dunes…you will have an 18 km sandy riverbed to negotiate before the lunch stop though.
After lunch, there is some fast riding across a plateau and some small dunes to cross before you reach the asphalt at Mhamid. A 6 km ride on the road brings you to a 3-star hotel, where always, a pool and beers await.
Day 4: Oualid Driss to Desert Bivouac (approx. 221 kilometers / 137 miles)
A fast day ride skirting the Algerian border.
Leaving at 09.00, you head the 6 km back up the road to Mhamid where you refuel the bikes. From here straight back into the small dunes and sandy riverbeds as you head the 40 km north towards the village of Tazzarine.
Refuel and you set off winding through the palmerie alongside the river Draa. Once back into the desert, you can expect to be stopped by the Moroccan military on at least 2 different occasions as the border with Algeria is not far away and this has become a sensitive area once again.
Great, fast desert tracks once used on the Paris / Dakar rally await you…stop and say hi to the South African Elmer Symons who died here in 2007 while participating in the rally. His crash site is marked by a large stone cairn and a waypoint on your GPS and is a reminder to take care of these fast desert tracks.
Lunch will be at a desert auberge on Lac Maider, a large dry soda lake. From here it's 60 km of sand and "fesh fesh" (bull dust) before arriving at a desert bivouac for the evening. Located alongside some medium dunes.
Ascend an 80 m dune and toast the sunset before having an amazing meal and listening to the local drummers whilst sitting around a blazing campfire.
Day 5: Desert bivouac to Merzouga (approx. 97 kilometers / 60 miles)
A short day today to maximize your time in the big ‘cathedral’ dunes of Erg Chebbi.
After breakfast, you leave the bivouac at 09.00 and set off for Morocco’s highest dunes at Erg Chebbi. There are more than 20 cathedral dunes that are more than 100 m in height with the highest being 205 m above the plateau….for those of you up to it, you will ride them all.
You track from the bivouac to the dunes and traverse an open plain with many acacia trees. This area reminds one of East Africa – just missing the giraffe grazing in the trees. Expect some sandy and rocky sections on what is for the most part a fast couple of hours of riding.
On arrival at the hotel, you will have a quick coffee and move into your rooms before venturing out into the sand. Back for lunch at the hotel. After lunch, you relax by the hotel pool and then maybe venture out into the dunes again.
You're back in the hotel by 17.00. More relaxation time, drinks by the pool until dinner in the very colorful restaurant.
Day 6: Merzouga to Dades (approx. 261 kilometers / 162 miles)
Your longest day today with some fast desert riding and some slow mountain sections as you traverse the Jbel Saghro mountain range.
As usual, you leave the hotel at 09.00. The first 50 km today are the same as the last 50 km of yesterday’s ride. From here to your lunch stop, you have some very mixed riding on what are totally new tracks for you. Ranging from a very ‘messy’ 10 km as you try to cross the Gheris River to long fast sections across the many wide open plateaux to be found in this area. There are many areas where the sand has been blown up against the hills making some very spectacular long dune climbs that you can explore.
Lunch will be arranged at a small local auberge in a desert village where you will have the best beef tagine in Morocco.
After lunch is over, you refuel and set off again on some of the favorite trails in this area. Lots of hard-packed sandy tracks, a memorable 12 km sandy riverbed as well, and the very picturesque Jbel Saghro mountain range.
Your hotel is a beautiful kasbah hidden in the palmeraie of Dades Gorge. Pool set amongst the trees and lots of nice garden corners to sit for a drink. Dinner.
Day 7: Dades to Ouarzazate (approx. 192 kilometers / 119 miles)
After breakfast refuel and then up the Dades Gorge and off in a westerly direction following the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.
Undulating, fast sections interspersed with rocky trails through major washouts and gullies, bring you out onto a plateau.
Picnic lunch somewhere up on the plateau. A sandy twisting riverbed and a further 20 km of fast trails across a flat plateau bring you back to Ouarzazate and your base hotel. Handover of bikes for Hussein to check them over. Relax by the pool before buffet dinner.
Day 8: Departure day
After breakfast, your transfer to Ouarzazarte airport, or back to Marrakech if the transfer is arranged for this.
Bikes available for this tour
Moto Aventures has a fleet of 12 bikes of which a couple are lowered. Please request this possibility at the time of booking and they will do their best to comply.
A Quadlock mount and USB cable are installed on each bike and Moto Aventures supplies a SIM card to run the tracking system. Having installed Wikiloc on your phones (at the hotel on arrival if necessary) you can see each day's route to follow.
Moto Aventures is very confident their bikes will not have anything other than minor problems, and they feel sure that you, as the temporary “owner” of the bike, will look after it as if it were your own and as such will return it to Moto Aventures in good order. If the bike becomes unusable due to an accident then you could be doing the rest of the tour in the support vehicle. So please go carefully and take care of the bikes – and yourself!
A full biking license is needed – so bring it with you! Sorry if you don’t have it with you, you won’t be allowed to drive.
A returnable deposit of 700 EUR (or the equivalent in USD or GBP) returnable deposit against bike and/or GPS damage. IN CASH PLEASE (due to Moroccan taxes, Moto Aventures has to ask you to bring cash because they get charged 22% on all transactions paid by international credit cards).
Skill level required for this tour: advanced
Advanced:
- can ride for 5-6 hours
- extensive riding experience
- assistance on demand (if required)
- experienced with riding a variety of motorcycles
- comfortable with any terrain and weather conditions
Instructors
John Griffiths "Johnnymaroc"
JohnnyMaroc as he is known in the bike world, was born in Tanzania. He worked for the 16 years prior to Moto Aventures in the oil-related diving business before biking solo from London to Cape Town. He has hyperbaric medical training and experience from his years working offshore as well as his Wilderness Medical Certificate, and safety on our tours is one of his main concerns. John is also responsible for track finding and checking, plotting the routes for the GPS and together with Su, setting up the logistics for our tours. He is a very experienced off-road rider.
Martine Goldenbeld
Having been brought up on a charter sailing ship in the Netherlands, means tourism, hospitality and adventure are in her bones. After working as a hospitality manager, safari camp manager and lodge manager in several African countries she started working for MotoAventures in 2020. With her offshore Medical First Aid and Medical Care certificate she is good to go! She is responsible for driving the assistance vehicle on most off-road tours, for the ‘on ground’ smooth running of the off-road tours and the well-being of our guests. She has also added Dutch and German to our team’s languages.
Location
Food
The package includes half-board meals. Drinking water is provided in the support vehicle. Please let Moto Aventures know if you have any allergies.
The following meals are included:
- Breakfast
- Dinner
The following dietary requirement(s) are served and/or catered for:
- Regular (typically includes meat and fish)
- Other dietary requirements on request
If you have special dietary requirements it's a good idea to communicate it to the organiser when making a reservation
What's included
- KTM 450 EXCs bike rental
- 3rd party insurance
- All fuel
- Quadlock mount, USB cable, and SIM card
- Pick-up & transfer to/from Ouarzazate airport to the local hotel (return transfers from Marrakech can be arranged for you. We try to join bikers up to reduce costs)
- 7 nights twin-share accommodation with half-board
- Picnic or cafe lunches
- Drinking water during the day’s biking (carried in the 4×4)
- Support vehicle with driver & mechanic, equipped with a fridge, compressor, large first-aid box, medical equipment, satellite phone, GPS
What's not included
- Return flights
- Medical insurance with repatriation (obligatory)
- 700 EUR security deposit for the bike rental (refundable)
- Pocket money for souvenirs, alcohol, soft drinks, etc. (reckon 50 EUR unless you drink a lot!)
- Your biking gear and drinking system
- Marrakech return transfers (80 EUR for shared, 250 EUR for private transfer for 1 taxi up to 3 passengers)
How to get there
Recommended Airports
OZZ
Ouarzazate Airport
2 km
Transfer included
Airport: Ouarzazate Airport
Airport transfer included: Ouarzazate Airport
No additional charges. You can request this in the next step.
Cancellation Policy
- A reservation requires a deposit of 30% of the total price.
- The deposit is non-refundable, if the booking is cancelled.
- The rest of the payment should be paid 60 days before arrival.
For this organizer you can guarantee your booking through Tripaneer.com. All major credit cards supported.
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