The Sahara

After Marrakech and Essaouira, there were a few more essential stops on our journey through Morocco. They included a must do camel trek in the desert, getting lost in the labyrinth of Fes, and admiring the photogenic blue city, Chefchaoun.

First stop, the Sahara:

A long 10 hour mini bus drive from Marrakech, over the Atlas mountains, and through miles of desert scrub, put us in Merzouga, the gateway to the Moroccan Sahara. Like so many visitors, we joined a camel trek to an overnight desert base camp in the Erg Chebbi dunes.

AfroPop Worldwide, is a radio program, broadcast in the US over the PBS network. Through listening to this series, I first discovered the North African musical genre known as ‘Desert Blues’. Groups like Tinariwen were prominent in introducing this unique mix of traditional Tuareg desert tribal music and blues/rock to western audiences. Here is a music video featuring Tinariwen, with great visuals, very similar to the desert environment we experienced:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vACZA9dGvV4

A link to the official AfroPop Worldwide site which includes podcasts of current and past programs:

https://afropop.org/