Merzouga

The Tafilalet, the oasis basin that Merzouga sits at the southern edge of, was for centuries one of the great crossroads of the Sahara. Sijilmasa, founded in the 8th century near today's Rissani, grew rich on gold, salt, slaves and cloth moving between West Africa and the Mediterranean, and at its height was one of the wealthiest towns in the Muslim west. Its decline left the basin to its palm groves, its irrigation channels and its ksour, fortified villages of rammed earth strung along the Ziz.

The region's other legacy is dynastic. The Alaouites, Morocco's reigning family since the 17th century, came from the Tafilalet, and the tomb of their ancestor Moulay Ali Cherif near Rissani remains a place of pilgrimage. The oases were also a meeting of peoples: Amazigh groups such as the Aït Atta, Arabic-speaking tribes, Jewish traders who lived in the ksour until the mid-20th century, and communities descended from sub-Saharan Africans brought north along the caravan roads, whose descendants live in villages such as Khamlia.

Merzouga itself was a minor settlement of wells and grazing at the foot of the dunes, on the margin of a trading world rather than at its centre. Its modern life began when travellers started coming for the erg in the later 20th century: a tarmac road reached the village, small guesthouses appeared along the sand, and camel treks and tented camps became the local industry. A flash flood in 2006 damaged parts of the village and its surroundings, a reminder that the driest places are also the ones where water arrives fastest.

Two traditions meet here. The Amazigh culture of the Tafilalet's oases runs through farming, the ksar and the etiquette of hospitality: tea poured three times, guests fed before questions, and a rhythm built around irrigation turns and the date harvest. Tamazight and Moroccan Arabic are both heard, French and some English in the guesthouses.

The other is Gnawa. The village of Khamlia, just south, is home to descendants of people brought across the Sahara, and its musicians play the deep three-stringed guembri with iron qraqeb castanets in long, repeating patterns tied historically to healing and trance ceremonies. Performances for visitors are short and secular, but the music is part of a Moroccan tradition that also fills the Essaouira festival each summer and is recognised as intangible cultural heritage.

Daily manners are conservative and hospitable. Modest dress, an unhurried greeting, the right hand for eating and for giving, and shoes left at the door of a home are all expected. Camel handlers, guides, cooks and musicians make their living from a short season, so haggling has limits and tipping is part of the arrangement. Life happens outdoors in the cool of early morning and after sunset, and indoors behind thick earthen walls through the heat of the day.

Merzouga and its neighbouring villages hold a few thousand people between them, in a commune of scattered settlements along the western edge of the erg. Almost every household is connected to tourism in some way — guesthouses, camps, camels, cooking, driving, guiding or selling crafts — with farming of dates and small plots, some herding, and remittances from relatives working in Morocco's cities or Europe filling the gaps.

The season shapes everything. From October to April the village is busy, vehicles come and go all day and camps fill at dusk; in the summer heat much of it shuts down and families travel or rest. Work is informal and often shared among relatives, and income disappears quickly when travel to Morocco falls away, as it did during the pandemic closures.

Services are thin: schools and a health post locally, but banks, pharmacies, fuel and the weekly market are in Rissani and Erfoud, an hour or less away. Water and electricity have improved, with solar panels common on guesthouse roofs, yet drought has lowered wells across the Tafilalet and thinned the palm groves that once supported the area. Mobile phones reach almost everywhere; the dunes swallow the signal within a few kilometres.

Desert cooking is simple and built on what keeps. The dish the Tafilalet is known for is medfouna, a round flatbread stuffed with minced meat, onion, almonds and spices and baked in the embers or buried in hot sand, cut into wedges and shared. Tagines of lamb, goat or chicken with vegetables, olives or prunes are the everyday meal, cooked slowly over charcoal, and couscous, often barley couscous, belongs to Friday and to celebrations.

Dates are the region's crop and its pride. The Tafilalet is the original home of the large, soft Mejhoul, and the market at Rissani sells a dozen varieties by name, from cheap drying dates for the herds to the ones kept for guests. They appear at breakfast, with tea, and to break the fast in Ramadan alongside harira soup, a tomato, lentil and chickpea broth.

Bread is baked daily, in a clay oven or against the sides of one — khobz, the semolina cake harsha, and msemen eaten with honey, butter or olive oil. Milk, buttermilk and, occasionally, camel milk come from the herds. Mint tea is the constant: green tea boiled with a bundle of mint and a great deal of sugar, poured from a height into small glasses at every arrival, every negotiation and every stop in the sand.