Mountain bike tour in Morocco: Ouarzazate to Zagora on the caravan trail

Salam! On arrival at Marrakech airport, the Exoride team welcomes you and takes you to your comfortable hotel in the heart of the red city. No bikes today: time to drop the bags, get swept up in the perpetual motion of the medina and the show on Jemaa el-Fna square, where storytellers, musicians and orange juice sellers take turns until nightfall.

Zagoride is Zagora and ride: eight days to roll down from the High Atlas to the gates of the desert, on an MTB or an e-bike, on tracks and easy trails open to all levels, with the support car following at all times.

First mint tea, first tagine, and a peaceful night before the big leap south: tomorrow we cross the Atlas to reach the land of the caravans, the ones that once linked Marrakech to Timbuktu.

Breakfast wolfed down and a radical change of scene: we leave Marrakech and its bustle for a first transfer over the high passes of the High Atlas. On the other side, the south faces, more arid, almost lunar: the setting of the Ouarzazate region, the « gateway to the desert », land of kasbahs and film studios.

That's where you get on your bike for a first steady, pleasant section on tracks, 60 km through authentic Berber villages, earthen houses and kids greeting you with an « Azul ». The pace is easy, the support car follows, and the Imeghrane valley reveals itself little by little, green amid the stone.

Bed and board await for this first night in the High Atlas: tea poured from on high, slow-cooked tagine and a first sunset over the ridges. The tone of the Zagoride is set: ride, look, meet.

Depending on the group's wishes and level, the morning starts straight from the guesthouse on the pedals, or saving a few kilometres aboard the support vehicle, which climbs a track onto the neighbouring plateaus. Then comes a superb mule trail, laid down by generations of mountain folk, revealing incredible landscapes: Berber villages and kasbahs mingle with the changing colours of the mountains.

You're riding through the land of a thousand kasbahs, those earthen castles with crenellated towers that once guarded the caravan routes. The day ends in the Dades valley and the setting of its imposing gorges, between red cliffs and irrigated gardens.

Night in a local guesthouse at some 1'500 m altitude, around mint tea and a tagine with typical aromas. Outside, the mountain turns red at sunset; tomorrow, it changes face.

Today's goal: the crossing of Jebel Saghro, the volcanic massif that proudly dominates the Draa and Dades valleys. Its jagged reliefs, unique in Morocco, gradually give way to a more desert-like atmosphere, dotted with oases of brilliant green. This is the territory of the Ait Atta, the great nomadic Berber tribe that grazes its herds here in winter.

900 m of gentle climbing on tracks, then a last pass at 2'000 m, the high point of the trip, before plunging back down to the foot of the imposing massif: 1'100 m of descent to savour, never steep, always panoramic.

A new authentic guesthouse for the night, where you let local life charm you: the comfort is simple, the human warmth immense, a long way from the air-conditioned room of your Marrakech hotel. And that's exactly what travelling is.

We push on through the Jebel Saghro massif in a totally surreal atmosphere: vast plantations contrasting with the harshness of the rocky immensity and, depending on the season, nomad camps and their dark wool tents, one last exotic note to an already colourful journey.

The pedalling is long but pleasant, leaving you all the time to contemplate this formidable picture before refocusing a little on the riding: the long descent to the Draa valley, 1'300 m of downhill, finishes filling your camera's memory card, probably as exhausted as your calves.

Down below, the Draa, Morocco's longest river, unrolls its ribbon of palm groves. Depending on the stage, a pool or a hammam awaits to ease all that, Moroccan style, before a well-earned night in the guesthouse that welcomes us.

Today we make the most of the coolness of the Draa, winding through the valley of the same name, for the longest stage of the trip: 65 km along the water. Typical earthen architecture, ksour, those fortified villages that protected harvests and caravans, desert landscapes and lush oases: more of the surprising contrasts that make the Zagoride so rich.

You ride through the maze of the palm grove, in the shade of date palms, between seguias and terraced gardens, where some of the best dates in the country grow. For centuries this valley was the last stop for caravans coming from the Sahara: Timbuktu, the famous Zagora sign still says, is 52 days away by camel.

At the end of the day, you enjoy the comfort and special charm of a night in a kasbah, at the ksar of Tissergate, whose pisé walls also house a museum of the arts and traditions of the Draa valley. Dinner under the stars: the gates of the Sahara are just a step away.

Time to gradually ease back into life as it was. From Zagora, the last town before the dunes, we take the road back to Marrakech, not without enjoying the show one last time: the Draa valley, Ouarzazate, then the passes of the High Atlas and the mythical Tizi n'Tichka, at 2'260 m one of the highest road passes in Morocco.

The luxurious comfort of your Marrakech hotel certainly contrasts with the simplicity and authenticity of the lodgings of the previous stages, but the thousand flavours of your bike trip will remain engraved: a formidable human and cultural adventure. Last evening in the medina, where we celebrate as it should be.

Depending on your flight times, we take you back to Marrakech airport. In your luggage: the tracks of the Saghro, the palm groves of the Draa, the tagines, the kasbah of Tissergate and the smiles of your Berber hosts. Choukran, thank you in Arabic, and Tanmirt in Tamazight: you'll have said them often.

Ready to live the Zagoride? Open to all, on an MTB or an e-bike, it's waiting for you: book your spot and set off on the caravan trail.