'We want our tea in the Sahara with you; we want our tea in the Sahara with you ...'
It has been 22 years since I first heard The Police singing those lyrics, but it's funny what comes to mind while sitting atop a 200-metre, reddish sand dune.
Reaching the Sahara from Marrakesh in Morocco is surprisingly easy. Touts offer trips to the desert, but my companion, Toko, and I booked with the highly recommended Pampas Voyages, which put together a fine excursion at short notice.
We signed up with three others and paid 900 dirham ($760) each for a two-day/three-night return package that includes vehicle, fuel, driver, breakfast, dinner, one night in a hotel, a camel ride and camping for one night in the ochre-coloured dunes of Merzouga. The price for just two of us would have been 1,800 dirham each.
We leave in a large van at 7.30am with a Brazilian couple and a Slovenian man. After spending a full day taking photos of the majestic High Atlas mountain range, staff at the quaint Hotel le Vieux Chateau prepare a terrific meal of cous cous, chicken and vegetables. A corner fireplace provides a cosy atmosphere while teenage boys play music and sing.
We drive all the next day, with fewer photo stops, and it is nearly 5pm when we turn off the main road and begin to drive for real in the flat, rocky Sahara. Thirty minutes later, we glimpse for the first time the spectacular reddish Erg Chebbi dunes near Merzouga, where we will be spending the night. This vast pile of sand that stretches east into the Algerian Sahara has dunes that measure upwards of 50 metres in height.