Dinner in the Stone Desert, Thirty Kilometres Out

The Sahara is a long day and a half from Marrakech and back, which for most trips is time you do not have. Agafay is thirty kilometres, and it is a desert.

Not a sand one. Agafay is stone: pale rock and dust folding away toward the High Atlas, which changes colour as the sun goes and is a different sort of beautiful from dunes.

The evening is at a desert ecolodge. Moroccan hospitality of the kind that involves being handed tea before you have taken your coat off. Welcome tea and pastries, then harira, salads, tagine, couscous, seasonal fruit and more tea. Vegetarian options run.

There is live Berber music and a fire show after dark, and the sky, which thirty kilometres out of a city is a different sky entirely.

Two things are optional extras rather than part of the standard evening: a camel ride, and a stop at a Berber women's argan oil cooperative on the way, which is where the oil actually comes from and where the money stays. Both have to be selected.

Five hours door to door, with hotel pick-up and drop-off in an air-conditioned vehicle, a local guide, dinner, mint tea and water. Back in Marrakech around 21:30.

Up to thirty travellers per booking, in English, French, Spanish or Arabic.

The camel ride is not recommended if you are pregnant or have back trouble.