What is the Tafilalet / Erfoud-Rissani region?

The Tafilalet is one of the most historically important corners of Morocco that few visitors can name. It is a vast oasis system in the southeast, fed by the Ziz and Rheris rivers, and for a thousand years it was the northern terminus of the trans-Saharan gold-and-salt caravans — the place where the desert trade arrived in Morocco. The medieval city of Sijilmasa, now ruins outside Rissani, was once one of the richest trading towns in the Islamic world. Today the region is the everyday gateway to the dunes, but its past is grander than its dusty present suggests.

Erfoud is the modern hub — a planned, slightly utilitarian town that comes alive each October for the date festival, when the year's harvest of countless varieties is celebrated and sold. Erfoud is also famous for fossils: the surrounding hamada is full of marble shot through with 400-million-year-old orthoceras and ammonites, and the workshops in town cut and polish it into tabletops and basins. A visit to a fossil atelier, and a run out to the black volcanic dunes or the underground khettara irrigation channels, fills a memorable morning.

Rissani is the one I love most. It is the ancient soul of the Tafilalet, the cradle of the Alaouite dynasty that still rules Morocco, with the mausoleum of Moulay Ali Cherif and the haunting ksar ruins nearby. But the real draw is the souk — held a few days a week, it is one of the most authentic, gloriously chaotic markets in the country: a donkey "car park", mountains of dates, livestock, Berber silver, and the famous Rissani madfouna (a stuffed Berber "pizza" bread) baked in the embers. It feels like the desert's own marketplace, because that is exactly what it is.

For almost everyone, the Tafilalet is the doorway to Merzouga and the great golden sand sea of Erg Chebbi, and that is reason enough to come — but I always urge clients to give the towns half a day rather than just barrelling through to the camels. The fossils of Erfoud, the souk and dynastic history of Rissani, and the long Ziz palmeries on the way in turn the "transfer to the dunes" into a proper experience. Desert lovers and the historically curious get the most from it.