ITINERARY :

Our tours are more than a simple trip, we are engaged to make it a successful trip. Traveling is always an adventure and an opportunity to discover and live a new lifestyle ,learn new things and try amazing experiences. Travel is always discovering something interesting.

We are engaged to share humane patrimony with the world. We think that every single person on earth needs to know where we come from , how the world was millions of years ago and try to give answers to so many questions about our history and existence. The trip, which we led, is bringing attention to an often-ignored issue in the geology field. We have many partnerships with universities all over the world and museums .

Besides, our tours are highly recommended for professors interested in geology and fossil collecting amateurs , also families that wish to have a special experience in the middle of Sahara , palms and camels like old ages . But we can’t ignore either fans of stargazing and star hunters , we are the first and the unique company that presents sky lectures and time traveling to local culture astronomy .

We offer you many arrivals, and many kinds of trips, in order to serve you better. We are always in your disposition if you require any special targets.

Arrival in Marrakech with transfer from the airport to our hotel. This historic city is a World Heritage Site and has excellent low-cost airline links to Europe.

Day 2: Marrakech – Sidi Rahal – High Atlas – Ait ben Haddou – Ouarzazate

Crossing the Atlas Mountains, and Kasbah Ait-Ben-Haddou World Heritage Site.  Today is mostly a travel day. We have to cross the Atlas Mountains to reach the fossil rich areas of the Anti-Atlas. However we have several interesting stops along our way. Our first stop near the village of Sidi Rahal is an agate mine in Triassic lava. Here we can find our own agates with a pink outer layer of opal, as well as having the opportunity of buying prize specimens from the local miners. We then continued on our way up to the Col du Tichka which is 2260m above sea level. Along the way the road passes over rocks of many different ages – Cambrian, Ordovician, Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous – which have all been folded as the Atlas thrusted up. After a pause at the summit of the Col, we deviate off the main road following layers of Triassic sediments and lava flows to reach a salt mine. We stop at the salt mine and go inside it for a good look. Our road then swings due south passing through Jurassic, Cretaceous and Eocene layers before reaching the city of Ouarzazate where we spend the night. Our accommodation here is a three-star hotel, with en-suite bathrooms.

Saredrar Orthoceras quarry  Cambrian and Ordovician trilobites in the Alnif area. Our first stop today is the Saredrar Orthoceras quarry which is not far from Tazzarine. Rocks and fossils from this quarry are fashioned into all sorts of beautiful objects such as basins, table tops, bowls and plates and can be found for sale in fossil shops around the world. Orthoceras are cephalopods with straight shells that are thought to be the ancestors of ammonites, from the Ordovician until the Triassic. The Orthoceras at Saredar are Silurian (Ludlow) in age. We then arrive in the town of Alnif which prides itself as being the ‘Trilobite Capital of the World’. Here we can browse some of the fossil shops, before heading to the north of the town to visit an area where large yellow Cambrian trilobites have been found. These trilobites are Paradoxides and Cambropellas and complete specimens of them can be seen in the Alnif shops. We then visit the well known Jebel Tiskaouine mountain from which huge numbers of ‘calymene’ trilobites have been mined and can be found in fossil shops all over the world. These trilobites are in fact not calymenes but are from genres: Neseuretus, Colpocorypte and Flexicalymens. The trilobites are found in the Ktaoua formation and are of Ordovician (Sandbian/Katian) age. The night is spent in a hotel just outside Alnif.

The Maider Basin, the ‘Lost World’ of trilobites. Our first stop of the day is known as Bou Dib and is on the north escarpment of the famous trilobite mountain Jbel Isoumour. The rocks here are calcareous marls and limestones and are Devonian (late Emsian – early Eifelian) in age. We still spend our time examining the Psychopyge horizon in the Tazoulait Formation that has been quarried for many kilometres, as well as the area below it where loose fossils can be seen lying on the surface. We then continue to the village of Fezzou where we stop for a rest at a café and have an opportunity to meet local people. After Fezzou, we move on to Atchana. Here we can spend time with fossil miners who are working the Ihandar Formation which is also Devonian but slightly younger (Pragian) in age. From this location many wonderful trilobites have been found including Dicranurus monstrosus, and Paralejurus spatuliformis. After this site we journey further south off road all the way to spend the night in a remote desert oasis called Mharch. The accommodation here is the most basic of the trip, in a hotel made of mud, but the rooms are still en-suite.

Kem Kem Dinosaur site and Filon Mineral mine. Today we drove south through the sand dunes to the frontier town of Taouz. We then head to the famous Kem Kem site which is rich in fish, crocodiles and dinosaurs. The rocks are Cretaceous (Cenomanian) in age and were formed by rivers flowing into lakes. This site has also yielded many teeth and bones of the dinosaurs Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. We spent the whole morning at this site before moving on to a site on the other side of Taouz where Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian layers can all be seen very close to each other because they are folded. In rocks that lie on the Silurian and Devonian boundary, we can see the remains of pelagic crinoids and their floats called labolith. In this area local miners have dug several pits to collect the fossils, and we can observe wonderful specimens in the museum in Erfoud. Our next stop is the Filon 12 mine. This mine used to be a lead mine, but is now exclusively mined to collect beautiful mineral specimens which are sold to museums and mineral collectors. One of the most beautiful minerals to be mined here is vanadinite. At the mine we can take an underground tour and examine the specimens for sale which include haematite, goethite and quartz. The night is spent at the same hotel in Merzouga – an excellent place to observe the stars.

Kess Kess and Erfoud. Today we visit Hamar Laghdad also known as the Kes Kes which are Devonian cold seep mud volcano mounds on which rich coral reefs grew. We then visit a site where crinoids are mined in bell pits before reaching Erfoud quarry where orthoceras slabs with goniatites are quarried. The rocks here are mid-Devonian in age. After a picnic we head to the town of Erfoud where we visit the museum, getting to see specimens collecting in many of the sites we visited, and the Orthoceras factory. The Orthoceras factory is a marvel and we can see how the quarried Orthoceras slabs are made into many beautiful objects. The night is spent back in the hotel  in Merzouga.

The World Heritage Sites of Kasbah Ait-Ben-Hoddou and the Medina and Souk of Marrakesh. Our first stop near Ouarzazate is the World Heritage Site of Kasbah Ait-Ben-Hoddou. This kasbah (a fortified settlement) was founded in the seventeenth century and lies on the old trading route from Sudan to Marrakech. The kasbah has been used as a film set for several movies. We then re-cross the Atlas Mountains stopping for lunch in a restaurant before arriving in Marrakech, in the mid-afternoon leaving free time for shopping in the World Heritage Site souk.  The night is spent at the same hotel near the airport as on day one.