Wednesday 9 January 2018: Erg Chebbi to Agdz

We set our alarms in order to watch the sun rising over the Sahara, which feels like a once in a lifetime experience. Spectacular. The scramble up the sand dunes helps to warm up our cold bodies. It is freezing and we eat our breakfast wearing our hats and gloves which feels a bit like playing the Chocolate Eating Game. Hassan enjoys using the 4 wheel drive to steer us skilfully through the dunes to the tracks and then on to the very straight rather boring main road. This is real camel country and we see several large groups of camels grazing by the side of the road. We begin to feel blasé.Today we drive west along the southern slopes of the Low Atlas Mountains pleased to have the sun warming us up through the car windows. We have a Moroccan Flat White coffee called a Nos Nos (half and half) which is delicious and lentil soup on a roof terrace. Then into the Draa Valley, the area of Southern Oases, where the valley is filled with hundreds of different types of palm trees and crops are grown in the fertile soil beneath. We arrive at Riad Sofar in Agdz and relax in the sunshine on a terrace by a swimming pool. It is icy cold and we are not tempted.