Welcome to OMSahara Tours
The team
Welcome dear visitor!
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Meet the team, Es-Said Et-Talmoudi and Linde de Greeff. Your local desert guide will be Said from the south east of Morocco. Linde, a visual artist from the Netherlands, will be your cook & photographer of the trip.
Said was previously a Saharaoui nomad, originating from a Tuareg-Amazigh family that used to move for many years through the Sahara desert. Their style of life is nowadays very rare. After living a long life in the desert with no more than a few goats, camels and their family members, they moved to the small village Beni Hayoun, located in an oasis at the edge of the Sahara.
Said is more than happy to share with you the old wisdom and traditions he grew up with. Being the member of a big Saharaoui family, he can share the valuable knowledge that he got from his grandparents. A big reason for him to organise these Sahara trips is to keep an ancient culture alive and to contribute to the maintenance of a valuable Amazigh Saharan culture. He works hard to give the people a true experience that will come very close to the nomadic way of living that Saids ancestors used to live.
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Discover the desert and the Draa valley​
OMSahara Tours’ biggest goal is to offer people an authentic and more personal trip in the Sahara desert of Morocco. We arrange tours by 4x4 to Morocco's biggest dunes, where you can experience your own moment of inner silence and where it is possible to stop the time for a while. We can also organise a walking tour accompanied by camels, through the versatile landscapes of the Drâa valley. In this trip we will walk through ancient Amazigh villages, small dunes, rocky mountain landscapes and even come across a rare lake. We can walk as many days as you desire and bring food and our own tents with us. In all the tours that we offer, we will show you the diversity of the Sahara desert. You will see a glimpse of the world’s largest desert ecosystem. Far away from the modern and hasty life: here you have the possibility to discover freedom and peace.
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What we would like to offer in our trips:
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Close access to ancient wisdom.
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Unique experience with local Saharan guide.
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All tours are conducted with a personal approach. We care about our clients.
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One or more nights in the heart of the Moroccan Sahara desert, sleeping in a tent or under the stars.
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Visit to a nomad family still living in the desert.
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Visit to the fossil mountains.
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A rest in an oasis that is being used as a water source for the nomad families.
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Healthy, delicious Moroccan meals and Saharan tea, prepared by your guide Said (vegetarian or vegan possible).
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Amazigh Saharan music (played occasionally at the campfire during the winter season).
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Camel trek: a chance to live close to camels for a few days.
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Meet several desert animals on the road such as wild donkeys, camels - often accompanied by nomads, goats, ravens and white gazelles. If you are lucky you can spot a fennec fox.
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During the tour there is a good chance that we will encounter several nomads, many of them are old friends of Said.
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A stay at our home Bani Hayoune Garden.
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Please note that we will travel mostly in small groups, so we can give everyone the most comfortable and enjoyable experience. OMSahara Tours focusses on giving personal, small-scale and unique trips into the Sahara desert.
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Contact us for any questions
More about your guide Said
Coming from a nomadic Tuareg family, Said (b. 1989, Sahara) feels most at home deep inside the desert. Far away from the city sounds and lights, he finds rest and satisfaction as soon as he enters the quiet, golden dunes. This is where Saids roots are.
It is a hard way of living, but at the same time Said finds peace in the simpleness and in the direct approach to life that the Sahara desert offers him.
During his everyday life in the small villages, he often thinks back to his previous life deep in the silent desert. It contains a certain way of living that is difficult to find in our current time. But in the Sahara desert, it can still be accessible.
A long time ago when Said was still very young, he and his siblings collected water from the wells, wood for the fire or looked after the sheep and goats for many hours. As a child, he often visited his neighbors; other Bedouin families that also moved through the desert with their animals and tent. Said and his siblings were always very happy to make those visits. These visits were often accompanied by their goats and sheep so they could find grass and bushes to eat. After the sun has set, they all went back to their own camps, together with their animals. The nights were often spent with games around the fire. Mother was making couscous and father made the tea.
Each ten days, father went out to buy food on the market in a village. He brought back amongst others vegetables, flower, tea, oil and salt. In the evening Said and his siblings were waiting to see their father coming through the dunes in a far distance: excited to see what kind of gifts he had with him. The sweets he brought back from the village made this day the happiest of all.
A few times each month, all the parents and grandparents from different families and different tents, would come together. On this special day they made food for everybody, and a night full of music and games would follow. All the children were always so happy to share this night together. These nights were the most magical nights.
Besides his own childhood memories, it is mostly the quietness, the clean air and the harsh but calm lifestyle that Said admires. The realization that we are such a small being in this vast universe is one of the precious gifts that the desert has left behind for us to still experience.
About Linde
Linde (b. 1992, the Netherlands/Denmark) is a visual artist, photographer & teacher born in the UK. She has been living between the Netherlands, Denmark and Morocco for several years and joined Said in early 2019 during the start-up of the project Bani Hayoune Garden.
After finishing the art academy St. Joost in ‘s Hertogenbosch, she started giving art workshops to children and families in a refugee centre in Arnhem and has worked in several Waldorf kindergartens in Copenhagen. She has experience in providing care for elderly people and has worked as a caregiver at an institution for disabled people. Her ambition is to combine her artist practice with working with people, preferably as close to nature as possible. A few years after Linde met Said they started working on their projects Bani Hayoune Garden and OMSahara Tours in south east Morocco. Linde now lives there almost all year round.
