The people behind Sahara Viajes
From Sijilmasa to your itinerary
We are an Amazigh agency based in Rissani, the town that used to be Sijilmasa. We were born here and we still live here, half an hour from the dunes.
Our story
Where the caravans used to stop
Rissani was not always called that. This was Sijilmasa, founded in 757 in the Tafilalet oasis, and for centuries it was the last city before the sand — the place where caravans loaded up to cross the Sahara and where they came back months later.
Gold came north through this gate, along with salt from the Taghaza mines, which was once worth roughly its own weight in gold, and thousands of enslaved people, on a route that joined the Maghreb to what the Arab chronicles called bilad as-Sudan — the lands south of the desert, not the modern country of that name. What is left of the city is the mud-brick ruin on the edge of town, and a souk that still opens on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
We grew up in the earthen ksour of the Tafilalet, crossing the palm grove to get to school and sleeping on the roof in summer counting shooting stars. We started out driving for other agencies, which is how we learned where the sixty-seat coaches stop and, more usefully, how to stay away from them.
We started Sahara Viajes on one idea: show our own country the way we would show it to a friend coming to stay. Most of our travellers have been Spanish-speaking until now, which is why the rest of this site is in Spanish. The English routes are the same routes, the same vehicles and the same team.
Message us whenever you like. The tea is on us.
How we work
What you can expect from us
We are from here
Rissani is our town and Erg Chebbi is the back garden. We do not resell other people's tours — we drive, or people from our own team do.
One vehicle, one group
Every route is private. No coach of sixty, no stops at the shops that pay commission, no waiting on someone else's schedule.
A human pace
We stop where the light is best, eat where families eat, and leave room for the unplanned, which is usually the part people remember.
A closed price
You get one figure before you commit, with what it covers written down. On most routes we ask for nothing in advance.
ⵣ Amazigh hospitality
«A guest is a gift from God»
That is how it is said in our house. It is why breakfast on our tours smells of msemen cooked that morning, why the tea is poured three times, and why nobody looks at a watch while the sun goes down behind the dunes.
We are not selling seats. We are receiving guests.