Long before it was a household name in off-road racing, the Paris-Dakar rally crossed this stretch of Moroccan desert.
Between the dunes of Erg Chegaga and the desert outpost of Foum Zguid lies one of the more evocative drives in southern Morocco: a 4x4 piste that follows the historic route of the Paris-Dakar rally across the dry bed of Lake Iriqui.
A dry lake in the desert
Lake Iriqui was once a genuine lake; today it's a vast, flat expanse of cracked earth that floods only rarely. Crossing it by 4x4 is one of the more memorable off-road stretches of a Sahara circuit — open, empty, and a world away from the paved roads most travellers stick to.
Following in the tyre tracks of legends
This stretch of desert once formed part of the original Paris-Dakar rally route, when the race still crossed North Africa. Today it's a quieter adventure, usually driven as part of a longer loop connecting Erg Chegaga, Foum Zguid and the carpet-weaving town of Taznakht on the way back toward Marrakech or Ouarzazate.