Khenifiss National Park

The Only Large Wetland On Morocco'S Desert Coast, A Ramsar Lagoon Where The Sahara Meets The Atlantic And Flamingos, Spoonbills And Gulls Gather In Numbers Against Bare Dune And Sabkha · Akhfennir, Guelmim-Oued Noun

Between Tan-Tan and Tarfaya the Sahara runs straight into the Atlantic, and in one place it makes a lagoon: Naila, about 65 square kilometres of shallow salt water behind a dune bar, with sabkha flats around it and nothing else for a long way in any direction. It is the only wetland of real size on this desert coast, which makes it both a Ramsar site and a magnet - flamingos, spoonbills, slender-billed and Audouin's gulls and large wader flocks on the water, and on the dry ground behind it the birds of the desert proper: cream-coloured courser, hoopoe lark, thick-billed lark. There is a fishing camp at Akhfennir, a signed turning off the N1, a few tracks across the sabkha, and no visitor centre, no hide, no water and no shade at all. For most travellers this is the best possible reason to break the long drive south to Dakhla; for birders it is a destination, and for anyone else it is an hour of wind and very strange emptiness.

Naila lagoon on the Atlantic between Tan-Tan and Tarfaya, signed off the N1 at Akhfennir, Akhfennir, Guelmim-Oued Noun, Morocco

Open country, open always, free, with no gate and almost certainly nobody to ask - whether the park has any staffed presence at all is doubtful and should not be counted on. The useful hours are the first and last two of daylight, when the birds are active and the light is not flat; the middle of the day on white sabkha is punishing and pointless. The N1 Dakhla road runs past the signed turning and buses and shared taxis use it constantly, but they will not stop at a lagoon for you, so this is a place you reach with your own vehicle or a hired car and driver. Fuel, food, water and a bed are at Akhfennir and Tan-Tan; fill up at both ends. Tracks across the sabkha are soft after rain and in places at any time.

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