MOROCCO – Gara Medouar Crater near Rissani // Spectre (2015)

Deep in the Moroccan desert is an oddly shaped crater – hideout of Bonds nemesis Blofeld. Read here how to get there and have your own desert experience.A strong wind is blowing from the east, bringing tons of sand from the Sahara. The Sahrawi people here at the outer edges of Morocco call these winds “sharqi”, who turn the heaven yellow and whos dust covers everything. Suddenly a huge sun-baked mountain becomes visible out of nowhere. It’s the Spectre crater – the desert hideout from Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Why Bond was here
In the 24th James Bond film, the secret agent (Daniel Craig) uncovers that a sinister organization was behind numerous terrorists attacks in the past. The organization is a network of criminals, led by Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), Bonds foster brother Franz Oberhauser. So the mission gets from professional to personal – Bond travels deep into the desert, where Blofeld operates from a secret lair built inside a meteorite crater. He befittingly gets pickep up with a Rolls Royce.

How you gonna get there
The crater is called Gara Medouar – and is neither a crater nor a volcano, as it is also described from time to time. Gara Medouar is a strange circular erosion, the opening fortified some centuries ago with a mud brick wall by the Portuguese. Inside the circle are smaller mountains, trees and rough cliffs. Thus, the plateau from the movie is just a computer illusion: The Spectre crew had built both Blofeld’s villa and command center outside the mountain and later combined both.

Gara Medouar is located about 12 kilometers east of the town Rissani and 20 kilometers southeast of Erfoud. The best way to reach the Spectre crater is by car. It is just a ten minute drive from Rissani. Follow route N12 out of the city and after a short time you will see Gara Medouar. To get to the Spectre crater just get off the road and drive across the desert. Many will advise you to take a 4×4, but you can safe the money. We managed the ride with a little, sturdy Hyundai.
We advise to rent a car already in one of the bigger towns like Marrakesh or Fez (book online to safe some serious money!) and then drive into the desert. You can manage one way within a day, and Moroccan traffic is much less painful then in other Arab countries. If you don’t fancy riding your own car, there are daily buses connecting Erfoud and Rissani with the bigger towns in the east and north of Morocco. But you then need to find a local driver for the trip to the Spectre crater.

Take a 360-look at the Spectre Crater:

Good to know
Though the Spectre crew had set camp in Erfoud, the city itself is actually boring. When in this part of Morocco, you should rather spent your time in Rissani and the desert town of Merzouga further south.
Rissani is the remnant of what was once the capital of Alawite rule in ancient Morocco. Old Ruins and precious palaces still remind visitors of the glorious past as a trading post between the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains. On Thursdays a glimpse of that past comes to live at the weekly souq al-himar, the “donkey market”. Farmers bring their donkeys (you can buy one for around 500 dirham), as well as sheep and cows to the city and bargain about the fittest livestock. In the adjoining alleys, traders offer olives, fresh fruits and fish, others sell Berber clothes and furniture. In those hours Rissani is as Arabic as it’s gets, leaving the touristic frenzy of the Marrakesh markets way behind.

An hour south of Rissani is the small desert town Merzouga, more hotel collection than actual city. That is because of Erg Chebbi, a vast Sahara dune just at the doorstep of Merzouga. Morocco travelers come here to get their share of desert romance, hotels offer camel rides, trekking, 4×4 and Quad rides and even overnight stays in desert tents.
Finding a decent hotel in Merzouga isn’t particularly hard. When looking for an accommodation definitely opt for one that offers breakfast and even better half-board as there are no restaurants in the “town” itself. You’ll find small cafés offering traditional chai (tea that shouldn’t be more than 10 dirham) or juices (not more than 15 dirham) and kiosks selling water (big bottle for 6 dirham) and snacks.

Impressions from the beautiful Erg Chebbi dune and the market of Rissani:

We decided for a midrange hotel called “Riad Nezha” that offered a double room with half-board for 800 dirham per night. They also had a nice pool for a cool down in the torrid afternoon hours (it’s always better to make your trips in the morning hours before it gets too hot). The breakfast was served on the roof terrace overlooking the Erg Chebbi dune, while you could enjoy their home cooked, traditional 3 course menu in their lush garden.
Brahim, Ahmed and the whole staff are very nice and extremely helpful speaking multiple languages – so don’t be afraid when you’re not familiar with neither Arabic nor French. The best advice we got was actually where to go for our own private sunset tour: Just drive some kilometers out of Merzouga towards the border town Taouz. When an auto museum comes up to the right, take another one or two kilometers. Then enter the dunes to the left, after some single palm trees. From there it’s an easy walk into the dunes – and normally no tours cross your way there.
But if you opt for a camel tour: A trip shouldn’t cost more then 150 Dirhams per person. It will take about two hours, whereas the dunes turn from golden yellow to glowing red. And a big and peaceful silence, called hudu’ in Arabic, covers the sands.

Many blogs claim, that Spectre had also been filmed at a luxury villa in Marrakesh – Dar Bianca by star architect Imaad Rahmouni. Parts of the villa in fact can bee seen inside the Spectre crater in the movie. But that filming took place in the villa is a hoax, as we learned while in Marrakesh. Some real estate firms scattered the rumor to up the price. The film villa is just a set inspired by the real one, and was digitally put into the Spectre crater.

© 2018 Huntingbond (1,4,5,gallery), © 2015 Danjaq LLC, United Artists Corporation, Columbia Pictures Industries Inc.
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