The Lion King Lives Here

Having driven from Chefcheon (where I last posted from) much has happened.

First of all, I got my - very expensive - Visas for Mauritania and Mali in Rabat, the country’s capital before driving down south to Hassi Labied, the site of Morocco’s only erg (HUGE sand dunes) where I repeatedly threw myself down the golden dunes atop a Snowboard we borrowed from the Hostel we were staying in.

The Hostel owner’s brother seemed to take a shinning to us armed with very limited conversational ability, and he seemed pretty pleased to accompany us on our exploration around the (small) town - probably due to the fact that there is not much to do otherwise. Having dubbed ourselves ‘Los Tres Amigos’ his company did not go unappreciated and he seemed genuinely upset at the brevity of our goodbye - the road was calling.

Having been told that the journey would take us a week to drive down to the border, we did it in just 2 days, eventually racing the sunset as to get into Dahkla before dark. Apart from a few brief encounters getting food, petrol and water in smalltowns on our way the only outside human contact we had was a series of nods with ‘Wind Watchers’, either road workmen, potential hitchikkers or just idle townspeople who sit by the side of the road on the way in or out of a town or more frequently, just in the middle of nowhere who seem to spend their time making sure the wind doesn’t go anywhere. Its safe to say, life here is pretty slow; they drive slowly, talk slowly if at all and walk no faster than half pace.

The road down to Dakhla seems a drawn-out blur of expansive desert (though sprinkled with shrubbery, not all of it looks like a Carling Advert) making slow and incremental changes to be observed maybe once an hour if that. Given that Western Sahara is an Occupied Territory owned by Morocco most of the occupants and buildings in its towns are military buildings and the 500-ish km stretch from Agadir to Dahkla was only really broken up by police checkpoints at which we would have to hand over our passports, fraternise and contribute to corruption (on one occassion being asked to change up Euro for Dhiram - do I look like a legal money-changer? - and on another using cheap cigarettes and Pistachio Nuts as bribes). At most points it seemed that these bored Officials were just looking for someone to talk to for fear prehaps of turning into a wind watcher out at their checkpoint in the middle of Desert.

(crap UK clubbers radio provided by proximity to Gran Canaria and Tenerife along the Atlantic Coast provided a bit of a reality check to the contrast between that world that we set out from and the one we are in now)

We arrived to Dahkla under cover of darkness - the sun won our little race - to see a huge National Celebration, Concert and Street Festival flooding the streets with thousands of people just when us weary travellers only wanted to find a bed for the night and some food. This made the task much more difficult but did it we did.

Next Stop, Mauritania.