Part 5 - Cycles in the Sand - updated

So, it's now 3rd November and I'm Nouadhibou, in northern Mauritania. Being winter it's only 38 degrees in the shade. The journey down from Agadir has been interesting, and since leaving Morroco has become a lot more African.

From Agadir I caught a bus to Laâyoune. At least that was the plan. Halfway through the journey at the town of Tan-Tan, I was told that the bus would be waiting for an hour or so for a lunch-break. That baing normal practice I thought nothing of it, but was glad that I decided to have a tea and cake in a cafe opposite the bus station. I was glad because after taking the first sip of the tea I saw my bus start to pull out of the station, I ran over and stopped the bus, and the driver got my bag out of the luggage locker as I tried to ask him why it wasn't continuing to Laâyoune. A freindly policeman then intervened and after a lot of discussion got the bus driver to pay the grand-taxi fare onwards.

South of Agadir the desert reaches the coast. It was quite bizarre to see someone fishing from a rock on the side of the road in the Sahara and then to realise that we were driving along the top of a low cliff.

Laâyoune was nothing special. Lots of Morrocan flags - the area is disputed territory so the central government seems to want to make a point about who runs the place. I took a bus down to Dakhla the following day. More sand, mostly rocky desert, but some dunes and low rugged hills. Defintely worth coming back to take some photos.

Dakhla's on a the end of a narrow peninsula that dangles about 20 miles down the coast of Africa, leaving a long thin sheltered bay. Sheltered from the waves, but not from the wind, with a wide (a few kms i think) sandy stretch. And it's very popular with wind-surfers, kite boardes and the like. A beautiful stretch of coastline.

Dakhla itself is a dusty town several hundred miles from anywhere. There're few surf shops, but mostly stuff just for local people. At dusk the streets liven up as people emerge into the cooling air and shop, ander about have tea, and generally socialise. Obviously there's very little drinking - in fact I didn't see anywhere to buy a alcohol at all in Dakhla, although I'm sure there must be.

I got talking to some local surfers - although i didn't realise they were local as they had bleached dreadlocks and were pretty stoned. Drank lots of tea. They then found someone who could arrange a space in a car south to Mauritania. There're no buses on this route and until recently all traffic went in convoy because of the separitists. Now there is a bit of traffic and it's just a case of knowing where to find the cars to catch a lift. The run down was not too uncomfortable - the usual 4 people on the back seat of a Mercedes, but all were fairly slim so was OK. Stopped at a sleepy village for a tagine - the best I've had, and lots of tea.

At the frontier there was a queue of traffic at the Morrocan exit post, we all piled out of the car and handed the passports into the office. Other than the locals there were a few overlanders a campervan and a French couple who were working in Morroc but were just returning north from a holiday in Mauritania. There was also a on a bike. She'd been hitching through from her native Norway, then decided to buy a bike in Morroco, but she never had to cycle far before someone took pity on her and managed to put the bike on the roof of their car or truck, and gave her a lift. Probably just as well as there are some stretches for over a hundred miles with no civilisation at all on the desert road. She was heading to the Congo of all places.

Between the Morrocan and Mauritanian border controls is about 500 yards of no-mans land. The only stretch of untarred road from the Mediterranean to central Africa. There were also a lot of car wrecks and people doing dodgy deals out of the jurisdiction of either country. A slightly surreal place.

The Mauri border controls were fairly straightfoward. And then we were in Africa - as opposed to an extension of the Middle East.

Nouadhibou is a dusty town which doesn't appear to have a centre as such - certainly not like the medinas and souks of Morroco. The taxi dropped me off at the 'Hotel Camping Baie de la Fevre' (or something like that). Shortly afterwards some of the overlanders pulled into the courtyard - one of them carrying a bike with a puncture and a relieved Norwegian .