There is the desert. Not nice sand dunes and palm trees as you might imagine. Just stones, sand and some grey bushes
. And there is one very long road. At the sides of the road you find lots of trash, and traces from the time when the road was built. There are electricity masts to the horizon. From time to time there is a radio station or a cottage from a fisher. Not bigger than a car. When you cycle along the coast there are small houses where soldiers live. But there is not much else. Just Stones and sand.
And there I am driving in zigzag on a perfect straight and flat road. Why in Zigzag? Because the wind blows me to the edge of the road, I try to get back on the road and get blown away again. I’m out of power. Screaming and shouting and swearing as loud as I can. The wind turns me into an animal trying to fight from the corner. 50km are already done, another 50 to do today. On this never ending road, on this never stopping wind.
I am once again cycling alone. Jakob has met some old friends again and is now gone with them. Not a big deal. It’s just the live of travellers. You meet, you travel together, you enjoy and you separate again. That’s just life.
Finally, I arrive in Laayoune the biggest city in Moroccan Sahara. I didn’t really do a break, otherwise I wouldn’t have arrived before sunset and so I am out of power and hungry. I finally find a hotel and after a shower, I go out to eat. I take a whole chicken with Salad, Fries, Rice. No normal person could eat all this. But I am not normal. I am me.
Meow! Yes, my little friend here is also a piece for you. I keep eating. Meow! Yes just another piece for you little buddy. I keep eating. Meow! This time with its paw on my leg. Ok, here, I don’t like the chicken liver anyway. I keep eating. Meow! Here, little cat. Meow! And so on until everything is being eaten.
After that dinner, I buy some food from the markets and then go sleeping. A very deep sleep.
The next three days are also horror. Wind and wind. When I sense the wind in the morning, all my power, all my will, all my good mood is gone. I am done with the world. I put music on my phone and try to get somewhere else in my thoughts. Guns and Roses, AC/DC, Gotthard, Scorpions, Rockabilly, 70s Stuff are helping a lot.
The wind decreases in the evening and if I am not in a city, I try to camp wild to be alone. Nope. The gendarmes and the soldiers know exactly where I am and they always want me to stay somewhere safe. Next to a police station or at a hotel. They are actually very nice and friendly and helpful people and they really want me to safe at night and day, and I am often glad being able to sleep in safety. Even though there is no sign of danger anywhere. Sometimes they follow me in their cars, just to make sure I am ok, and when they pass they introduce themselves to me. So no need to fear anything. Except travelling buses. They don’t care about anything. They don’t brake. They just run over you if you are not quick enough.
There was one evening when I left the street and went right next to the steep coast. I wanted to pitch my tent here, when it was dark and wanted to make photos.
But then a Quad arrived. Two soldiers. They asked me who I was and what I did here. I told them I was photographing and would like to sleep here. No, no. please sleep next to our station over there. It’s safer. Ok I agree. They are friendly and yeah why not.
After sunset, I take my stuff and get over to their house. I pass one of the small fisher cottages, the size of a small car, like you see them all along the coast.
A fisher steps out of it and invites me for a tea. Later, I have to go to the soldiers.
Non,non, you can put your tent right next to mine.
He calls the soldiers, obviously they are good neighbours.
The officer comes back and even helps me to pitch my tent. No problem.
The cottage is made of thick fabric, put together with ropes and sticks. Only a candle stick on a small wood board lightens the inside. A container for gas, a bowl for washing, some food. On one side there is a mat with some blanket on it.
I eat some bread together with the fisher, we talk about this and that and he get very exciting when I show him the maps of West Africa. Wow, Senegal is only this small?
He lives here for four months then goes back to his family for three months and comes here again. He is not fishing fish, they are all sleeping in the winter, he tells me. He is catching a special algae, which he sells to companies that use them as substitute for plastic. Ever ten days, he goes to the city, where he fills up his food stock and so.
As I ask him whether he misses his family, he gets quiet. Obviously he does. And even if he can feed his family this way, I know he would choose something else if he had a choice.
The next morning, I am having tea with him before he finally heads off to the sea again. I gave him on of my photos of me, I still had and I promised to send him some others on Whatsapp.
Even out here, in a fisher’s cottage, the technics already arrived…
The day starts with a little wind but it’s getting better. However the road starts to worsen and gets worse and worse. After a lot of really bad surface, I finally reach good asphalt again. Now I am having backwind and I just hope this will continue. Tack, Bumm, Zuuuuuiiitt. I just hit a pothole in fullspeed.
One of my panniers detached and was pulled along for some meters. Fuck shit, no! The pannier has several big holes and the hangers are broken. I am really angry and swear and scream. No,No, Shit, where would I find a substitute in Africa.
Some people stop next to me and ask if I am ok. Allez!Allez! Go away! I really don’t want to have anyone around me.
I take out my cable zippers and fix the pannier somehow. But there are no more left to hold the yellow bag. I take the cable from the bike lock and somehow I can fix it for the moment.
I am still angry but somehow I do another thirty kilometres to the gas station, where I finally stop for the day. I know from the gendarmes that there is a Mexican cyclist not far ahead of me.
The gendarmes let me sleep in their watch house and there I finally meet the guy, who I had been chasing for a few days.
Long story short, he has almost the same playlist on his phone like me, is into photography too, has travelled most of the world by bike and we get along very well.
We can put our mattresses on the floor of the gendarmerie station. A gendarme suddenly appears, wondering, what we are doing here. Obviously his colleagues didn’t tell him. He makes a call and then goes off.
I write about my issue with the pannier in the biker chat on Whatsapp and it doesn’t take long and a guy offers me to buy it in the UK and bring it to Nouakchott. Problem solved. The bikers keep helping each other wherever they can.
The next days pass by quickly. On time we stay in an empty hotel, which is still used as sleeping rooms for people passing by. Especially for Cyclists as they all have to pass this road in order to get to Mauritania. There is not much furniture in the Hotel, a boxing bag is hanging in the hallway, and I can’t stop myself to do some time boxing on it as I used to do back home.
On the walls and doors of the hotel, many cyclists have left their marks. Names, Dates, Stickers with Logos. And there is even a kind of a guest book where the people say thankyou to the hosts and send greetings to the following bikers. The latest was only 8 days ago. I already know many of the names. Cinecletta, Nikki, Cycle Tours. I know many of their stories, and some of them have already become legends inside the bike community. And now my name and sticker have joined the walls and the guestbook.
Maybe on day, I will be a legend too…
But while a friendly, black woman is making fresh bread in the hallway, we are offered a shower. We have to go to the other side of the road for this, and well hidden inside walls and in a small pump house, there is something you would just not expect in the middle of the Sahara. There is a hot spring, you can smell the sulphur and the water is boiling hot. But a warm shower is a warm shower. After 15 minutes we have to stop, as the eyes begin to burn.
After the shower, we take it easy and spend the evening looking at the stars and eating the fresh bread with a can of beans.
The next days we are having good asphalt and backwind, live is good again. We see wild camels on the road and find a lot to talk about.
In this conditions, it is hard to do many kilometres and we finally arrive in Dakhla, where we take some days rest and celebrate the New Year.
