Western Sahara at last

Heading south from Tiznit yesterday it was obvious we were heading into the desert.  The landscape still varies, however, from your traditional undulating dunes, which sometimes wash across the road, to huge flat areas accommodating scrub and purple mossy stuff, which go from horizon to horizon.

 

The drive to Tantan Plage was fairly uneventful, although we've started to get pulled over at the police roadblocks for the first time (previously it was just the lorries).   The police so far have been very friendly, and just want to get our passport details written down.  This can take some time for them to write out, so after a while we hit upon writing it all down in advance, so we just have a sheet of paper to hand to them.   This works very well.  The police must get pretty bored stuck at these roadblocks in the sun all day, so they're quite happy to have somebody to talk to.

 

When we arrived at Tantan Plage we drove around looking for the campsite for a while, at one point following a French camper van who also didn't know where it was.   It turns out that the campsite is now closed, but you can park in the little square in front of it, and the people at the cafe opposite keep an eye on things.   We went to buy groceries in the town, and found it a bustling and friendly place.  A girl persuaded me to buy a crepe, for something like 20p, but I spilt all the honey down my trouser leg!

 

We found an internet cafe - 30p for an hour - and checked emails and so on, and while I was faffing around, Abby chatted in English and French to the guy running it. It had only been open a month, but was packed out.   The connection was reasonable, but the lag was long.  It was nice to think that the citizens of this remote Moroccan town had access to the global information age.

 

After buying our bread and bits we ate dinner in a small hotel;  friendly, but like most places in Morocco, the food does take a bit of time to arrive!  The whole atmosphere here in fact is one of unhurriedness.

 

We had an early start this morning, for a long drive ahead.  The desert road is somewhat dull;   endless flat straight road with some electricity pylons off to the left side for most of the way, although there were a couple of shipwrecks on the beach.   There wasn't much traffic, but whereas the Mercedes taxi was the car of choice in the north, here it's Land Rovers all the way!  Actually there's a big mix of Series III Land Rovers, lots of Santanas and the occasional Defender.   In some towns they seem to outnumber all the other cars put together.

 

Around lunchtime we crossed into Western Sahara, the notional border being marked by a big ditch in the road between two pillars, which I inadvertently drove through at some speed.   Western Sahara used to be a Spanish territory, but the Spaniards baled out in 1975, and since then Morocco has been pretty much in charge, although to the east of the country there is an ardent group of separatists, the Polisario.  There is a wall of rock & sand dividing the territory in two running north-south, which Michael Palin visited, but we won't be.   There has been a pretty successful ceasefire since 1991, but no referendum, as it's been postponed twelve times.

 

Approaching Laayoune, the capital of the territory, we saw the unlikely sights of two combine harvesters driving through the desert, followed by a sign advertising peddaloes!   Laayoune has had a lot of money spent on it, but was pretty deserted when we walked around it.  It's home to some of the thousands of troops who keep an eye on the disputed bits of the territory, plus some UN peacekeepers.   We stopped at the tourist information building to ask if there was a campsite in Boujdour.  The men there were only too happy to help, in English as well, but unfortunately they gave us duff information, as the Municipal Camping at Boujdour is now closed.   They can take heart that the numerous policemen we asked for directions in Boujdour (a town about the size of Bagshot­­) didn't know either.  After several laps of the town we're now parked, at their suggestion, outside the police station, which at least should be secure, although Abby didn't have the nerve to ask if we could use their toilets.