Crossing the Sahara Desert
I arrived in Africa by air, flying into Tangiers from Madrid, with one of the worst hangovers in my life. During a 14 hour layover in Madrid my travel mates and I had decided to not get a hotel room; instead we stored our bags in a locker at the Madrid Airport, and spent the night in central Madrid drinking until the subway opened back up again at 6am. We managed to get a few hours sleep on the floor at the airport before having to check in for our flight. As soon as i got my seat on the plane, i once again passed out, sleeping right through take off.
I was woken abruptly as we began our descent, my ears popped and the change in cabin pressure was enough to drag me unwillingly from my sleep. I was lucky enought to look out window at the perfect moment; watching as a large body of water slowly disappeared and a new continent was coming into view. This was the moment when it hit me. I was crossing a new threshold into something that would be very different. I was overwhelmed with feelings of excitement. Of fear. Of adventure. I was about to land in Africa.
We took our time driving through northern Morocco, spending a few days in places like Chefchaouen, Marrakech and Essaouira to break up the long journey. We were travelling by minibus – a large white Ford Transit van with the call sign Moroc’ n Roll – alongside 15 people from various places and walks of life. Some of these bus mates would become good friends while others tested our patience in ways we could not understand. This part of the story is best saved for another time. We were brought together with one common goal; to drive across the Sahara into West Africa.
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End of the Atlas. 2008.
I remember watching in the rear view mirror as the Anti-Atlas mountains slowly disappearing behind us. Northern Morocco was quite green, with many hills and mountains. We had just driven along a winding mountain pass, cold and windswept. The hills, the greenery, the cities and towns were gone. In front of us the landscape was changing, becoming flat, dry and sandy. We had reached one of the most extreme places on the planet; the sahara desert. The change was distinct.
The vast expanse of the desert reaches out in all directions. We had entered the extreme and there is no looking back. It’s hot. We’re driving in a van, and we both windows up and have even resorted to keeping the sliding door wide open, trying to expose ourselves to as much wind as possible. Its flat. I tried to find some sort of appreciation for the landscape, but there isn’t much to see. The road stretches in both directions like a string, driving straight into the horizon for endless kilometers. Speeding along at 100km it feels as if you are driving to nowhere and coming from the same. I would spot sand dunes in the distance, or small dry shrubs on the roadside; so far it’s been the highlight of the afternoon.
We drove through the day as long as the sunlight would allow us. The road slowly meanders itself south-west through the desert plains from the mountains towards the coast. We had made it just a little bit passed Tan-Tan, a small town just before the main highway reaches the ocean. We spent our first night in the desert camping on the beach. It was a beautiful and peaceful place. We woke up the next morning to the serene sounds of the waves crashing onto the shore. We had a leisurely breakfast, packed up our tents and began our second day of driving.
For the rest of our journey south, the road would be mostly along the coast until we reached Mauritania. It was nice to have some scenery, the cliffs to our right stood towering over the Atlantic Ocean below. There were birds – mostly seaguls flying off in the distance. Visually it broke up the endless desert. To our left was nothing. The drive was nice this day. We passed through a few small towns, as well as a beautiful lagoon full of flamingos.
Early in the afternoon after only a few hours of driving, you reach a military checkpoint. This invisible line in the sand signifies you have reached the “occupied territory” of Western Sahara. This area is currently controlled by Morocco. The United Nations is on the ground to try and keep the peace. After a short delay, the UN delegation checked our passports and sent us on our way. We would arrive in Laayoune before sunset.
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Moroc and Roll. 2008.
Laayoune is the last “big town “for many kilometers, at least until we would arrive in Mauritania. It’s sort of a point of no return for any trip across the Sahara. We wouldn’t have much in the way of luxury once we left. It is also very close to the Spanish Controlled Canary Islands, which are ___ km off the coast from the town. This is where we said goodbye to three of our busmates. For various reasons, they decided that crossing the Sahara was not for them, and took the chance to head back to Europe. It would be the last airport for 1000 km. We were down to 12 on the bus.
The town itself isn’t particularly interesting, but it was a good place to stock up on luxury supplies like chocolates and cigarettes. Aside from Military and other diplomatic visitors, this town doesn’t receive a lot of tourists, which meant the accomodations ranged from super high end and expensive and absolute shit, with not a lot to choose from in between. The remaining busmates spent the night at the “Worst Hotel in the World” and the next day would resume the southern journey towards the border with Mauritania.
We set out early the next morning in hopes that we could cover some good ground today. The road went on and on, weaving its way along the coast of Africa. As the days go on, the Sahara Desert begins to test your patience. We had a bit more room in the bus having lost a few passengers the day before – including Wil, the only person on the bus traveling with a guitar – we carried on with three less people to entertain us. Time passed slowly during this long and tedious day of driving.
Midway through the day, the bus began to make a distinct whining noise from the back end of the bus. Fortunately we were only 100 km from our next destination for the night, and we pushed on as the noise became more and more prominent. The bus limped its way to the finish line, whining more and more as we drove on, but eventually we made it to Dakhla. We went out searching for a mechanic that would help us.
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Sunset over the Atlantic in Dakhla. 2008.
Dakhla is just north of the Tropic of Cancer, and sits on a tiny peninsula that stands out contrasting the otherwise unchanging coastline. We found a mechanic who found out that we needed to replace a wheel bearing, and we would have to spend another night in town while he worked on the parts. After three days of driving through the desert, it ended up being a nice break. The town was fairly small, with not much to see, but we found a way to entertain ourselves. Walking through the desert plains, and finding a beautiful spot to watch the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. This is still one of my favourite moments of this trip.
Early the next morning, once the back of our vehicle we re-assembled, we packed our bags onto the top of the van and continued on our journey, only about a half days drive from the border. Before coming to Africa, i had know that crossing borders in Africa could be a difficult process. Crossing times would vary from 20 minutes or it could take several hours and even require a bribe or two. This would be our first adventure crossing borders in Africa.
Leaving Morocco was fairly simple. We arrived just after noon and after having our passports checked – at 4 different locations by 4 different guards standing only 15 meters apart from each other – which seemed totally redundant – we were sent on our way. Just over an hour at the border, while traveling with 12 other people with several different nationalities, had to be considered a miracle. But of course, this was just the start of the adventure.
A large wall encloses the Moroccan border outpost, creating the feel of a fortress in the middle of the desert, and the road that takes you through the customs compound goes through the middle, with buildings on either side. This dramatic effect is accentuated by the 10 foot high fence, covered in circular coiled barbed and a massive gateway with a big archway. This is where the highway officially ends, the pavement ceases to guide the way, instead ending where the border of the country does.
This is where Morocco ends and “no mans land” begins, the stretch of land that separates Morocco and Mauritania. This is of course a minefield. A leftover reminder of the war between the two countries, an area which neither country wants to take responsibility over, or try to clean up. As a result the two border crossings are 5 km apart.
The first thing you notice upon arriving in no mans land, is the abundance of wrecked and abandoned cars, in various states of disrepair. At first you feel as if this is a result of cars that didn’t make it through the minefield, left abandoned as a reminder that you are about to enter certain doom. You can’t stop thinking about the mines.
It turns out the reason for this car graveyard is that people will drive to this extreme to ditch a car and turn around and go back to Morocco. Your thoughts keep going back to the mines. At the time, it’s very hard to convince yourself of this. You start thinking about how perectly reasonable it is to just turn around and head back, telling yourself “We tried. No harm in going back the way we came”
The road between the two border crossings are officially unmarked, although there were several well worn pathways we could see ahead of us. You might not think this was the best idea to try and cross, but it was possible. It’s a bit of an unsettling scene. As you leave the safety of the paved road, the Moroccan border outpost and the car graveyard behind, you enter the minefield.
The path forges on for a kilometer or so before suddenly branching off into several different options. There are no maps or signs, just tracks. You have to just pick a way and hope for the best. We see a semi-truck a few lanes over coming from the other side, and another 4×4. We’re not the only ones crazy enough to try this. Your hope quickly fades as the sand from the desert has blown in, covering the worn tracks you were following. Everyone becomes an expert navigator, telling the driver to slow down, speed up. Go left, go right.
The paths criss crossed each other, and were disappearing as quickly as you could find them. Just when things were looking bad, they got worse. The only thing worse than driving through a minefield is trying to reverse through a minefield. That was of course until we got stuck. Wheels spinning, digging deeper into the sand. We were now stuck in the middle of a minefield. If i was going to die in a minefield, at least it would be a good story.
I remember seeing a rusted, stripped down car lying on its roof in the distance. If the car graveyard wasn’t a bad sign, this certainly was. The scariest part of the whole ordeal was the first jump from the safety of the bus to the sand bellow. I felt like an astronaut stepping foot for the first time in unmarked territory.
I can only imagine what this scene must have looked like to anyone else who would have happened to drive by at this moment. The blazing midday sun. A big white van stuck in the sand, surrounded by 12 panicked backpackers in the middle of a minefield. Once we were on the ground we worked together to dislodge the front wheel, and pushed the van onto solid ground, out of the rough patch of the sandy road. A few hundred meters more and we found a properly worn path, and over the next hill we could see the Mauritanian Border post ahead! We had survived the minefield.
We managed to make it through with relative ease at the Mauritanian side, as the guards informed us they had just finished their lunch break. There were the two cars that had been ahead of us at the Moroccan side of the border waiting to have their vehicles checked.
At one point, while we were waiting at the van one of the border guards came over to talk to us. “Now all that we have to sort out is the bribe”. He reminded us that sometimes it could take a long time to get through the border with this many people. He let us know that they were having a problem with their generator; it was out a fuel. He had noticed the full jerry can that was strapped onto our vehicle. They were quite happy to speed up our border crossing after helping them with their problem.
Our passports were processed in record time. We still had to go through a police check and a vehicle check, but neither of these took much time – or a bribe. WIthin an hour an a half we were through the formalities and back on the road again.
We had survived “no mans land” and the minefield, but our adventure was far from over. We arrived in Mauritania late in the evening, after 2.5 hours of borders and our ordeal in the minefield. Our first night in the country we drove until the sun was about to set, pulled off the paved highway, and parked our vehicle behind one of the massive sand dunes that towered above.
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Highway in Mauritania. 2008.
We set up our tents as the skies turned pink from blue. This was one of the most peaceful places I have ever camped. The sunset was the perfect backdrop to the end of a tiring day, as we cooked ourselves a pasta on our camping stove. Just before we served dinner, a huge sandstorm started blowing, covering everyone and everything in a layer of sand. The delicious pasta had an extra crunch to it, as we tried to enjoy the meal at the end of the day. Huddled up trying to protect what remained of our dinner as the sand blew from all directions, listening to the crushing sand of every bite.
After eating our sandy pata, we went to bed, our tents flapping in the unrelenting wind. After a stormy night, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise over the sea of sand dunes in the distance. We packed up and continued along the road to Nouakchott.
Mauritania was far from the safest country in the Sahara region, and a few months before our arrival the country had just gone through a Military Coup. Fortunately the country was more or less unaffected by this – at least on the surface – by this major event. They were cracking down on Islamic Militants, and the increased military presence along the road between the Border and the capital did allow us to feel at least a little bit safer.
As a result there were many military checkpoints along the road that we would soon encounter. The first checkpoint was probably the most hilarious, as the guard came right over and bluntly requested a gift for his wife or daughter. One of the girls parted with a pen and a hello kitty notepad. The officer gave it a quick look, nodded in his approval and quickly waived us through. Before nightfall, we arrived at our next destination, the Capital of Mauritania. Nouakchott.
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Sand Dunes. 2008.
There was one catch. Sometime after crossing the border into Mauritania, our bus slowly began making noises again in the back of the bus. We had a difficult 3 day drive ahead of us, there was no way to take any chances. There was no way we could chance going out with a fully functional car, so we found a new mechanic. And we waited… for a new real axle to be ordered and shipped from Senegal.
The next leg of our journey was going to be one of the most challenging of our entire trip. The road that cuts east-west through the Sahara from Nouakchott used to be one of the most epic drives one could undertake in Africa. It used to be a dusty, sand and rock path that wove its way through the desert.
Fortunately for us in the last 10 years it has been paved, and the journey can now be done in two or three days, instead of the 10 days it would have taken before. And that would have also excluded our 2 wheel drive Ford Transit from even considering a trip like this. The name sounds daunting in both French and English; the Road of Hope or Route de l’Espoir.
A year before, in 2007 it also gained international notoriety for the wrong reasons. Four French tourists were taken hostage and killed along the same route we were about to undertake, which was one of the reasons for the expanded military presence, to counter the existence of bandits and terrorists. It was for this reason – at the request of the French Government – that the Dakar Rally has been cancelled. It was this element of danger that us adrenaline junkies crave; with just a hint of stupidity that makes for good stories and even greater adventures.
Maybe my experience here could have been different. Had we spent a day here, or even two, our fate would have been enjoyable. The traveling gods had different plans for us. Nouakchott quickly became one of my least favourite places that i have been privileged to travel to. It was hot. There was very little to do. The travel gods were punishing us. I won’t bore anyone with – and really, don’t want to try and relive – the hundreds of hours we spent wasting hundreds of hours and several days away. We waited.
It didn’t help that Mauritania was an Islamic Republic. A dry country. There was one bar in town that would sell beers for $20.
Fast forward 6 days and 5 nights later, and we were finally ready to leave. We finally left Nouakchott around 1pm, much later than we had been promised or would have prefered. There is a frequent saying that comes up often while traveling here; “This is Africa”. Things just take as long as they take. We were lucky enough that the van was returned to us in working order, It didn’t matter if we were “on time” as long as it worked.
The military checkpoints we had seen days before on our drive to the capital increased significantly. Trying to make up as much for lost time as possible – during a short 5 hour drive – we were stopped four times. It was obvious that the new Military Government wanted to show off a strong presence in the area and the old government lax approach to terrorism. With these added delays for our own safety, we were only able to make it a short distance, and soon to run out of sunlight, we decided to spend the night in Boutlimit.
The town was not much more than an overgrown herding village, sprouting out of the sandy landscape. A small town fighting to not be swallowed up by the desert. The edges of the town blurred with the ever encroaching limits of the desert. The town had a very welcoming vibe to it, and we were happy to spend the night in this mini oasis. The back ‘garden’ of our hotel was the desert, sand collected along the outside edge of the concrete wall that separated these two different worlds.
We even found a doorway that opened to this desert world, and went out to wander the sand dunes that surrounded the town. A portal to the desert, it felt like a gateway to Narnia.
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Doorway to the Desert. 2008.
We returned to the town as the sun set behind us. We were followed in by herds of goats and camels following their internal clock that it was time to return home. We were greeted back at the hotel by the call for dinner, and went in for camel steak and french fries. We finished dinner, set up my tent under the stars and slipped away into sleep.
Up at the crack of dawn the next morning, greeted with a beautiful sky, preparing for a long drive ahead. We had a lot of ground to cover 662 km today and needed every bit of sunlight we could get. At this point, most of us were very eager to leave Mauritania. We were used to the view of an barely changing desert landscape zooming past on either side of the bus. Today would be a difficult day as we traversed the eastern expanse of Mauritania.
The military presence that we had encountered the day before continued. The length or type of stop varied stop to stop. Sometimes it was just a curious guard who just wanted to poke his head in the window to gawk at the tourists. Sometimes it seemed more official; passport checks which would take up to 25 minutes as all of our relevant information was punched into a computer system. We even wondered if these patrols even talked to each other. If we were to go missing between checkpoints, how long would it take for them to notice and take action? We drove for over 12 hours this day, being stopped at least 15 times. We were racing against the sun.
45 minutes after sunset, we arrived in our destination of Ayoun. Our last night in Mauritania was the worst. The few restaurants in town were already closed, and while cooking dinner about 20 minutes into trying to boil potatoes, our portable cooking stove ran out of propane. We had survived off cookies and the bare minimum of water throughout the day, and we’re left with a bag of uncooked vegetables and a loaf of bread. We cut our losses and went to bed tired, dehydrated and hungry.
The next morning we were back on the road again, and everyone on the bus was happy to finally be heading south, en route to Bamako, Mali. The desert had taken its toll. 2 weeks of driving and the car breaking down and endless desert we were ready for the final leg of the journey. We would soon be at the Mauritanian Border outpost.
The next morning we were up early and got back onto the road. We were all excited to finally be driving south. The last two weeks of driving was taking its toll on us; endless roads, minefields, two breakdowns and endless stretches of desert. We would be nearing the Mauritania-Mali border soon.We passed through our final military checkpoint.
Over the last two and a half days of driving along the Road of Hope we had been stopped by military checkpoints 32 times! We kept track of the type of stops; 8 times they just stopped us to say hello and 24 times they actually kept track of the names of who was driving through. Sometimes we had some interesting discussions to decide which category to classify them into.
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Desert Sunrise. 2008.
We entered no man’s land, this time only a short gap between the two countries, and this time, one without a minefield. The border guards met us on the other side with big smiles, “Bienvenu a Mali”. There were side of the road stands selling fruits and pop, and what looked like glass bottles full of gasoline. They joked with us as we exited the Customs building one by one. The people were friendly and very personable. From the moment our passports were stamped it felt like we had crossed a boundary. We were getting our first taste of West Africa.
The scenery and landscape began to change as well. We were leaving the desert and entering the Sahel, a semi arid region that borders the desert to the south. We drove for a few hours until we reached the town of Nioro du Sahel, a small town in the northwest corner of Mali. This place was like a pot gold at the end of the rainbow.
We immediately set our to accomplishing some errands. We had to repair our spare tire (which had popped earlier in the day on the way to the border), we found corner stores and money exchanges.. Since some of us hadn’t eaten dinner last night, finding food was a top priority. Fortunately someone in town for us a bar/restaurant/hotel (the bar was closed but they found another one to grab take a-way beers from).
After a well deserved meal, and a few drinks that went down a little too quickly, it became pretty obvious that we would be staying the night. It turned into an impromptu celebration, as somewhere between the 3rd and 4th beers we realized that we had stumbled upon the perfect place to celebrate our long and sometimes trying journey across the Sahara Desert.