Paris Dakar

Monday 27^th June ish - Taking advantage of delays in the Moroccan mail system, Carruthers and I decided to spend a couple of days touring the Paris Dakar rally route of Western Sahara. Confident in our navigation abilities, we set off on a clearly defined track into the desert, this soon became 38 clearly defined tracks leading in all directions. Soon we were lost. Several hours of serious driving later we arrived at a camel watering station called Acfa, we were 60 kms east of Tamnavvart-At-Ramth which is where we expected to be.dinner On asking the bemused nomads directions, they waved there arm of the general direction of ‘over there’. This we duly followed for an hour and a half until we realised upon crossing a rather large sand wall (Moroccan defence wall against the Polasario, often covered in land mines) that we were going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. With backtracking and diligent use of the compass, we orientated ourselves in the trackless desert and found the town Jdriya where we should have been 8 hours previously. This led us to a rather wonderful saltpan, as flat as a billiard table and upon which we could get the rolls up to top speed. It was a delightful experience after the many hours of picking our way through appalling desert pistes

camels and wild melons

another saharan beauty

back to tarmac at last

saltpan