Western Sahara: Dakhla & Bir Gandouz

We continued on along the N1, with more flat and wide open landscapes, occasional wind farms and families of lugubrious camels on both sides of the tarmac strip, passing through the Tropic of Cancer. If we make it all the way to S.Africa, we will also pass through the Equator and Tropic of Capricorn.

Dakhla is a large and growing town set along a thin 25km finger of land parallel to the mainland.

We had a couple of days here exploring the town and doing some admin before leaving Morocco.

The cruel ways we treat animals are much more visible on the street than we’re used to. We saw a severed sheep’s head hanging from a hook, live chickens stuffed into crates, cows nose to tail in an open truck and this camel roughly tied up with less than a meter of rope.

We continued along the N1 towards Bir Gandouz, about 80kms from the border with Mauritania. A windswept and desolate place with one motel used by a mix of people crossing the border near Nouadhibou.

It was pretty windy and quite eerie to see the powdery, pale sand drifting like layers of mist across the road like nature was trying to reclaim what is hers.

The only plant growing on 100s of miles of Western Saharan desert seemed to be this spiky low-growing shrub.

Although when we paused on the way to the border we spotted this strange jelly-like plant which seemed to float on top of the sand.

We had a fantastic tagine in the motel whilst watching Barcelona vs Atlético in the SuperCopa. Breakfast was really good too for a motel in such a remote location. With small variations the Moroccan breakfast seems to be: masses of freshly baked frisbee-sized bread transported from the bakery by moped in huge wooden trays, fruity olive oil, jam and La Vache Qui Rit cheese triangles. In Tan Tan we also had a thin porridge with herbs and in the mountains amazing freshly-made crepes.

We needed a good breakfast to fortify us for the border crossing to Mauritania, we’d read & heard the horror stories.