World Wildlife Fund
Friday 7 January 2011
Into the Hamada
Hamada; (Arabic, حمادة ḥammāda) a type of desert landscape consisting of largely barren, hard, rocky plateaus, with very little sand: ‘stony desert’. 
Happily back on the saddle along with a happy wallet now containing new credit and debit cards. Cycling out of Agadir couldn’t have come any sooner. Due to my week away working and waiting five days for the cards to arrive Morocco was now on borrowed time and I wanted to get to Western Sahara A.S.A.P. Maarten liked the idea of taking a scenic loop into the Anti-Atlas range first before heading south proper. As he’d waited with me for the new cards it was only fair I said yes. The route from Agadir gradually petered out into a quiet scenic mountain road, with just an occasional vehicle passing by the road was all ours. The only ‘main’ town on this loop being Tarfrout, too far to reach in one day we free-camped on the mountain-side. In
Stopping for lunch one day I could first see some low distant mountain peaks and noticed as we cycled off after lunch the view had turned quite hazy …. sandstorms. Spirals of sand and grit being whipped up by the turbulent air. One of the items I carried on the U.S. Route 66 tour I regretted not carrying here? Sealed goggles. Ok this was by no means a Prince of Arabia style sandstorm but for a [relative] desert virgin still quite a daunting experience, fighting to control the bike as strong gust’s of wind blew from all directions along with the sand, and having to squint my eyes for obvious reasons. ¼ hour later after it had passed by it started raining, leaving us both with blotches of brown over our faces and clothes where the rain droplets had exploded upon contact.
With the next town beyond our day’s means after talking to a tourer cyclist whom was heading north said he had declined an offer to pitch his tent at a café, 20km further down, so decided to [hopefully] use the offer ourselves Our tents fitted nicely under the porched frontage, although I had concern as the ‘building’ behind the front wall had collapsed, many years ago by the looks…but I expect Allah was watching over. As the sun set the road was quiet, just a few vehicles here and there passing, another quiet night, away from any noise….how wrong we were! This turned out to be the noisiest night to date, trucks coming and going, engines left running just metres away from our tents while drivers drank tea or whatever they did. It was like we’d pitched our tents in a coach station.
‘café camping'?
In the town of Tan Tan we were informed about a French couple who had cycled through two days prior, en-route to South Africa Mauritania
From Tan Tan the road edged closer to the coast and more of a westerly direction for a few days meant some nasty soul eroding headwinds. Along with passing trucks giving us a facial sandblast each time this made for some real nasty cycling, One day my water (and energy) was running low so I flagged down a campervan. A jovial German chap wound his window down and was flabbergasted at what we were doing, he was only too happy to re-fill the bottles. From here-on I started carrying 8 litres from the start of each day (3 on the frame and 5 on the front rack).
The intended town of Tarfaya was now ‘only’ 35km away, a relatively easy distance with no winds but with? We both agreed to have another night pitched next to yet another telephone mast wall, these made an excellent wind breaker. As we approached the next mast a chap walking on the road started veering toward the mast’s wall. Abdel turned out to be the security guard. After explaining our needs he led us inside the walled area, a bonus! Then he implied we sleep in his shack as there were two single beds, one was his(!) and he’d sleep on the floor of the mast’s switch-gear cupboard! I couldn’t make another man pay the price for something I chose to do, especially as when I was carrying my own 'portable bedroom' along with mattress and sleeping bag.
Abdel made us sweet tea, pouring it back and forth from tumbler to pot, from pot to another tumbler, tumbler to tumbler, a traditional method of the tea brewing (and sugar mixing) in Morocco. Then he made us an omelette, so after pitching tents by the mast’s frame we cooked our dinner, also sharing with him.
In the evening a fire was lit on the outside of the wall and we brewed more sweet tea on embers from the fire. This was one of the moments I’d never forget, the toughest days riding I’d ever had of all tours, mentally challenging as always concerned about water supplies and battling the evil of all elements, headwinds. Yet here we were under a clear, full moon illuminated sky, in the middle of nowhere, by a campfire, hypnotized by the flames, drinking sweet tea, very little in the way of conversation as Abdel spoke Arabic and Spanish but littl;e French, yet all three of us seemed to quite relaxed and happy. Maybe it was just a personnel moment that’s difficult to explain but it made such a perfect compliment to such a tough day. I felt partly guilty. This man had very little yet offered everything, and we felt hard done by due to a tough day’s ride, it almost put things into perspective, I could jump out of this and go home whenever I chose, but Abdel never had such a choice.
The following morning I was woke by blaring horns of passing vehicles, hearing a skid I thought there had been an accident so peered over the wall…. ‘Camel chaos’! A small herd of them ambling across the road, as they do! A few minutes later Abdel is opening the large metal doors to the camel herder, of whom was his friend. With more tea brewing on the kindling fire the lead camel was pulled into sit position so we could each pose for a picture on the beast. Upon reluctantly departing we offered Abdel some money but he refused, hopefully we hadn’t offended his kindness, he truly had a heart of gold, a rarity in
The sign don't lie!
The first town in Western Sahara was Layoune. This reminded me of a studio set for M.A.S.H. With every other person (if not more) being a U.N or army official….pedal on, next town! Deciding to stop at the costal town of ‘Layoune Plage’ we started to look for a campsite, rounding the corner who do we see? The French couple! Claire and Jeremie were on more of a ‘social tour’ across Africa rather than a cycle tour, always seeking hospitality of locals as opposed to campsites, and certainly NOT hotels, of which I only use as absolute last resort. Just to make things even easier, Jeremie was hauling a trailer with his two accordions and a didgeridoo, as you do!! - This is there website: http://voyage.jeremiebt.com
This night we ended up camping on a restaurant floor. Jeremie and Claire said they do this quite a lot. First finding a clean restaurant, befriend the owner and tell them you will eat there if they would let you sleep there, to a westerner ht seems strange at first but here in Morocco it makes sense as many of the workers also sleep on the premises. The owner was just refurbishing the place and was not actually open for business until five days or so but he was more than delighted to help us out.
The restauranter, or is that Hotelier?
Christmas day! Just another day on the Brooks. Not aiming for it but turned out to be the longest day on the saddle, bashing out 112 miles. This night we camped at a petrol station at a small fishing village (a collection of several buildings and the petrol station) Using the Jeremie + Claire approach I managed to talk our way to within side a room where it was just suggested we keep our bikes, although I had to deal with a few ‘bed-bugs’ before ‘lights out’! Maarten has a fond memory of this place!...being locked in the squat toilet with only a cockroach as company. Luckily I had a new Swiss-army knife with a mini pair of pliers. Boxing day was another big day, 112 miles.
The next big town was Dakhla. But being 25 miles down a peninsula that would mean cycling back up we had no plans to visit until Maartens rear wheel had a strange side wall puncture so needed a new type. So far through Western Sahara we’d had a good tail wind, giving an average daily pace of 18 mph, I saw this as retrieving energy that had previously been ‘loaned’ into the headwinds a weec before. After a day off in Dakhla I managed to get us a lift back down the peninsula road. Going back down a road previously cycled seems a waste of time so I flagged down an aggregate tipper-truck, bikes in the back and us in the cab of we went. This saved us about 2 hours in time and enabled us to get back on track as previously planned.
In the afternoon we both agreed for a night of desert camping, pitched under a clear Sahara sky with the ocean a mile away would be great, silence and solitude. Later as we passed another police check-point, knowing full-well we'd no doubt be free-camping they advised us not to, due to local Sahrawi tribe’s people being dangerous. This worried Maarten as now seemed hell-bent on cycling the advised 45 km at an increased pace to what we’d been riding all day to the ‘safe-place’. After persuading him the problems in the region are between the tribes people and Moroccan’s and the police were just hyping things up to ensure their fragile tourist trade was not damaged we found a secluded spot, tucked away behind some huge sand-stone, out of sight from any vehicles, of which were few and far between
Another day comes to a close, as does Western Sahara, the following day we’d be stamped out of Morocco
Check-out the latest pictures on the slideshow!
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