Into the Sahara Desert

My plane landed  over a sand sea in the Sahara Desert, to the south of Laayoune, an intricate pattern of interlinked crescent dunes. Today we’re driving across it, heading south towards Mauritania and off-roading on part of the route of the now defunct Paris-Dakar rally.

Phosphate Mining

First, we pass the phosphate mines that make the country an attractive proposition economically.  There’s a conveyor belt more than 60 miles (100 km) long, carrying phosphate from the mines to the piers southwest of Laayoune. We follow this, despite notices forbidding entry to anyone not employed by the mines (the guards just nod us through) and head across a desert track.

The Desert Foxes

Then we get into the dunes proper. The views are nothing short of stunning. Guide Naji is wearing his traditional Sahrawi robes, the blue perfectly complementing the gold of the sand. Ebony sprinkled silver dunes stretch to the horizon. There’s the odd nomad with his herd of goats. Three camels are chewing lethargically together - creating classic Sahara backdrops. There are snowy bleached bones littering the surface.

A diminutive desert fox, with huge ears, peeps out of his den in the sand and scoots off rapidly into the distance , leaving a trail of tiny pawprints.

Desert Picnic

Lunch is eaten on a rug behind some acacia scrub. Chicken, cold fries, carrot and beetroot. Naji and  Kahlil, use the acacia thorns as cocktail sticks and make a fire out of some sticks, so they can brew tea in a little blue pot. It’s strong and disgustingly bitter. They add copious amounts of sugar. I pour mine away while they're not looking.

Alone in the Sahara Desert?

There’s that stillness that comes when no-one else is around no-one around. That is, until we meet two Landcruisers heading past us, into the wild. Kahlil has told me I’m the only tourist in Western Sahara this year. He’s obviously been stretching the truth a little. When challenged he says he meant in Laayoune. No-one goes to Laayoune.  The cars are  two more of Naji’s fleet, one is driven by his brother; Naji's one of eight children, lived in a nomad tent until he was 15 and has never been to school. He’s taught himself fluent French and Italian and is happy to chat with me, tolerating my bad French - incroyable.

We continue our journey to Boujdour and the coast.