8. Cycling the Sahara

 (Day 58-70, 5.697km cycled)

The Saharan Gates

I waved a last goodbye to the dreamy beach town Sidi Ifni and looked at what would lay ahead of me: The Sahara.

Guelmim, the next bigger town, 50km away, marked the entrance into the dry and empty desert. 

1. Road to Guelmim

"But what makes a desert a desert" I wondered? Sand? Heat? Absence of water? Solitude? 

On the stretch of road I was now staring at, temperatures would reach above 35°C, besides rocks and sand there was not a lot to see, water was scarce and the fact that between Guelmim and the next actual town Tan-Tan laid 130km, ticks all the boxes of what I had just define as a desert. 

Now you could get in a very political argument where the Western Sahara starts but I won't. So for me, the gates leading out of Guelmim marked the legendary Sahara. 

"Crossing the Sahara on a bike. What a dumb idea. Exactly what I came here for." was my last thought, before I checked the tire pressure once more and then departed. 

I was surprised by the newly built two-lane highway and in contrast the two donkeys that were freely strolling around it. I am sure the donkeys felt honoured to have all this fresh road space to themselves. 

But there were also cars. Cars and trucks that departed on the same lonely and long journey deep into the desert. The drivers greeted me, cheered me on with big smiles, a wave and most importantly an encouraging honk of their horn. Some really showed off their horn dexterity by giving elaborate hokling rhythms to the best. 

Greetings through horn honks isn't an uncommon appearance in Morocco, in fact it happened throughout my whole journey there. Moroccons, especially ones who were used to traveling into the desert, wishing you good luck, must mean that even these experienced people wonder how a bicycle will make it through. That realization added to the tension I felt departing into this new and unknown terrain.

2. Donkeys?

3. Guelmim gate to the desert

I have to say that I did not come unprepared. I had done my research before but it's also not like there is an abundance of sources about cycling the Sahara so my research was limited to what I found online. And in retrospective, my expectations and what I found in the Sahara were, to most extent, completely different. 

Not so soon after departing Guelmim, I also saw the first free roaming camels! If I have had any doubt whether I am actually in the desert or not, it is now gone. Camels were the cherry on top of the desert cake. 

4. Camel

A little later, the stage of highway construction wasn't as well progressed as outside the city gates and the virgin highway that was almost finished was still closed for cars. Yet, as a bike, I took my chance to claim this pristine stretch of road as my private highway and just used it anyway. 

5. "Private highway"

The night I then spent at the only restaurant stop on the road to Tan-Tan. The owner waved me in and showed me his free room. It was basic to put it mildly, but better than sleeping next to the road, fully exposed to all passers-by and most importantly, exposed to the dogs I had a new found paranoia of. I have to give bonus points for the room because I was allowed to store my bike inside it although that gives you an idea about the cleaning state of the room. 

6. Restaurant / "hotel"

7. Cycling views

With tailwinds and new energy, I made my way into Tan-Tan the following morning. The historically rich city is known for its UNESCO World Heritage site, the Moussem Tan-Tan, an annual gathering of nomadic people. Since this event does not take place until December, I ditched Tan-Tan without looking back, ignored its culture and made my way over the last hill to its rather uninteresting harbor town. Here, there are fish trading companies, a university for fishing and a fish market. You get the idea, fish is the big deal at the sdesert coast.

8. Tan-Tan entry

9. Central Mosque in Tan-Tan

10. Balcony view in El Ouatia

All I was interested in, however, was to stock up on supplies for the coming days. I knew I would be going through long empty stretches of desert and I was unsure if I could always reach the next town or if I needed to camp in the wild. So I geared up and stocked up on my food supplies. 

Sailing Boat on Wheels

I woke up early because now, the winds would play a very important role in my day to day cycling and this morning, the winds were favorable.

To give you some context, in autumn, the Saharan coast is notorious for having ever present, strong and even somewhat refreshing winds coming from the north, blowing straight down to the south. The picture below shows you a little bit of what that looks like. 

11. Map of wind direction and strengh

Now, if you are able to connect the dots, one quickly realizes that you can use these winds to your advantage. And that's where the sailing boat experiment started. I wanted to know just how big the effect of the wind is and how far one can go with these strong winds pushing you forward.

So at dawn I departed, cycling a "private highway" again and after just 3.5 hours of actual cycling, I had reached the next city, 90 km away. So the first experiment - speed - worked well.

Happy about the success and the early day in, I decided to have another experiment the next day. This time, distance. Again, I woke up early and departed at dawn. My plan worked somewhat. The first half of the journey, I was cycling with strong side winds, depending on how the road wound, I even cycled headwinds. The first 90 km of the journey were tough. But then, I took the deciding turn. My orientation went from going west to going south. I was tired at this stage but strategically having lunch with a strengthening chicken-tajine helped me get it together and push out another 100km. That day I cycled a total of 193 km. What a distance! On the way I passed more camels, the huge wind farms that Morocco built in the Saharan desert, dead camel remains, salt lakes and a whole lot of sand. It wasn't boring but the day was long and void of surplus excitement. 

So for the first time on my trip, I had to resort to listening to music while I rode. I guess you could call that another experiment?

12. Visibility vest for the morning hours 

13. Sunrise

14. Road to Laayoune 

15. Somebody lives in that "house"

16. Camel

Enough with the experiments now. The winds were able to work their magic and my legs were too. I took a day off in Laayoune, the capital of the Western-Sahara. Here I slept in a quite basic hotel for 9€/night without AC, with a shared shower that was locked and could be used for a 1€ surcharge. It was a lively city that had a sprawling night market just outside my door with all sorts of intriguing snacks, ranging from camel head sandwich (yes, it's the actual camels head meat) over Escargot (snails, that were exceptionally sought after by the locals), white fudge with nuts, joghurt dessert with fruit, raisins and nuts or freshly hand-roasted sunflower seeds. Walking between the street vendors that set up their cart between the shops that had brought out their street displays into the street, which was, to add to it all, swarmed by hundreds of local bargain hunters would be a dreamland for people wanting to experience the sprawling life of the Saharan capital. 

17. Laayoune from afar

18. Well deserved ZaaZaa shake (Avocado shake with fruits)

19. Camel-head-kebab

20. Camel-head

My highlight of the city was a delight called Zaazaa which is an avocado shake, absolutely filled above the brim with fruit. It's so good, if I could, I would sit myself in it. 

The Friends in Solitude

Speed and distance was all that mattered now. My days were really long. I spent more than 8 hours sitting in the saddle and 11-12 hours for a ride as a whole. Making these giant steps was a big jump through an area that was, again, a desert. There was sand and rocks to the left, sand and rocks to the right and sometimes I could catch a glimpse at the ocean that shored up on the 30m high cliffs that make up most of the Saharan coast. 

In the beginning of the day, let's say the first 80 km or so, I would not use headphones, listening to the wind, the tire noise, the few birds I saw, the passing trucks and the shifting of the sand. Then, I would listen to a podcast for a while. This way I broke my long days down into parts, making long rides appear shorter. In fact, the long days seemed like multiple days. Looking back at the rides I did, I was actually surprised by "how few" it had only been. 

21. Rare mountain formations

22. Average view for hours on end

23. A rusty sign & me. Highlight of the day

24. The ocean is usually not far away

25. The machiiiiine!

26. More dead camels

In Akhfenir, I met a Danish overlander that did the Copenhague - Dakar route. Henrik was a very smiley, easy going guy and I was happy to meet him again on the road the next morning. He stopped and we had a little good morning and also a goodbye chat. Driving a car, he would be reaching Dakar when I would still be dreaming about green trees while cycling the Sahara. But we kept in contact, he sent me locations of cozy homestays or campings along the way and I kept him updated about my progress. The best surprise was (and that's a bit spoilering) that I met him by pure accident, just 60km outside of Nouakchott. I recognized his yellow license plate going the other way, passing me and then his red brake lights went on as he must have recognized me too. We had a happy reunion, giving each other a big hug, so happy to see a familiar face by chance, on a journey, that for both of us had been a beautiful, but also a lonely one. It was a very pretty moment. Just when you feel all alone in the big empty desert, if you're lucky it spits out a surprise that you would have never seen coming. 

27. Henrik in the Sahara

28. And Henrik in Mauritania 

The day I departed Boujdour, I knew I had no place to stay for the night on my way to Dakhla. 

I reached the last gas station after 90 km. 3 km down the road, a sign announcing "next service station in 159 km" waited. 

I entered the empty shop, a plastic table and plastic chairs on my left, plastic table and plastic chairs to my right. Both have not been properly wiped down for days. The counters' glass had broken and the display, which is normally filled with all sorts of sweets, displayed only two bottles of water. I announced myself with the usual "Bonjour", waiting for a response. After none came, I tried again but again, no response. I thought maybe it's time for praying and the owner is in the back so I sat down for a second to wait. In the meanwhile, two cars rode up to the gas station in search of fuel, clearly marking their arrival with impatient honking. A driver made his way to the store, talking loudly, went straight up to the counter and slammed his hand down on it. Only then I realized, the shop owner had been sleeping all the while in a corner behind the counter on a tiny makeshift bed. Seemingly displeased by this walking alarm clock, he let out his frustration on the flies by whipping a dirty cloth at them as if they had been the nuisance waking him up. 

The two were friends. A hearty handshake and the exchange of cigarettes without money traded indicated the driver was a usual here. They chatted a bit, the shop owner started rolling a cigarette and then their attention turned to the lycra wearing, sweaty German with a turban on his head, sitting at the table. I indicated that I was searching for food and then went up to the counter to discuss the specious options of which of the two identical, slow cooking tajines on the stove I would want to have. When I reached the counter, I spotted the reason for the shop owner's deep midday nap. He was clearly crumbling a tiny amount of brown hashish into his cigarette. Up to this point, I have had no contact with this substance that is a non-negligible source of income for the Moroccan north, Europe's largest supplier of the substance. 

To be fair, I don't blame the man that is most likely living an extremely slow and uneventful life, being the last gas station for another 160 km somewhere in the desert. The tajine however was one of the better ones I had and gave me the energy for what I had coming.

29. Entry into no-mans land

30. My tajine and the pot-smoking service station owner

The ride went smooth and when I had about 1 hour to sunset, I started looking around me, checking my surroundings for suitable camping spots. It's not easy to find something reasonably hidden and cozy, that's ideally elevated so you don't get washed away by spontaneous floods (yest that happens in the desert), when all of the land left and right is absolutely void of any vegetation exceeding a height of 10cm and void of any hills or mountains to "hide" from the sight of passers-bys. 

Just like the desert had thrown Henrik or a pot smoking shop keeper at me, now I was confronted with something of another nature. I recognized pawprints of a dog on the side of the road in the sand. They strayed onto the pavement and back on to the sand but always tracing the road. After more than 10 km I started wondering what kind of dog has such a large territory because the paw prints were still tracing the road. It couldn't be a dog from any of the poor souls living at one of the radio towers that were placed on the side of the highway every 20 km, because I had passed one already and the paws were still going on. This made me nervous because having dogs around made me uneasy due to my previous experiences. A dog that would stray this far seemed particularly odd to me. Let alone the fact that we are still in the middle of the desert. 

After another 3 km I finally saw the "dog". He was hit by a car or truck, laying dead on the side of the opposite lane. More shockingly, it wasn't a dog. The felt and appearance matched the one of an african wolf / golden wolf. Just what I loved to see. The dead evidence that there are damn wolves in the Saharan desert. A surprise for sure, not the one I had hoped for. Especially not since I was looking for a place to sleep. 

Wolf country, god damn. 

Maybe the desert felt bad for the curveball it had just thrown me because out of nowhere, an out-of-service gas station appeared. It was an old building that inhabited a cafe but didn't pump any gas. It wasn't to be seen or to be found on any maps and thus I didn't have it on my radar that day. Without thinking twice, I decided that this would be my place for the night, given that they had a place to set up my tent. To my even greater surprise, the first person I talked to turned out to be a Moroccan cycle tourist on his way to Dakhla and he was traveling with yet another Moroccan cycle tourist that he had met on the way, also traveling to Dakhla. These two were Abdo and Feras. 

They are the first cycle tourists I have met after Europe. Looking back, having had a great time with Iago and Freddy, we never actually cycled together. So the next day was technically my first day that I rode with other bikepackers on this whole trip. I have cycled over 5000 km and only now I find people to cycle with. 

We cramped our tents into the old mechanics garage. Then we ate together (I reheated the tajine I had brought along for dinner) and Feras generously shared his love for Mille-Feuille that you can buy for very cheap in Morocco at every convenience shop and he immediately bought a round of said pastry for all of us at the cafe. 

31. 3 tents in one garage

32. Feras

33. Abdo

We rode the last 80 km to Dakhla together and it was a welcomed change to ride in a group. They both had very good pace and we seemed to be overall on a similar level of fitness. Together we waved at the passing trucks, received lots of horn-greetings and took turns at riding in front or otherwise we rode in line, taking up the whole empty road. Later, we bought the ingredients for lunch at a poor fishing village and then, before it even really started, it was over again. The ride ended in Dakhla and for the two, their journey ended here for now. Mine had only reached about the half-way-point. 

34. Fishing village, extremely dirty and poor

35. Riding into Dakhla, camels on a truck-bed

In Dakhla I rested for a day to see the city and I even got to rest another day involuntarily because a bad fish that I ate provoked my stomach enough so that it let it go down the toilet again.

Next stop, Mauritania

The desert has a lot of surprises in store. Be it camels on the road, shared traveler solitude, wolves or the first ride companions since I left in Germany.

Departing Dakhla, I searched for a taxi to take me and my bike out of the city. The bus refused to bring me along because there was no space in the luggage compartments so there I stood, at the taxi station, trying to convince the card playing drivers to take me and my bike out for way too cheap. Luckily, one of the drivers had the mercy to give me a ride and brought along another passenger. 

36. Me and my bike in the taxi

Although the day began late, I managed to put out my longest ride ever at 245 km, cycling into sunset and rewarding myself with some chocolate chip cookies (that to my surprise came from Germany). The next day, I just rode up to the border with Mauritania. The heavily guarded and problematic border between the two countries has a 2 km stretch of no man's land between the Moroccan check-out and the Mauretanian check-in. This stretch is occupied in theory by nobody but in 2020, independence troops that are still fighting Morocco's claim on Western Sahara territory road-blocked the border crossing. It is the only crossing from Morocco into Mauritania. 

I had checked out at the Moroccan border, making sure not to give my passport out of my hand to any other than the police officers. This upset some of the regular transistors as they had figured out, the best system to wait in line to get stamped is by putting all passports on top of one another so the police officer can always grab the next in line. Of course, I refused to get in this "line" to the annoyance of bystanders. 

37. Desert succulent plants

38. Moroccan border to Mauritania 

So that troubled area is still littered with mines, a zone of a conflict where the parties are still technically at war, now laid before me. 

All I needed to do now was cross.

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