Michael Beckett

Riding south into Western Sahara the road followed the coast, the distances between the roadside settlements increased and the landscape flatend out.

Making a bit of a bee line for the Mauritainian border, it would be easy to pass through western sahara without learning anything about it. The road runs north to south hugging the coast, the coast line is rocky cliffs and sand dunes. There are little settlements every hundred mile or so and a few tribal tents dotted around on the landscape. The veiecles are ethier trucks, buses, landrovers or Mercedes.

There are mobile phone masts every 20 miles giving an almost uninterrupted phone signal.

Wetsern Sahara is a disputed land, the Spainish withdrew in the mid seventies and the Moroccans moved in. A berm was built down the whole eastern side with mine fields between the berm and the border with Algeria.

We had 1200 km to ride to get to the Mauritainian border. The road just went on and on and on. At one of the manypolice check points I saw another bike with British plates, It was owned by an American called Nick we headed on a few miles and had a drink in Layonne (the capital of western Sahara) and exchanged info on the road ahead and the route through central Africa.

The three of us rode together that afternoon when the sun started to go down we pulled off the road towards the dunes. A perfect spot was found amongst the dunes for a nights rest. We lit a camp fire and sat

As I rode south through western Sahara the settlements got fewer by the side of the road and it would be some time before seeing other veicles. I filled up with fuel and to my suprise the fuel was about two thirds the price than the previous stop. The reason for this being that Western Sahara is tax free.

The Moroccan controled state is a disputed state after the Spainish moved out in the mid seventies after much fighting the Moroccans have taken control and claimed it as part of Morocco. This is still disputed by the UN and of course by nomadic tribes that live in the Region. A berm has berm has been created and land mines placed all along the border with Algeria. A tarmac road has been laid from north to south as well as mobile phone masts. A large mine extracts phospherus from the ground and shuffles it to the coast on the largest conveyor belt in the world, (or so i'm told).

Enough of the history and geography lesson, here's what i'm up to: I settled into the long straight road that more or less follows the cliffs and sand dunes of the coast. The heat haze rising off the tarmac and the scenary staying the same for the 1200km before the border with Mauritainia.

Up in the distance I saw yet another police check point and started to come down through the gears to awnser the same questions as i was asked an hour ago, but what is this in the distance I saw another British registerd bike standing next to it was Nick from Oregan. Chris, Nick and I rode through the western Saharan capital of Layonne and on through the afternoon pulling off the road around to make camp amongst the dunes.

Leaving Nick the following morning, (he rode a little slower than us on his XT350) we arranged to meet in a couple of weeks time. Chris and I made a bee line for Mauritainia. A couple of hundred miles down the road there was another motorcycle it was Alan that we were riding with in northern Morocco. Expecting that the three of us would be riding of there and then. Alan said that he had a problem with the Triumph, he had burn't the clutch out riding on the sand. Not the most ideal place to be stuck with a broken bike. The three of us spent the afternoon hanging out in this desolate desert town it was interesting to watch life go by in a place I would normally only spend ten minutes buying supplies. Rarther him than me i suspect it would be at least a week before he was up and running again.

The Border with Mauritainia was straight forward but time consuming. three different ques Police, passport control and customs. Then a five mile ride across the sandy no mans land to do the same with the Mauritainian officials. This was the hardest day so far.

The plan was to camp up in the desert this night but when filling up with petrol the garage owner said we could sleep in a little hut that he had a little way out into the desert. It made for a very comfortable nights sleep all for a couple of quid.

We found another fine resting place in Nouakchott the Auberge Sahara, Bikes locked up and a bed in a tent on the roof of the building I took a day off the bike today. Tomorrow Senegal there is a cold beer waiting for me at the Zebra bar in St Louis, i've got a feeling it's going to taste good after dry Mauritainia and Morocco.