Laayoune Desert Camp to Dakhla, Western Sahara
380 miles / 610 km
Wx: Clear skies, mild.

It is going to be a monster mileage day today so we are up early this morning. The population centres are getting further apart as we get into the desert, which means longer stretches between places to stop. And what did we learn yesterday, everyone, repeat after me “never pass up a fuel stop.”

After a quick breakfast from the truck we all saddle up and head out of camp just as the sun is rising over the desert horizon ahead. What a great way to start the day. The plan is to ride the 40 or so kilometres into the town of Laayone, fuel up and head further south into Western Sahara eventually pitching a wilderness camp somewhere just north of the town of Dakhla.

Matt Leaving Camp At Sunrise

Me Riding Up Ahead As We Leave Camp

After joining the road again, we ride off south towards Laayoune. I am keeping a keen eye on the odometer as my low fuel warning light comes on about halfway to town. We eventually make it to a petrol station on the outskirts and everyone breathes a little sigh of relief as this petrol station is bucking the current trend by actually having petrol to sell. Everyone fills up with ‘Sans Plomb’ (even Dave) and we are on our way.

As we ride south we are treated to more stunning views along the costal cliffs. This is only spoiled by the more and more frequent stops for military and police checkpoints sometimes within view of each other. I kid you not. “Papers”, “passport” and for some reason an obsession with everyone’s occupation. Which is a little hard to get across in pigeon French when you have a geologist, a printer and a pilot in the group.

The Long Road

We continue on for the morning stopping every now and then to get off the tarmac and play in the pristine expanses of sand by the side of the road.

Playing In The Sand

We finally make it to Boujdour, which is the only real town on the way to Dakhla. More checkpoints. We gas up and stop for lunch amongst what look to be some decent cafes along the side of the main drag through town. Rick and I search through a few, looking for the thing that looks the least likely to make us violently ill in a few hours. Diarrhoea and motorcycles don’t mix. We settle on some chicken that looks like it has seen some serious grill time.

After lunch we suit up and head south out of town. There are some interesting things to look at along the road out of town. A military base hidden behind a big wall, interesting, wonder what’s in there. Some giant concrete triangle thingos along the beach, interesting, I wonder what they are for. A police man at the side of the road with a radar gun waving his arms at us, interesting, I wonder what he is doing. Bugger!

Yep, Dave and I got done for speeding by the Moroccan police. We are on a rally to Dakar and we got a speeding ticket. A speeding ticket! Now that just doesn’t seem fair now does it. Anyway we pay our ‘fine’ to the nice man and we are on our way.

We spend the rest of the day riding through the wide open expanses of desert, sometimes riding along the cliffs, sometimes venturing away from the coast to be completely surrounded by sand in every direction.

The Coastal Cliffs

Some of us eventually end up at the rendezvous point for the day. A petrol station (with no petrol) about 20 km outside of Dakhla. The plan for the afternoon was to meet up here then we would find a spot to pitch our tents and wilderness camp for the night. As Werner our guide has assured us we don’t want to go into Dakhla as it is ‘a real shithole’.

Well we figure we are about an hour ahead of the others so we need to find some way to amuse ourselves until the others arrive. Someone floats the idea of making a makeshift race track around the mountains of rubbish that have been dumped by the side of the road. As fun as the Rubbish GP sounds, we instead decide to kill some time by going into Dakhla to have a look around.

Approaching Dakhla

After about 3 military checkpoints we finally draw close to the town itself. We come over a hill and are greeted by a beautiful scene of beachy coastline, complete with people camping, frolicking and even kite surfing. Shithole? Really? We continue on through some coastal fog until we come to the town. It looks nice, clean, modern. This place rocks compared to where we have been staying for the past few days.

As we approach the town centre we see a sign for the Sahara Regency – Dakhla, a four star hotel. You can see the light bulbs come on simultaneously above all four of our heads. Let’s go check that out!

We arrive at the hotel and it looks really nice. Thoughts of comfort overwhelm us all. Clean sheets, hot showers, dinner that doesn’t come off the back of a truck. That’s it we are staying here tonight.

Shithole? Really?

We go inside and see by the amount of room keys hanging on the wall behind reception that the place is almost empty. We negotiate a killer deal that includes dinner and breakfast. Awesome. We call the others to inform them of our impromptu mutiny and that we won’t be coming back to camp in rubbish, but they are welcome to join us in the hotel. They don’t put up much of a fight.

We head to the rooftop bar to down some beer and wait for their arrival. Ahhhhh civilisation again. It does have its perks. That is day 11 finished in style.

The Boys Giving Diesel Dave Shit For Getting Done For Speeding

Finishing The Day In Style