The Sahara - Extraordinary Places

Our first attempt to drive amongst the dunes of the Sahara left us stuck like a turtle on a rock and rescued by camel feeders – but we were undaunted!

Yep, we got bogged again!

Getting a tow from the camel feeders

At the end of the main street in M’Hamid is the desert. One minute you are driving on Tarmac and the next on sand.

M’hamid – the last town on the map

We trundled for a couple of kilometers until a sudden hummock of sand stopped us in our tracks. Thankfully it was feeding time for the camels and some cheery handlers offered Geoff a tow rope with a metal hook more like the end of a coat hanger. But it did the job and we were off again, finding a suitably Charlie-friendly dune for a few shameless photo ops!

Geoff in traditional headgear in the dunes

You might laugh at the headdress now, but believe us, it is much better than a scarf and baseball cap in the desert.

Charlie at the base of the dune

Charlie couldn’t shake off the camels

Camel tracks going up the dune

Next stop N’Kob, where we saw the less exciting side of the desert. A dust cloud enveloped us and everything else for three days.

There are mountains inside that dust cloud

Trying to shake off some of the dust

The sun blotted out by Saharan dust

The sun was blotted out with a sickly yellow coating and even the view across the street was blank. Our tent Chubby Coleman was encrusted, but did a fine job keeping it on the outside when expensive motor homes were inundated.

After two days we could see a little more, but it was still through a veil of sand

Desert as far as you can see through the dust clouds

As the skies cleared we left N’kob and headed further east. Finally in Merzouga we could really say we were in the dunes.

The view from the terrace!

Erg Chebbi is a series of dunes that sit alone in the south east of Morocco. So the story goes that when a wealthy family would not give hospitality to an old woman and her son, God was offended and buried them under a huge pile of sand.

They are far more beautiful than their rather macabre legend might suggest – with golden, pink and ochre hues that warmed, cooled and glowed as the day grew long.

Kasbah in the dunes

Pink gold at sunset

Some really were golden yellow

The pink and yellow dunes

The rich colours of sunset

The setting sun over the dunes

The desert here is a multi-coloured affair. Blackened hard sand covers much of the land, contrasting against the golden, pinky dunes and crushed, whitened dirt roads, known as pistes.

The sun-blackened hard sand – reg, contrasts with the soft, golden sahel sand

The white sand road through the black sand desert

Walking in the dunes was easier than expected, with the top sand crust hard and impacted, except where the ubiquitous 4x4s and quad bikes had been. There are moves to ban both from the dunes because of the damage they cause. It is claimed that Saharan dust levels have increased more than 1000% since the 1950s and much of that has been attributed to the breakup of the sand crust from vehicles. Camels don’t damage the surface in the same way and look and sound a lot better too!

Finally in the dunes

Standing in the Sahara desert – tick!

Where’s a camel when you need one?

Almost directly in front of our tent was a tempting and deceptively easy looking climb.

It didn’t look too bad from here

We couldn’t have been more wrong! One step forward, 9/10ths step back, while sinking up to our ankles on a never-ending ridge was lung-poppingly hard.

It doesn’t look that high, does it?

It still wasn’t too bad from here

It was starting to get hard from here

Nearly there

Nearly, nearly there

Now, he’s made it!

I had to stop because it was too hard on my injured knee. Geoff carried on and, despite a low point when he was overtaken by a small, but surprisingly speedy beetle, finally made it to the top!