Dwti Draig

Oh Western Sahara, where do I even start? We had a full day and another night in our safety conscious guardian park up near the beach in Foum el Oued, so we went out the next morning to have a walk along the beach. What a pleasant surprise we had! The beach was spotless and empty.

We were able to walk its length on the soft golden sand, watching the waves and having a little paddle. We went up onto the prom at the far end of the beach, where Lyn had found two little cafes on Google Maps. The first was a very locals type place, where we sat outside and had a drink before walking along to the next one, which was a bit trendier, with umbrellas and colourful chairs, so we sat and had a mocktail. It would have been rude not to! 

There are security guards placed regularly along the sea front. They were all very friendly, and said hello, although most seem to speak Spanish and not French. We had a lovely chilled day, and went back for another stroll at sunset to see the sunset into the ocean again. We have certainly been spoilt with nightly orange views!

I could have stayed quite happily, but we needed to go back into Laayone again the next day to drive out onto the only road south. As we left the park up we could see loads of workers all working hard to brush the sand off the road, whilst many other workers tended to the bits of grass. It seems like a lot of effort goes into maintaining this place, which is probably why we liked it so much. It felt chilled, safe and clean. Even as we drove out of Foum there was a digger moving the sand from the sand dunes that had blown onto the road. 

As a result of us liking it here so much we made the decision to carry on south, against our initial judgement that we would turn around here. We decided to continue onto Dakhla, 300 miles further down, so this meant we would need to brave inner Laayoune again to visit the big Marjane there. Yep, it was as bad as we feared, and we were yet again redirected and ended up driving around trying to find our way, although one nice lorry did pull over so we could follow him after Lyn had to do a three point turn to avoid going down a “no lorries road”!

The big Marjane was in a shopping mall! The first one we’d seen, but we were here for the food only. And, omg, the food! By far the best and biggest supermarket we have been in, where not only did I have a choice of cakes, but a choice of mushrooms! I have only been able to buy mushrooms once here so far, now I had a choice! Spoilt girl! Being mindful of my diet I carefully chose one tiny nut tart from the selection where you were supposed to buy things by the kilo, so the lovely assistant took pity on me and just handed it to me free, so I could eat it there! We stocked up on food, as we would not see another supermarket for a week or so, then backtracked out of the city to follow the expressway south. It was going to be a big journey. I even managed to buy some camel meat for Lyn, although this was not a big success!

We stopped for the first night in a town called Boujdour, where there is only one campsite, about 300m from the beach. We went for an evening stroll to watch the sunset, and was amazed by the prom, or “corniche” as they call it. It was vast, really wide, with beautiful tiles. It was a pleasure to walk along its length, as all the locals gathered to watch the sunset too. It was definitely not a touristy place, and we gathered quite a few looks. Two locals stopped us to talk. They asked where we were from, and like so often only understood in relation to football teams “Liverpool? Manchester United? Gareth Bale??” One was very interested to know Lyn’s religion, and was surprised to hear the answer of “no religion”, but we were not keen to debate this when he started telling us how Allah is good, so said our goodbyes amicably and walked on. Interestingly I had no part in the conversation, only Lyn. It seems to be a lot stricter here in the Muslim dress for women, with more full face hijabs etc. I was obviously modestly dressed.

Lyn was intrigued by many dots on the horizon, and couldn’t work out what they were. We then saw two starting to launch and realised they were like rubber inner tubes, with fishermen sat in them fishing! A limited conversation with a passerby told us they fish from them with hand lines and not rods. It looks crazy; they wade out in their clothes and get so far out from land with no apparent health and safety! We wondered how many get lost at sea. 

We left Boujdour promptly the next morning, as this was going to be our longest drive yet. We had 200 miles to get down to Dakhla, and had decided to add on another 70  or so to visit the Tropic of Cancer sign. As we left the road chanfged from dual carriageway to single track. We stopped off just off the road for an hour to have lunch and for Lyn to have a break before pushing on. The road gradually got worse, and as we passed the junction for Dakhla we hit two road diversions which were bone-rattling. We were beginning to question our sanity, but finally got there and had some photos taken with the sign, so it was all worthwhile. Wasn’t it??

Back through the diversions again we went, then turned at the junction to Dakhla where we had our passports checked again. This time we parked in front of the spike straps they can employ if someone unwisely chooses not to stop!

Dakhla is famous for its windsurfing, as it is situated on a peninsula, 40kms long that juts out into the Atlantic, with pounding surf one side and a sheltered lagoon the other, ideal for watersports. There is no official campsite on there, so we opted for a free park up at the start of the lagoon, which we had read many mixed reviews about. We found that as the reviews said, it has been partially colonised by long term French travellers, who have carefully marked out and defended their pitches with water bottles. We slunk off to the opposite side, with the more transient travellers, and met up again with Cookes Wild Ride, who are travelling to South Africa in their little overlander. We had met them in the camp site at El Ouatia; overlanding makes it a small world!

We parked up, and went for a walk on the beach, followed by the pack of local friendly dogs, but it was very silty and boggy, so we went to the kitesurfing hotel next door for drinks. We were landed when we saw the upstairs sea terrace with a glass balcony overlooking the sea, and extra long bean bags, and made ourselves comfy, before being told we had to pay the equivalent of £12 each to sit there. We promptly moved to the sofa, and tried to watch the sunset, whilst two would-be Instagram goddesses posed over and over again in front of us and the sunset to get the perfect shot!

It is more touristy and Westernised here, with a DJ playing British music and alcohol sold. I can also wear shorts and a vest top, so I’m happy! 

We had a quiet night in the park up, and a lazy morning the next morning as Lyn was knackered from his long drive. We drove out of the park up to explore the peninsula. We drove about 20 minutes over to the sea facing side, and parked up near the sea front. The whole area is one major building site; there is obviously massive investment happening in the area. We walked to a little restaurant overlooking the waves and had two mocktails, watching the ocean and people surfing. It was mesmerising watching the long breakers roll in.

We walked along the beach, and I was pleased to see several solo women enjoying the sun, dressed in bikinis. Again, this area is obviously geared up towards westerners and tourism. I was keen to get on the beach and read my Kindle, as this is one of the few beaches I have visited where I felt it was OK to strip down to swimwear and enjoy. We spent a heavenly hour there, then continued our journey down the peninsula. 

Again, it was noticeable how this whole area is being developed. It looks like they are building a massive promenade or walkway down the length of the Atlantic side. We drove right to the tip of the peninsula where we came across a lone kite surfing school, and a fishing village. The smell of fish as we drove along was overpowering. Research shows that 27% of Dakhla’s GDP comes from fishing, and this was evident by the hundreds of fishing shacks, tractors and boats. As we turned towards the town we passed many large refrigeration factories. 

We ended up driving through the town, which was surprisingly big. Like so much of Morocco the experience was hairy, fraught, but ultimately good-natured. Lyn was keen to get to a “secret hatch” he had been told about by Martin of @Cookeswildride. Lyn had been told that, shhh, he could get alcohol there! We parked up and he set off to find it, returning with 2 expensive cans of Moroccan beer, this will go nicely with the cold bottle of white wine donated to him from Martin and Sharon, as they had to drink or offload their stash before entering Mauritania. 

Dakhla has fascinated me, especially with the level of investment evident. It has an airport,  and colleges, some trendy hotels and restaurants and a thriving watersports scene, without talking about the beautiful scenery. The whole area is ripe for development and could make a fantastic destination in the future when the infrastructure is improved. It definitely needs a good campsite! There is massive investment in the nearby Dakhla Atlantic Port which is being built with an estimated US$1.2-1.7 billion, to turn Dakhla into a trade/logistics hub linking Europe, West Africa and the Atlantic. It has also got numerous projects aimed at solar, wind, green hydrogen/ammonia taking advantage of abundant sun, wind and space. A UAE/Moroccan venture is aiming to invest $25 billion in green ammonia/hydrogen around Dakhla. It will be a fascinating place to return to in the future and see the changes.

We opted to spend another night in Dakhla as we had spent so long getting here, and had another chilled day, going back to our favourite beach and chilling, until some idiot decided to wheel spin his motorbike up the narrow beach inches from us! As we left the beach another 10 German Overlander big rigs pulled up for an overnight stop on their way to Mauritania. We are back in the free park up now for our final night before starting the long journey back up north. I am so glad we made the decision to drive down, and will have lovely memories of being able to enjoy the sun on a beautiful sandy beach, listening to the waves.