Day 6 - El Ouatia, Morocco

Thursday, 22 October 2009 - El Ouatia, Morocco (25km outside Tan Tan) - Day 6

Distance: 656km | Time: 11.5 hours |Roads: Good

Onward to the Desert

The desert is a two-faced enchantress. She is, at once, alluring and threatening, stunning and intolerable. Barren and desolate, she reveils all to the naked eye. Her openness is deceptive, though, and, if not vigilant, she will swallow you up.

Today begins our voyage through the Sahara or, more specifically, the Sahara Occidental. Many think of the desert as dull, uninteresting, uneventful, and, if given the chance, would opt to never visit it. Discovery channel, in contrast, tells you other things at variance with such preconceptions. The desert, it says, is teeming with life and excitement. From our first day in the desert, I would strike a middle ground and encourage all who will listen that it is an experience that should be had, if not only once. For instance, few things in life rival the desert sunset, especially when its set against an oceanic backdrop, that is, the Atlantic ocean paralleling our road the entire way to Mauritania.The sand dunes are equally mesmerizing, even breathtaking. In terms of wildlife, I will have to admit that I was a bit disappointed. Outside of a few camel spottings there was nil.

Our entry into the desert meant the end of civilization, but it also marked the end of speed traps, which was a grateful relief. In their stead, though was placed another, more obnoxious time constraint: checkpoints. Here you hand the official your passport and wait 10-15 minutes while he scrutinises you and your car, and then copies your passport information into a log. Sometimes they're two kilometers apart, other times they're hundreds of kilometers. There was guaranteed to be one before and after every village, town, and city. Fortunately for us, Kim had done her research. To expediate our travel through the phalanx of checkpoints, we had printed off photocopies of our passport with all of our information neatly provided.

Despite our foresight, the recurrent stopping put us behind schedule. We had sworn off driving at night for safety reasons (primarily poor roads and bandits), and were now racing the sunset to get to our day's endpoint, Tan Tan.

Tan Tan

Oh, the aura of Tan Tan. We had our eyes set upon this gem for awhile now for various reasons. To begin, the name is just fun to say, like Timbuktu. More importantly, gas was reported to be half-price. In reality, it was a self-constructed aura, which I credit to dear Nico. Don't get me wrong, the name is fun to say and gas was indeed much cheaper than what we had been paying in northern Maroc. It was the nature of the place that threw us off.

Throughout the entire length of our trip, Nico refused to throw anything out. "We can sell it in Tan Tan," he constantly reassured us. According to his source, there was nothing to the place except for two gas stations and a few huts. From the picture Nico painted, the town's inhabitants were avid scavengers, hungry for anything and everything they could get their hands on. For this reason, Nico took it upon himself to become our team pack-rat. "No! don't throw that out. We can sell it in Tan Tan," was a constant refrain in the days leading up to the place. Everything was salvaged and saved, from an empty toolkit box and dysfunctional umbrella to cardboard toilet paper rolls, used toothbrushes, and spare trash bags. Anything was fair game.

Imagine our surprise when we are greeted by a sea of lights. We role up to the usual checkpoint, where an extremely friendly, and pro-American, guard greets us. "You're from California?! Oh man!" he joyfully exclaims, referring to John's place of birth. We talk about Cali and the US for the next ten minutes while our information is recorded. Right before leaving he cheerfully informs us, "You know, we have a Hotel Texas here. Perfect place for you to stay." Ha! Yes, we will take that into consideration. First order of business, though, was food. We sat down to a rather expensive dinner of Moroccan pizza and shawarma, where Nico sheepishly downplayed his role in building up our misconception. Afterwards we hit up the internet which we had gone without for the past two days.

Psychologist Appointment

There were only four computers open so I volunteered to wait in line. While hanging out near the door the man overseeing the business, probably in his late 20s-early 30s, strikes up a conversation. "My wife and I are getting a divorce" is how he opens it up. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," I respond, slightly taken aback and a bit confused. He went on to explain that he had spent his life savings marrying an American woman who lived in Oregon. Right when he was about to move out there, she began to act shady and was very domineering. "She wants to cut off my balls," he tells me metaphorically with disgust. "I'm not like that. I need my balls." He was an extremely good-natured person and spoke very good English. I empathized with him and tried to give him advice to the best of my ability. After playing psychologist for 30 minutes, I finally got on the computer and skyped my baby and girlfriend - appreciating them more after listening to the NAME's hardships. He and I exchanged contact info on the way out, and our team (reluctantly) took to the road again to find a nice spot in the bush to sleep.

We drove about 25 minutes to a small beach town called El Ouatia. We briefly scoured the beachline looking for a spot to camp, but there seemed to be some shady happenings whenever we came upon a place that looked suitable for sleeping. So back to the main road we went, reaching the intersection of our morrow's travels. There we had a small altercation, which is inevitable when you are together with the same people for days on it. Nothing serious. Kim, Nico, and Jimmy wanted to sleep in an auberge (a small, enclosed campsite) while John and I were content saving our money and camping outside the place. So we wished them a goodnight and pitched our tent in a truckstop neighboring their "safe" compound.

Smuggling Goods

Nico walks into a small office at the gas station. Behind the desk sits the kingpin - a rotund man, in his late 40s, with a salt-and-pepper beard and stern countenance.

Kingpin: "So, I'm told you have some beer?"
Nico: "Yes. That's right."
Kingpin: "How much do you have?"
Nico: "Four beers. They're from Spain."
Kingpin: "Four beers??"
Nico: "Yes."
Awkward silence follows as the kingpin, confused, takes time to reassess his subject.
Kingpin: "I thought you had bootleg alcohol. Please, keep your four beers. Come back when you have ten cases."
Nico: "Ughhh...okay."
Perplexed, Nico takes his cue, turns and begins to walk out the door...
Kingpin: "Oh, and bring me a fishing rod when you come next time. Thank you."

The fire died down around midnight, at which time we thought it a good idea to hit the hay. This was not to be carried out before the Moroccan police had graced us with their presence of course.