Western Sahara

The Western Sahara used to be the Spanish Sahara  ut they abandoned their colony in 1975. Morocco and Mauritania both claimed it but King Hassan II organised the Green March and 350,000 Moroccans marched south to calm land, jobs and to reinforce the country's claim to the area. It is a tax free area and still attracts a lot of Moroccans searching for work, land and a new beginning. The government is investing heavily in infrastructure, road building, bridges, government offices, army posts and the like so their is plenty of work.

We saw our first feral camels in the desert.

The landscape is unrelenting rolling desert, hot, dry, dusty with little to break the monotony. But anything that is different is noteworthy such as this sink hole near the cliffs where the sea has broken through the base. The view of the breach.

She of the fencing with people to give an idea of scale.

The clid=ffs are being continually undercut and this lip of rock is next door to the breach.

Further along the coast are salt works with pools of brine evaporating in the sun and the salt crystals are scrapped up into heaps.

The stony desert changed to a sandy desert and we saw our first sand dunes.

The area has a constant onshore wind for most of the year and so is ideal for wind turbines of which there were rows and rows stretching out across the desert to provide power for the new towns.

We had a truck lunch on the beach and an opportunity to go for  swim. The sea was surprisingly warm and a delight to cool off in and get clean at the sametime.

There are several wrecks along the coast such as this one. There used t be so many shipwrecks that Guilemime is said to have made its wealth by ransoming shipwrecked mariners washed up on its shores.

We found a good spot for a bush camp behind one of the few hills near the road. The only issue was that the surface of the sand supported a persons e=weight but the h=tr=uck sank into the sand and if we had stopped we would have been marooned so we continued over the hard crust until we got to firmer ground.

A good old favourite although it has seen the best of its days and is now rusting away at the back of a garage.

We reached the tropic of cancer and whilst I posted for a photo, unbeknown to me there were goinf=gs ons behind me.

                                      

But at least i got a better shot a little later.

Our bush camp for the next evening was behind a giant sand dune. It is had to get a perspective of the height but it was big, over two hundred metres high.

A view at the top of the dune and note the wind that was picking up san=d particles and it stung any exposed skin.

The view from the top looking back at the truck q=which is the little black smudge in the centre of the photo.

And I had to pose for a few shots at the top of another dune.