11 – 14 March 2014 ~ ‘This is not really Morocco, you know?’ I’m surprised to hear the man sitting at my restaurant table say it; it could get him in a lot of trouble if the omnipresent Moroccan police hear it.

After a short stop we continue our journey, and for the first time I get to see the landscape we’re driving through. It’s literally awesome. Western Sahara is probably the most appropriately named territory in the world; it’s simply the Western end of the desert. Beyond it, the desert abruptly stops and the ocean begins. It’s a wild coastline, with cliffs and small secluded beaches, sometimes with a shipwreck slowly being broken down by the elements. It stretches on for more than a thousand kilometers, and apart from three small cities, a few tiny settlements and the odd fisherman’s shack, it’s completely deserted.