Do the Hustle

Caught up on missed sleep last night and hit the road. Asked Peter about my propsed route and he advised against as it was very difficult. Map says it is a normal road but the local info says it is a quarry with boulders and manholes. That is the trouble with some of the maps here, they can be hopelessly out of date or full of wishful thinking. Nigel bought a map locally which has half the roads missing and the border with Algeria is not even marked on it. I decided to head for some very large sand dunes about 200 miles away at Erg Chebbi. More beautiful roads than you can shake a stick at. Blah Blah

Met my first roadside hustler today. I had heard about them but wasn't too sure whether I would bump into one. It goes like this, someone pretends to have a problem and flags you down, asks for a lift to the next town and then invites you in for a cuppa and then starts the hard sell on a carpet. I being my good samaritan self told him he could have a lift if he could get a helmet. No helmet no ride. He looked confused as nobody here wears helmets anyhow. Trouble was there was loads of traffic so the ruse was not believeable on that road. A mile later, someone else tried it again but this time I didn't even slow down. Anything to make a buck here. Later I stopped for a tea and one of the many 'false guides'/hustlers tried again. When I got up to go, he tried the old one 'that I was rude' to go so quickly. This road is peculiar for this level of hassle. I have not seen anything as bad as this elsewhere.

More desert roads and a balmy 22C. I had my washing strapped to the pillion seat and it was drying nicely. Only a little hint of burnt hydrocarbon on them this evening, a nice manly smell. On the roads you can see some strange sights. Guys on a 25cc scooter with a sheep between his legs, small trucks with a herd of sheep on the roof, a camel in the back of a landrover (head sticking out the top). I saw this little lot coming towards me at a ford. No sign of any safety regulations on the road here.

Took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of Rissani. No tourists here, just me in the middle of the heaving dusty souk on a large loud bike and attracting a lot of attention. All very intense. There are no roadsigns, streetnames and hardly any straight lines. It is very easy to get lost. Luckily, the GPS allowed me to backtrack. If this had happened 10 days ago, I think I would have flipped.

As I got close to Erg Chebbi, I spotted a kasbah on a hill and a sign saying that it was a hotel so turned onto the piste and checked in. Lovely place with mud and straw walls with an incredible panoramic view of the town nearby and the dunes. These dunes are huge, and are what most people think the Sahara looks like. These ones are about 28km long by 7k at their widest. Will set the clock early to get the dawn from the roof....maybe!