Turning for home

This hotel is stuffed with UN staff. The parking lot is full of their vehicles. As I was leaving breakfast this morning, I said hello to a guy sitting on his own and he turned out to be an Irish Army Officer on secondment to the UN. Seems like a 6 month posting is the norm and this one to Laayoune is pretty good compared to some of the sub-saharan ones like Chad. And compared to one of the postings out in the desert next to the Berm seperating the combatants, the town of Laayoune is pretty cosmopolitan. Michael suggested I call in on another Irish Officer stationed in Smara about 120 miles away near the frontier so off I went. Nothing like a mission....and I got lost leaving and spent 40 minutes wandering the grubbier end of town through the markets on a beemer at walking pace. The locals seemed to enjoy it though.


5 requests to show my passport later and repeated questions about my occupation, I arrived in Smara and rode into this UN camp and went looking for this other Irish chap. It is bizarre to see how far you will go to meet a compatriot. When you are in the boonies, you make an effort. Cian made me a coffee and and he explained that this posting to Smara is better than the other postings on the Mauritanean side of the border or one of those even further out in the desert where the temperature reached 47C for 3 weeks running in the summer. It shows a positive nature when you can see these small differences as benefits..... I cant show any pictures cos the military are very twichy about photos of their toys....sorry.


What I can show you is pictures of the desert and one slightly sadder looking bike:-( Spot the missing light.
I am discovering just quite how big a place The Sahara is. I spend the whole day pooting along at 80mph and seemed to go such a little distance on the map. I think I saw about 15 cars the whole day. Some people have an image of it as just sand dunes but that isnt the case.




You see amazing colours, beiges, reds, ochres, browns, green, black and amazingly quite a bit of water.....and the occasional nice bike. There are mountains, hills, plains and salt flats. I think it looks its best in the early morning or later afternoon when the sun is not so strong. Today is the first day I started to ride north again and I can actually see clearly.

Just heard from Nigel in Marrakech and he is on the mend so hope to meet up with him next week. Seems the did an op on him and he was 2 days from "pegging it" to use his words. Lucky guy to catch it in time and close to some people who could help.