Our next route was taking us from Tan Tan (the end of first route) across the Western Sahara to a town called Alsa which Chris Scotts whose book we've been following on our trips to Morocco describes as a 'prosperous' town, as prosperous as it can get in here, obviously. We were naturally curious to see the town.
A little fellow we spotted on the way.
Anything odd in this picture?
It may not be easy to notice but we are driving in a river bed!
Still in the river bed. There may be no water in it but there sure was lots of it in there last year. Now there is only mud, hmm, dry mud left.
A quick lunch stop as we could see lightenings and hear thunders soon after we set up for eating. It was, however, long enough to dry my washing! The wind help a lot.
Approaching a deserted town
Thunders and lightenings were replaced with rain. And rivers started to fill up with water as it was coming from all directions. I felt quite uncomfortable with that as there were no bridges across any of the oueds on our way although some tracks were recognised as roads and regularly used by locals.
Back on a sealed road.
What's that supposed to mean? As there was a track parallel to the new road, we figured we were supposed to be on the track, not the road.
And on a track again searching for a spot to camp
And we found one in a oued. We could still hear some thunders far away at the time but didn't really expect any more rain. Neither did we expect the swarms of bugs that got attracted by our lights after the sunset! Flying, jumping, all sorts. And lots and lots of them. Too many to peacefully sit outside and enjoy a very hot evening. We all escaped to the tent. Unfortunately, the bugs weren't the only unbearable feature of the area. The heat made it impossible for us to sleep. The girls were only in their nappies while Beany was wearing just his undies and that was not enough to cool them down. Marcel was trying to make himself comfortable by sleeping on the floor of the tent as even lying on his mattress was too much for him.
The cold shower after the hot night was just a must! It was enough to keep me cool until we packed up and hit the road. Then the air conditioning did a great job of keeping the car cool.
Nomad tents
A little village on the way. Regular households here...
...and government buildings here. 
Entrance to Alsa. The town didn't really live up to the expectations created by Chris Scotts' description of the town so we rather quickly decided to carry on to another town Tata from where we were going to head for the dunes, Ergg Chebbi.
On the way to Tata
Date palms - full of fruit at this time of the year
9 - 10 August 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment